(residence)

PROJECT

(residence)

Our digital age and the imagery it develops is a constant inspiration in Steven Michel’s artistic practice and research. Rather than looking at the Internet as an alienating and isolating medium, he is interested in the symbolic, poetic and collective consciousness it creates.

In his upcoming research, Steven wants to organize a two-week long laboratory, with a constellation of artists coming from different disciplines. He wants to open up a space for lectures, experiments, improvisations and online searches around the theme of digital anthropology. The quest is to apprehend the Internet age as a potential myth for the future. To collectively develop archetypes for our contemporary world and to find correlatives and recurrent motives from ancient myths and ideologies. To imagine archaeologists in the future finding relics and archives from our contemporary world, trying to decipher their origin, their meaning, their function. To create rituals, alternative traditions and collective imagery.

What are the actual traces we leave out of a virtual experience? What future excavations are we preparing, and what do we want the future to inherit from us?

Steven Michel

After graduating from P.A.R.T.S. in 2010, Steven Michel has been working as a performer with choreographers, play and film directors such as David Zambrano, Falk Richter, Lukas Dhont, Daniel Linehan and Maud Le Pladec a.o. Over the last seven years he has become a long- time collaborator of Jan Martens.

Parallel to his career as a performer, he also develops his own work. In 2014, he began a research based on the theme of 'audio-vision', the relation between sound and image in popular culture and performing arts. This research led to the creation of his solo 'They Might Be Giants' (2016). Steven is currently working on his upcoming performance, 'Affordable Solution for Better Living', in collaboration with the visual artist Théo Mercier. Their work will premiere in May 2018 in Annecy (FR).