For a month, three chimes will ring in the test benches (roughly, it's a cycle of three exposures / performances that lasts a month). The carillonneur is Le Chimist, a percussion exegete, he fills the test tubes, seeking their agreement before hitting them (it's going to be led by a kind of fictitious commissioner / critic who will activate the pieces). He seeks to extract a score from the mixture, it ends up establishing the death knell of their evaporation (it plays with the limit between analyzing and killing the subject).

The arrival of the benches marks the end of the era of chimes. But the beatings will reveal that, behind their cries, the agitator also tinkled. Here comes the time without a tribune, that of lost benches, testtubers and buttocks with adjoined foundations: the time of the seat in judgment.

Artist statement

French artist Paul Jacques Yves Guilbert creates elaborate multimedia video essays that combine academic sources with autobiographical anecdotes and scientific jargon with popular culture to create ironic and playful narratives. His video work  Chimes Era #1.2: the Seat in Judgment (Assessment following the sacrifices of CE #1.1: the Benching) shows the construction of a theatre backdrop and a grandstand, accompanied by songs and a chime. Test tubes used in chemistry refer with a wink to the elitist language of art and science. The use of many digital special effects and several screens creates a playful and chaotic narrative that disorients and confuses the audience.

Text: Boris Magrini

Links: https://vimeo.com/462156294, https://youtu.be/jH2QBpJVN4s, https://youtu.be/SWmg913mcN8, https://youtu.be/QMXgmwECQfU

Influenced by: L'ASSISE DU THEATRE. Pour une étude du spectateur by Marie-Madeleine Mervant-Roux. CNRS (1998). De proctologica melancholicum by Pier Mertzier. Editions de L’Irréel (2007). MickeyMutt was inspired by Pierre Mercier in 2016.
XOsquelette – Prototype, Propuzzle & Prospect. (Clôture digestive du 06/06/2013) & Metatarsus Varus – “t” for two were produced by Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains.
Chimes Era #1.1  was shot in May/June 2016 in La Chaufferie at la HEAR Strasbourg.
Thanks to: Francisco Ruiz de Infante for the invitation, Yiumsiri Vantanapindu, Clément Debras, Aliette Salama & Léo Hoffsaes and La Chaufferie’s team for the help, Cave for the dancing bodies. Special thanks to Antoine Lejolivet.
Chimes Era #1.2 was shot in March 2020 in Brussels.
Thanks to: All the Narrations team, Christine Boisserie and Yann Guilbert for their help.
Special thanks to Valentine Siboni for the invitation.
With support from: Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains; HEAR – Haute École des Arts du Rhin; FWB – Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles; LaVallée

Paul Jacques Yves Guilbert (FR) lives and works in Brussels. He studied at HEAR (FR), Le Fresnoy (FR) and was part of the Digital Art Conservation program with ZKM (DE). PJYG develops intermediate authors from autobiographical anecdotes, elaborating their strategies of existence through essays. These “Autoessays” are fictional authorizations to write his own discourse. These “Superfictional Autoessays” through spatiotemporal collages, intersecting transmedia corpora, glued with a digital imaging tube. These “Hypermediatic Superfictional Autoessays” are ASHs for a skeptical statement.