École Universitaire de Recherche ArTeC, “Évocations antiques”

ArTeC is a University Research School dedicated to research-creation. Based at the campuses of Paris 8 University, Paris Nanterre University and Campus Condorcet, it supports experimental practices that draw on artistic approaches to renew the forms of university research. Its aim is to forge original links between research and higher education (Master’s, PhD), between artistic creation, cognition and digital technologies, between the humanities, engineering, design and the social sciences, and between university campuses, cultural institutions, community activism and private enterprises.

Website: https://eur-artec.fr/en/home/

Course description: 

Coordinators: Fabien Boully and Anne-Violaine Houcke

This workshop was based on a partnership between the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (ENSP), the University of Paris Nanterre and EUR ArTeC. It involved a sharing of expertise between students from several courses: the International Master’s in Cinema and Contemporary Worlds (IMACS – International Master in Cinema Studies) and the Master’s in Cinema, History of Forms and Theory of Images (CHFTI), two master’s programmes at the University of Paris Nanterre focused on theoretical research; the master’s programme at EUR ArTeC specialising in artistic experimentation; and the master’s programme at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie (ENSP) in Arles. 

The workshop was built upon an observation: that an ancient marble statue might appear as the matrix of contemporary women is not surprising, as the discovery of Roman copies of Greek originals has shaped modern representations of femininity and masculinity (see G.L. Mosse and his essay L’Image de l’homme. The Modern Invention of Masculinity, 1997). Film representations were in turn built upon these foundations, with the Hollywood star system often explicitly pursuing the analogy between screen goddesses and their mythical and sculptural ancestors (see M. Williams and his essay Film Stardom and the Ancient Past, Idols, artefacts and epics, 2017). It is no coincidence that this medium, an art of technical reproducibility and the mass-media circulation of representations, is linked to the circulation of gender stereotypes. Moreover, representations of Venus, and particularly of the Venus of Arles, haunt images, even in the most contemporary context (such as the red room in Twin Peaks, season 3 [2017]).

From the perspective of a research-creation workshop, walking “In the Footsteps of Venus” meant undertaking a project articulating fieldwork (wandering, investigating, recording), creative considerations (approach-protocol, method-implementation), and scientific questions (the circulation of representations, between repetitions, imitations, stereotypes, routines, and well-trodden paths on the one hand, and detours, off-piste exploration, and secret passages on the other).