Fred Forest

Fred Forest (born July 6 1933) is a French new media artist making use of text, photography, video, installation, the internet and other objects from media networks.

Beginnings

After being a painter and sketcher for the French newspapers Combat and Les Echos, he devoted his career to researching new modes of artistic creation using the possibilities of modern media technology. A Video Art in the sixties, he was the first artist to create in France what were then called "interactive environments ".

He continued to innovate by conceiving of several types of "press experiences" that had both symbolic and critical intentions. Some such events were his "white space" experiments in the Le Monde newspaper in 1972 and his "artistic square-meter" operation [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/20_en.htm#text] .

Developments

In 1973 he created several large-scale actions for the Bienal de São Paulo for which he won the Communication prize and for which he was arrested by the Military Régime of the time [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/08_en.htm#text] . Recurrent features in his artistic practice of the time, he used the telephone, video, radio, television, computers, light, robotics, and similar forms of media networks [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/36_en.htm#text] .

Co-founder of the Sociological art collective in 1974, he graduated with a Ph.D in Literature at the Sorbonne University in 1984 with his research on Communication aesthetics.

With Mario Costa, Professor of Aesthetics at Palerno University, and Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the Marshall McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto, he created an International Research Group into Communication aesthetics, with participants such as Roy Ascott, David Rokeby and Norman White.

He teaches Video at the National Art School of Cergy and was appointed as permanent Professor of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis with whom he hosts a seminar on Communication aesthetics in conjunction with the Modern Art and Contemporary Art Museum of Nice.

He represented France at the Venice Biennale and at Documenta. He created several experimental TV and radio programs in Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil and France. In 1991, the opposition parties to the Communist government of Bulgaria supported Fred Forest as a candidate for the Direction of Bulgarian National Television [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/43_en.htm#text] . He ran on a platform based on utopian and interactive ideals, and had to flee the country before the campaign was over.

Other notable actions include "The Electronic Bible" [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/42_en.htm#text] , the "Watchtowers of Peace" [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/46_en.htm#text] along the ex-Yougoslavian border and a multi-platform online action called "From Locarno to Casablanca, Love reviewed and corrected".

Meanings

These pieces are symbolic creations "works of art " of our time relying heavily on their own media exposure that tend to demonstrate that art today is not simply a matter of museums, markets and powerbrokers. Fred Forest speaks to the principle of communication as well as communication codes, the way they can be diverted, as well as the ideological, symbolic and aesthetic values of communication.

For him, the role of the artist is to bring out in a sensible way how the present practice of communication and the networks attached to it interact with our perception, imagination, and representation systems as a whole. He also thinks the artist must conquer a new kind of space, cyberspace via computer art.

Quotes

"Art today needs to be reinvented ; new forms of Art must break through, instead of repeating obsolete models of the past."

"I see the artist as the "Initiator," the one who has always been there, yesterday and today. He tries to make sense of the world, asks the important questions, and introduces a spiritual dimension to a life that would otherwise be a "shadow theater" that, today, takes the form of a laboratory populated with ... electronic gadgets."

Bibliography

* Forest, Fred : "Pour un art actuel. L’art à l’heure d’Internet", éd. l’Harmattan, Paris, 1998
* Forest, Fred : "Fonctionnements et dysfonctionnements de l’art contemporain : un procès pour l’exemple", éd. l’Harmattan, 2000
* Forest, Fred : "Repenser l'art et son enseignement" à l'Harmattan
* Forest, Fred : "De l'art vidéo au Net Art", éd. l'Harmattan, 2004 (ouvrage qui retrace les principales œuvres et actions de Fred Forest de 1967 à 2003)
* Forest, Fred : "l'Œuvre-système invisible", éd. l'Harmattan, 2006

External links

* [http://www.webnetmuseum.org Web Net Museum] : An online museum started by Fred Forest, a sort of action-museum incorporating exhibitions and research.
* [http://www.fredforest.org A list of Fred Forest's online actions.]
* [http://www.webnetmuseum.org/html/en/expo-retr-fredforest/actions/01_en.htm A list of Fred Forest's artistic actions.]
* [http://www.fredforest.com/ushuaia Latest Fred Forest action atop a lighthouse in Tierra del Fuego.]
* [http://www.slought.org/files/downloads/exhibitions/SF_2007%5BFredForest%5D.pdf Integral Slideshow from Fred Forest's retrospective at The Slought Foundation of Philadelphia]
* [http://slought.org/content/11348/ Art And Society: The Work of Fred Forest at the Slought Foundation of Philadelphia]