{"id":121739,"date":"2025-04-29T11:40:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T09:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levoyageanantes.fr\/oeuvres\/carnaval-de-la-famille-durand\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:15:14","slug":"labsurdistan","status":"publish","type":"oeuvre","link":"https:\/\/www.levoyageanantes.fr\/en\/artworks\/labsurdistan\/","title":{"rendered":"L\u2019Absurdistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Invited by LVAN to create an installation alongside her exhibition at the HAB Galerie, Gloria Friedmann presents a piece featuring a set of ten characters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Built in the late 15th century, H\u00f4tel de Ch\u00e2teaubriant remains one of largest private, aristocratic mansions in Nantes. Over the years, it has come to be known as H\u00f4tel de la Papoti\u00e8re, H\u00f4tel Becdeli\u00e8vre, and finally H\u00f4tel de Briord. Rebuilt in the 17th century and significantly remodeled throughout the 20th, the building was ultimately acquired by the City of Nantes in the late 19th century and housed the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts from 1904 to 2017. Since 2020, it has been the HQ of Nantes\u2019 Department of Heritage and Archaeology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invited by LVAN to create an installation alongside her exhibition at the HAB Galerie, Gloria Friedmann presents a piece featuring a set of ten characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These human-sized figures are frozen mid-movement, as if “paused”. They are connected to an oversized figure at their center, entirely made of cables and computer debris. Here, Friedmann expresses her concern for humanity\u2019s future in a world that she describes as an \u201cAbsurdistan\u201d. The artist wishes to remind us that the human species is simply an intermediate creature in Earth\u2019s life cycle, and that it is in itself also \u201cnature\u201d, since it originates from the Earth\u2019s natural processes, and is an integral part of its functioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how she uses the term \u201cbiped\u201d to describe humans, referring to their earthly means of locomotion and capacity to move on two hind limbs \u2013 capacities that, in the collective imagination, set them apart from primates and allowed them to become human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Absurdistan<\/em>, Friedmann denounces the invasiveness of technology, the ideology of the \u201cenhanced\u201d human, and the rapid influence of AI in every aspect of our lives:
\u201cWe, humans of the 25th hour, are constantly being reanimated by a neverending stream of information, images, selfies\u2026 We have become wired captives, subject to a politburo that ignores our human element.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t<\/div><\/section>\n\t

Gloria Friedmann was born in 1950. She lives and works in Aignay-Le-Duc (C\u00f4te-d\u2019Or). She is represented by Galerie Ceysson & B\u00e9n\u00e9ti\u00e8re (Paris, Lyon, Saint-\u00c9tienne).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\t

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