A Post-Wild World — romaincarre

A Post-Wild World

2022

Exhibition
Cur. Félicien Grand d’Esnon & Alexis Loisel-Montambaux

Paris, France

In the theory of evolution, whoever loses the race for adaptation and optimisation risks disappearing. On Monte San Giorgio, researchers have identified fossils bearing witness to the marine life of the Triassic, 245 to 230 million years ago: Ceresiosaurus, Neusticosaurus, Saurichthys… On this site, since listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, nature is regaining ground and the conifers are reclaiming their rights. Drawn by this semblance of primary forest, mountain bikers tread the humus. Long geological time rubs shoulders with the short time of adrenaline. Now fern green meets fluorescent green, dew meets sweat, limestone meets the GoPro. But little by little, the stratification of centuries turns the organic into the mineral. A new fossil emerges, embedded in the rock: the NFC microchip, which records and measures sporting performance data. The biometric trace of the human joins the geological traces of vanished species.

Among the pixels of the botanical garden, a place of selection and domestication, the laboratory mouse makes its way. It looks for food, grooms itself, sniffs its surroundings. Against a green background, there is no predator. Here, unknowingly, it is the guinea pig of an augmented reality experiment. The bird of paradise in the greenhouse, like the mouse in the laboratory, was born under surveillance in a substitute environment. Their species have been uprooted, identified, studied, made useful to human needs. Out of its cage, will the white mouse adapt among the acclimatised succulents and imported bamboo? Does it recognise the scent of pine around it? Let us not look for their natural habitat, nor point out the artifice. Welcome to a post-wild world.

Romain Carré (b. 1997, France) explores the idea of objectivity in the age of metaverses and climate change. His scientific training led him to question the Western idea of nature and the environment. Often referring to the idea of Phusis, the first concept of Greek metaphysics, his projects encompass, without hierarchy, worlds, life, physics, realities… His practice is a plastic-digital ecosystem: video or NFT projects are accompanied by physical pieces that dialogue with them through near-field communication (NFC).

CRO is a curatorial duo composed of
Félicien Grand d’Esnon & Alexis Loisel-Montambaux.