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Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March
Digital Acts #7 meetings:
Thursday 12 March – 2 p.m.
Friday 13 March – 9:30 a.m. & 2 p.m.
Meeting at Les Volcans – 5:30 p.m. > 6:45 p.m.
Free access
The Digital Acts #7, a series of public professional meetings in the field of hybrid and digital arts, is structured around presentations by curators, artists, and researchers, interspersed with roundtable discussions focusing on the challenges of digital technology in artistic creation.
The Focus video programs are “carte blanche” projects given to curators, directors of international festivals, or partner broadcasters of VIDEOFORMES. They can focus on an artist, the output of a particular country, or a label.
This year, Hyper Wave and FemLink-Art are featured.
2 p.m.: General presentation of the Digital Acts #7
Introduction: Élise ASPORD
2:05 p.m.: Presentation by Margot GUILLEMOT (Hyper Wave), Commissioner #1
2:15 p.m.: Screening of the Focus #1 by Hyper Wave
2:55 p.m.: Presentation of the artiste #1, Isabelle DEHAY
3:05 p.m.: Roundtable discussion "Poetics of the signal / Memories in motion"
Moderation: Élise ASPORD
With Margot GUILLEMOT (Hyper Wave) and Isabelle DEHAY
Human fragility, the fleeting nature of memories, the evolution of technology… video artists, from all eras and places, have constantly explored the space-time continuum of the moving image. From the act of capturing to its reproduction, the artist-alchemist plays with a hidden “reality” that gradually recomposes and reinterprets itself within each viewer’s mind.
As associate curator of VIDEOFORMES 2026, the Taiwanese art platform Hyper Wave multiplies the possibilities for creation and artistic innovation, fostering encounters between contemporary art, local identity, and international networks. These field artists situate their work within a dialogue with their environment, imbued as much with cutting-edge technological advancements as with introspective and experimental artistic practice.
Choreography of movement, creation of algorithms… these are also central to the work of multimedia artist Isabelle Dehay, who veils and unveils “mental images” in all their phantasmagorical dimensions. The installation Pixel Painting #Luge thus confronts selective, dreamlike human memories with the memories of our artificial artifacts.
From Hyper Wave’s techno-hybridizations to Isabelle Dehay’s Pixselfies portrait series, the idea is clearly not to spend time marveling at the technology, but rather to enjoy the artwork. From working with frequency (wave), with the video signal… to the effects of speed and slow motion… from pixelation to images processed by AI… how do digital creations influence our own representations and vice versa? Or how do the human and the virtual transform into poetic material?
9 a.m.: Welcome coffee
9:25 a.m.: Introduction by Élise ASPORD
9:30 a.m.: Presentation by Pierre SCHEFLER (ARCAN President), Commissioner #2
9:50 a.m.: Presentation of the artiste #2, Julie STEPHEN CHHENG
10 a.m.: Roundtable discussion "From the idea to the product"
Moderation: Élise ASPORD
With Pierre SCHEFLER (ARCAN President), Julie STEPHEN CHHENG, David-Olivier LARTIGAUD (ESAD Saint-Etienne) and Nicolas ROSETTE (TNG - CDN Lyon)
In digital art, creation unfolds through a constant dialogue between artistic intentions, technical realities, and production conditions. Tools, software, interfaces, as well as constraints of time, budget, and collaboration, profoundly influence the form the artwork takes. Similarly, methodological choices, production frameworks, support, and knowledge transfer play a crucial role in the transition from intuition to realisation.
In this lengthy process, and given the often numerous obstacles, it is essential to think in a rhizomatic, interconnected way. Exchanges between artists, developers, producers, distributors, and educators contribute to the very definition of the project. To discuss these topics, we have invited an exhibiting artist, Julie Stephen Chheng (Chapelle de l'Ancien Hôpital Général), an organisation—that is also an associate curator of VIDEOFORMES 2026— DNA Grenoble (Pierre Schefler), and two regional stakeholders: Nicolas Rosette (expert-lead of the Le Vivier support program) and David-Olivier Lartigaud (ESAD Saint Etienne).
What do we mean by artistic creation? What spaces are dedicated to research and prototyping? What are the different ecosystems conducive to production and dissemination? These are some of the complex questions that our guests and the intergenerational audience will be invited to discuss.
2 p.m.: Introduction by Élise ASPORD
2:05 p.m.: Présentation by Véronique SAPIN (FemLink-Art), Commissioner #3
2:15 p.m.: Screening of the Focus #2 by FemLink-Art
3 p.m.: Presentation of the artists #3, Christa SOMMERER & Laurent MIGNONNEAU
3:10 p.m.: Roundtable discussion "From VIDEOFORMES to VIDEOFEMMES, a battleground"
Moderation : Élise ASPORD
With Véronique SAPIN (FemLink-Art), Christa SOMMERER and Laurent MIGNONNEAU
“Every individual counts. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference” (Jane Goodall).
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the international sisterly collective FemLink-Art (Véronique Sapin, C. M. Judge, and others) presents its manifesto-like work: PROTEST. The ultra-condensed format of some twenty video compositions in a forty-minute program sets the tone. Punchlines, protest uppercuts… coming from voices rendered invisible and precarious, this exquisite corpse—one and all at once—explodes the processes of domination and power.
To have one’s heart, body, and mind in revolt is also to want to change the paradigm. And what if the celebration of wandering, of idleness in the collective and interactive work Flâneur by Sommerer and Mignonneau, were just as revolutionary as taking to the streets? Echoing the book Pour résister au capitalisme : faisons la sieste by author Frédérique Vianlatte, the duo invites us to a genuine, small-scale revolution in our daily lives.
Refusing to resign ourselves (and opening the floodgates of creativity to all), doing nothing (and thus challenging the norms of our productivist societies that reek of "efficiency, measurability, and optimisation"), means questioning our personal and collective choices and the impact of our actions on the world. This fight for freedom of expression, for emancipatory creation; this call to collective action (inaction, non-action) punctuates the history of humanity, a commitment that remains ever-present… “ENDLESS,” as filmmaker José Val del Omar signed his films.
