非常感谢

Yacine Ait Kaci

&

duendepr

Appreciation towards

Yacine Ait Kaci

&

duendepr

for providing the following description :

Elyx，是Yacine Ait Kaci的一个小小笔记本。他带着它四处游荡，遇见一些场景就即兴灵感创作，画出一个与周围环境互动得很high的小人，然后Yacine Ait Kaci再把它们都拍下来。这个作品算得上是童心满满，并超越文化和语言的障碍，让世人皆可会心一笑。

这本与现实互动的小册子，不是数字化和社交化的，同时十分简单，与某种“繁荣”形成对比。其中，每一页都住着的那位调皮小人，也只需要寥寥几笔就可以完成，而这种简练才能随时随地与现实环境互动，创造出很high并且很尽兴的不造作局面。这样的场景是真实与虚拟间一个幽默截面，是如今大数据时代一个充满诗情画意的片段。可心，也带有恰当的批判性。

3月末，4月初，巴黎有相关活动，感兴趣的小伙伴们参看下方英文。

And a pioneering phenomenon as concepts blending the real and virtual on social networks are mushrooming (most recent Tumblr Laissez parler les petits papiers (Let the post-its speak for themselves) that uses post-its to create word play with the logos of brands that govern our everyday environment or this illustrator from New York who substitutes the heads of his fellow train passengers daily with drawings of super heroes). In contrast to these projects, Elyx is a recurring character with fans who follow his activities on a daily basis, creating empathy and natural appropriation.

Elyx is the descendant of Ixel, the first character illustrated by YAK in 1994 that made his presence known in a magazine 20 years ago. ”

I created Ixel for XL Le magazine owned by the Amaury group distributed at that time throughout France. The concept was there, he appeared in the margins of the magazine, interacted with the layout and photos chipping in poetically and humorously. In the same period I regularly intervened at General Assemblies, especially those in UNESCO Clubs intervening live through numerous drawings, it is a blend of improvisation, representation and humour.”

Elyx is also an illustrated character that reacts and interacts but in this case with reality in the age of social networks and the digital revolution that has made picture taking and sharing prominent and instant. His author therefore travels around the world and sketches the character on paper in the midst of reality before taking a photo to create a comical situation, a cross-section between real and virtual, shared in almost real time with its community. The simplicity of the means makes the fully digital dimension of the approach no less important, to the contrary.

The project is a continuation of the themes covered with Electronic Shadow (the pioneering digital arts duo founded by Yacine Ait Kaci and Naziha Mestaoui in 2000), who heralded our contemporary hybrid world: “Digital has vanished in reality, the body becomes the interface for augmented reality, the electric shadow. Digital has become reality; ubiquity and immediacy have profoundly altered our perception of the world. Social networks are a visible space in this new reality and Elyx belongs in this environment.” Media in its own right and participatory work that plays with this continually redefined real/virtual border, Elyx is “a poetic and artistic response to ‘big data,’ a presence that can be embodied anywhere in the world to express a situation, a thought and shared directly with its expanding community.

In 2014, new technology is not pure digital creation but in its fusion with reality: biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, genetics and neurosciences. The ultimate aim is always found in reality. When each of us generates data that is “cultivated” by large companies like a farmer cultivates the land, then the poetry and the shift become increasingly vital acts in re-appropriating the world. ”

The first Parisian ELYX PARTY will be launched at ‘1.618 Hors les Murs’ during Sustainable Development Week. Yak invites Parisians to get to grips with Elyx in order to play with him and create their own images. Participants will be able to collect a set of ten or so drawings of Elyx from a partner, the Town Hall in the 3rddistrict, that they can take their time to stage in the city, in step with Sustainable Development Week. Participants can publish the photos of their examples on social networks using the hashtags “elyxyak” and “1618-paris”. The best images will be selected and exhibited during 1.618 Sustainable Luxury (Carreau du Temple); the artists will in addition win invitations to the fair.

On 27th March, YAK will hold a conference at the Apple Store Opéra from 4pm as well as leading a workshop with children from the 3rd district, in the Square du Temple, so as to offer pupils an opportunity to experience Elyx and enable them to create their own images.

In addition to these first public experiences, Elyx continues to develop its community and rolls out its participative project. Cards, notebooks and books, as well as a smartphone application are anticipated throughout the year, as well as a series of participatory events and exhibitions. Elyx also comes to life, such as recently at the 1000m² Seoul Square at the heart of the Korean capital for the last New Year’s Eve celebrations. This summer, YAK and Elyx have been invited to the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (

http://ciid.dk/education/portfolio

) for a collaborative workshop that will lead to writing a non-linear form of narration in the city. The experience will be conducted with his sister, Leïla AIT KACI, a software designer, who has worked with her brother for over 14 years on his digital projects (Electronic Shadow, Camus…) and who works on many projects with the Passion team for innovation for Dassault

Yacine AIT KACI is a pioneer in digital arts in France and a transmedia perpetrator with diverse facets. In turn press illustrator, presenter, producer of interactive content (DVD-ROM the Louvre, YSL…), television producer (Archimède – Arte), exhibition set designer and stage director (last exhibition to date: Camus, citizen of the world), artist, he co-founded and has been a partner of Electronic Shadow since 2000 (with architect and artist Naziha Mestaoui), a well-known pioneer in arts in the digital era and inventor of ‘Video Mapping,’ at the crossroads of space and image, architecture and light (they are responsible for the light veiling the Frac Centre, designed by Jakob and MacFarlane). On this basis, he was the first French artist to receive the prestigious Grand Prix at the Japan Media Art Festival in 2005, amongst other international prizes (Laval Virtual, Ars Electronica). More recently in Paris the duo received the talent award for innovation from the Centre du Luxe et de la création.

Different shows by Electronic Shadow, Double Vision with Carolyn Carlson and Futurinô with Rinôçérose were subject to triumphant international tours, you might also recall Nuit Electro at the Grand Palais, transformed by light and image. The retrospective exhibition Futuréalismes by Electronic Shadow attracted more than 35,000 spectators at the Musée Granet d’Aix-en-Provence. The future has always been one of Yacine AIT KACI’s preferred themes accepting editorship of Nuit 4.0 on this theme for France 4 in 2013.

Through Elyx, Yacine Ait Kaci proposes an accessible synthesis of most of his themes, using social networks as a natural ecosystem and as a form of media. Entering this post-digital era phase, he develops an aesthetic and conceptual world marked by science, poetry and humour, illustration always being the starting point, with image as a fixed, animated or hybrid means and narration as final aim, to explain a changing world and its future.

Systèmes.

You have not heard the last of Elyx…

Elyx

1.618 Hors les Murs Fair

From 1st to 6th April 2014

Town Hall in 3rd district

75003 Paris

Conference Apple Store Opéra

Thursday 27th March 2014 from 4pm to 5pm

12 rue Halévy

75009 Paris