France Choinière, Du détournement du dispositif ou de la photographie comme peau mutilée – Paul Breton

[Fall 1993]

This article was originally published only in French. No translation is available.


Summary
In her approach, France Choinière uses the photographic image as a means to purloin or to appropriate, as something intermediate linked to the conditions or the tendencies of the interpretation. From one series to the next, the works encourage the viewer to see but only indirectly what is represented in order to draw his attention to the manifestation of the presentation (by which his relationship to the image is determined). The surfaces of the pieces (treated like a stretched, lax or mutilated skin) themselves constitute a revelation of the presentation. Through the post-processing manipulations of the images, each series has as its aim to “corrupt” the photographic device by respectively interposing the cinematographic, the pictorial or the textual, or even by superposing-as in the last series-the two “visions” of photography: the eye of the camera and the eye of the viewer. The work of France Choinière counts then upon a “deviation” from the physical presentation to call the perceptual space into question-not only that of the image, but that of the photograph itself.