10 Augmented Spaces – In conversation with Marie-Eve Levasseur

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exhibition view “Le corps-glitch”, photo Guy L’Heureux

Marie-Eve, as a media artist, you are constantly exploring the boundaries between the virtual and real world, whether in complex spatial installations or 3D animations. What significance does “space” have in and for your artistic work? Not only as an exhibition space, but also as a working space, a common room and a living space.

A space is often a place that is created on purpose. Whether architectural-functional, geographical-political, theoretical-critical, artistic-immersive-poetic – spaces always make sense for the being that created them. Animals also create spaces. A nest, a cocoon, a shell, a shelter. Shelters and living spaces are often the first spaces we experience in life. This is about basic needs. Only when these needs are satisfied further spaces can be created. Because only then there is room in the mind to imagine a different place. As we grow, we learn how different spaces are constructed and how we can build and shape them ourselves. There are then spaces to live in, spaces to work in, spaces to propose, etc..

I see my studio as such a space in which proposals can be made. There I formulate propositions through material and immaterial contributions, which can be presented in an exhibition space. Exhibition spaces can be all kinds of spaces. In the store next door, in the museum, in my living room or on a screen, with or without an internet connection. All you need is the intention to show something, a proposition as an impulse to think together. And once this space exists, time can be spent there. In my opinion, space and time can sometimes merge. In this sense, I also see the space as a moment in which there is time to think and reflect. To ask questions and speculate together about possible and impossible answers.

When we talk about space in our society, it is often and above all as a commodity: Who has access to space, how many people have to live in how many square meters, who takes space from whom and for what? How much paid work do you have to do to be able to “afford” a space? Since the advent of the internet, people have also been talking about “digital spaces”. You have experimented with this a lot in your artistic work. From your perspective, is the digital a room to escape to?

Good question. Maybe “Escape Room” sounds too negative for me. But maybe it’s right. I see digital spaces as having potential for many things: emancipatory, experimental, critical, etc.. At least in principle and in terms of intention. Somehow, digital spaces are complementary to our physical spaces, an extension, a different way of navigating. But at the same time, these spaces are also based on what we know. We like to reproduce what is familiar to us. Marketing, goods, currency, connections, all in our pocket. All at once. So the danger of space becoming a commodity is just as present in the digital as it is in the physical world. At least as long as we live in a capitalist system. So probably forever. But as Rosi Braidotti says so beautifully: “we are all in this together” and further “capitalism doesn’t break, it bends”. (See: https://amodern.net/article/amoderns-thinking-zoe)

In my artistic work, my reflections on and around the digital explore the borders between body and screen, emotions and information and all the gray areas in between. I also see digital spaces, especially VR (virtual reality), as a potential lever or tool to observe and understand ecological conditions. To develop empathy through immersive experiences. That was the proposal in my work “Le corps-glitch (multitudes)”.


2. from: Le corps-glitch, screenshot Marie-Eve Levasseur

I find it interesting to consider space as an instrument or tool – especially if you don’t just refer to virtual spaces. There is a qualitative difference to the concept of a workshop. What advantages does a virtual exhibition space have over a gallery, for example?

Virtual spaces can expand access to certain content. In particular, content that cannot be realized in a physical environment – due to costs, accessibility of materials, physical characteristics or the size of the physical space available. But such digital spaces also have their limits. If the battery is empty, the device must first be charged. If the graphics card is too old, it needs to be updated or replaced. Therefore the idea of access is not necessarily the same concept for everyone. So we come back to the intention. “Le corps-glitch (multitudes)” was my first VR work. The experimental side of the virtual was more important to me at the beginning than access. I wanted to understand the medium and its possibilities. For me, it was like discovering a new tool that translates into a space that I can create within the limits of my software knowledge and within the limits of the hardware.

What experiences do you have in this space when you use it as a tool to explore something?

The concept of the tool here is perhaps a reflection on the usefulness of VR, how certain affects are evoked by an experience in the virtual. It focuses here in a different way than elsewhere. This is actually a research that I have started and that I want to continue through my artistic practice. This research also unfolds around the presentation of a VR artwork in digital space. The resulting discussions and user testimonials further enrich my reflections.

What is the idea behind “Le corps-glitch (multitudes)”? How did you implement it technically?

Several transformations take place in “Le corps-glitch (multitudes)”. It is a virtual reality experience that brings potential futures and hybrid bodies into focus. This work is my first “world building” of the kind. In virtual reality, we often see the external world as disembodied beings; the physical connection to space with our body is somehow lost. In “Le corps-glitch (multitudes)” you are given a body that is not anthropomorphic and is constantly evolving into parts of the environment around you, in a continuous metamorphosis. You become a hybrid being that combines with plant, animal and technological species, without clear boundaries in a constant metamorphosis. This ambiguous and fluid body is reflected on a surface that follows your movement and is always oriented towards you. It shows you how you remix yourself with the world around you. It thus proposes a processual definition of what a person could be and emphasizes the interactions with our ecosystem.

The idea of a glitch body comes from Legacy Russel’s Glitch Feminism Manifesto. Le corps-glitch is a body that refuses to obey, refuses to take on the forms of the norm. Online, there is a loss of embodiment. But this loss also comes with the benefits of trying out different potential identities, experimenting with different surfaces, colors and shapes. The glitch body is therefore a body that mutates, that changes its form.

For the development and production of the project, I had the opportunity to work during a three-month residency at a wonderful artist-run center in Sherbrooke, Canada. The organization is called “Sporobole”. There I worked with Renaud Gervais, who has a PhD in interaction and can program, which is beyond my skills. I got more than the technical support you would expect. The discussions around my proposal helped to develop it further. We worked with Unity and Blender and used Vive trackers to map the user’s movements and give them a body that follows their gestures. So the piece needs more than just a headset to be fully experienced.


from: Le corps-glitch, screenshot Marie-Eve Levasseur

You also did a digital exhibition once. That was probably during Covid. You created a virtual exhibition space that people could “enter” and view your other works, video installations and so on. There was also a digital live talk with you in this room. One took part with an avatar that one could walk around with during the talk. Did this event have a title? It was the first time I had ever seen anything like it. It is so obvious that I am surprised that such formats are not much more present. Do you count this project – Is it a project? – as a piece of art in itself and part of your list of works? I’m asking because you say that “Le corps-glitch (multitudes)” is your first VR work …

Oh yes, Mozilla Hubs has been super handy during the pandemic! It is web-based VR. This means that it can be experienced with a VR headset or simply used on the screen. It is also a multiplayer and online experience. Several users can meet there as avatars and experience a social situation in virtual space with the help of a microphone – all directly in the browser. However, there is one big issue: Everything has to have a low resolution for it to be visible and experienceable. I put this room together for a solo exhibition at the rosalux art space in Berlin in 2021. The idea was to be able to hold an artist talk there. Such spaces were nothing new during the pandemic – Second Life was already almost 20 years old. The difference, however, is that they are becoming more accessible.

I don’t necessarily see the space I’ve created as a work of art, but rather as a means of making my work accessible even during a pandemic. Maybe that’s why “Le corps-glitch” is my first VR work. Interestingly, the room actually still exists, even more than two years later.


from: Slow, embodied connections (MozillaHubs; art space rosalux, Berlin), screenshot Marie-Eve Levasseur

Thank you very much for this interview, Marie-Eve.

The virtual showroom can be accessed via this link:
← hubs.mozilla.com/FEir773/devenir-cyborg

A detailed discussion of Marie-Eve Levasseur’s work was published as a book under the title: “Du point de vue d'un.e cyborg” (Trottoir Noir Sketchbook No. 6, German/French).
← www.trottoirnoir.de

Catalog “devenir cyborg” (German/French/English):
← www.trottoirnoir.de

All photos: © Marie-Eve Levasseur

A series of talks by Ex_Praline and the editorial Trottoir Noir, 2023
Marcel Raabe in conversation with Marie-Eve Levasseur,
Editors: Yvonne Anders and Marcel Raabe