Loris Gréaud

Relational aesthetics gets a lot of flak these days, but the work of Loris Gréaud—who maintains that he creates “objects productive of sociality” within the context of a “relational framework”—will inevitably remind you of its theoretical heyday. His show at Le Plateau kicked off with Electrical Opening, 2005, a three-hour drum set, performed by Man Eater Orchestra, that used technological wizardry to generate just enough electricity to feed a series of transparent lamps-cum-sculptures. But subsequent visits made it clear that while “sociality” and “relation” are integral to Gréaud’s intensely collaborative modes of production, they are not the terms that define our reception. Instead, CFL, 2004, a table-ful of edible plants that augment night vision, and Dream Machines, 2004, three hanging light-boxes that, in homage to artist and inventor Brion Gysin, are meant to provoke interior visions behind closed eyes, stimulate highly individual sense impressions. Throughout the space, high- and low-tech installations tinker with light levels, diffuse the imaginary scent of the planet Mars, and set off air currents and sounds, adding up to a synesthetic environment in which visionary hermeticism meets relational collaboration.