Romain Tardy is a visual artist, and focuses his work primarily in digital arts. Born on September 23, 1984, in Paris, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts before working for various animation and post-production studios in Paris. He also worked as a VJ at numerous events in France and across Europe, which led him to further examine the complex connections between sound and image. With this experience, Tardy, along with three other artists, created the European visual label Antivj in 2008, which formed the base of his research and work on projected light and its influence on perception. He remained one of the label’s main artists until late 2013. His installations, which often use the technique of videomapping, are conceived as tangible experiences in situ and use light as a way to enhance existing architecture or original structures. By examining our relationship to reality as we are confronted by computer imagery and the social changes that it triggers, as well as the way that digital technology is situated in public space, Tardy’s installations seek to evoke these current issues through a poetic approach. His work has been exhibited in more than 15 countries, including France, Sweden, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, UK, Czech Republic, Belgium, China, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, USA (New York), Cuba...
Presentation: A little less pictures, a little more space: expanded animation and the poetics of scale
“As far as I can remember, I feel that I really started to create pictures when I stopped using flat canvas only, may it be a screen or a sheet of paper.
Of course, in addition to the fictional space inherent to any image, there is an actual, physical space within the screen or the sheet of paper. However, the distance between the surface and the body of the viewer always appeared to me as an impassable ocean — even if these two elements are only distant from a few meters.
I started to notice that for some odd reason, adding physical distance between the spectator and the artwork could increase their proximity. The picture comes from the physical experience of being there. These pictures are not only visible through the eyes, but through the whole body. What’s outside the frame matters as much as what’s inside the frame. The frame, as well as the technical device, disappear.”
The installations of Romain Tardy, which often use the technique of videomapping, are conceived as tangible experiences in situ and use light as a way to enhance existing architecture or original structures. By examining our relationship to reality as we are confronted by computer imagery and the social changes that it triggers, as well as the way that digital technology is situated in public space,Tardy’s installations seek to evoke these current issues through a poetic approach.
