La Fabrique 00/01/10/11

   

A project by fabric | ch
in partnership with Canal+

with the support of Bit Management

In 1999, fabric | ch created La Fabrique, a digital gallery built for "the 2nd World" of Canal+ (Le 2ème Monde in French), a predecessor of 2nd Life, but in a digital and realistic copy of Paris. We designed La Fabrique to question this very banal and functional approach of 3d MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games/environments). During three years, it hosted several exhibitions, which speculative topics were relevant in our work around the end of 20th century:

A restrospective exhibit is organized at Siggraph 2010 in Los Angeles by one of the digital artists who took part to the first release of La Fabrique: Steve Guynup. Web3D technology has evolved since 1999 and plug-ins used at that time are not available anymore. So, for this event, a video of the 3d space and screenshots of the works have been released to give a hint to current visitors.

Watch the video

Watch the video

Browse the screenshots

Browsethescreenshots

 

Texts about 00/01/10/11

   

These texts were written between 1999 and 2001 by fabric | ch to present La Fabrique to the artists and to describe the exhibitions program to the users of the 2nd World.

La Fabrique is an electronic gallery / file system built for the binary years. It proposes to explore the digital territories through a series of online exhibitions and to experiment new kind of interactions with space, with artworks, with distant visitors, in 3d.

Theoretical context of La Fabrique

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Recombinant reality
 
 
Structure of La Fabrique
 
 
Process
 
 

fabric | ch, 1999 (edited in 2001)

 

00

   

Digital Prosthesis, 1999

 

Access to La Fabrique 00

[Web3D plug-in for Windows]

For the first exhibition in La Fabrique, seven artists used to work with web3D or VRML technologies are invited: Andy Best, Cristiano Bianchi, Maurice Clifford, Steve Guynup, Patrick Keller & Christian Babski, Jacques Perconte, Victoria Vesna & Craig Brown.

The topic proposed to the participants by fabric | ch is Digital Prosthesis.

 

Digital Prosthesis

Browse the screenshots of 00

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01

   

Recombinant Interiors, 2000

 

Access to La Fabrique 01

[Web3D plug-in for Windows]

Recombinant Interiors is the topic of the second exhibition set up in La Fabrique. Works are made by architecture students and professors of Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ -CAAD): Bence Szerdahelyi & Oliver Schwartz, Natalie Strohmaier, Lucas Elmiger & Maike Schneider, Sigrun Gudjonsdottir, Ben Hendriksen, Jan Gloeckner & Nick Thanasis, Dimitri Kaden, Adrienne Fonys & Giovanni Mammone.

The students are directed by Prof. Maia Engeli, Prof. Andrew Vande Moere and assistant Fabio Gramazio, so as Patrick Keller and Christian Babski (fabric | ch).

 

Recombinant interiors

Browse the screenshots of 01

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10

   

Algorithmic Manipulations, 2001

 

Access to La Fabrique 10

[Web3D plug-in for Windows]

After architecture students, La Fabrique is opened to media & interaction design students at University of Arts and Design in Lausanne (ECAL): Emilie Renault, Stéphane Perroud, Jérôme Rigaud, Franz Hoffmann, Thomas Eberwein, Laurent Emmenegger. The topic is linked to the digitalization of the sign: Algorithmic Manipulations.

The students are directed by Prof. Patrick Keller, Prof. Christophe Guignard and Prof. Angelo Benedetto

 

Algorithmic manipulations

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11

   

Diffused Energies, unreleased

 

The fourth and last exhibition in La Fabrique should have featured contemporary artists, writers and architects such as Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Berdaguer & Péjus, Maurice Dantec or Lab[au], but it was not completed.

Different causes led to this unreleased version of La Fabrique. Most important, Canal+ decided to reduce its online team and to close the 2nd World in 2001 for budget reasons, mainly because of the explosion of the dot-com bubble.

La Fabrique remains therefore an unfinished project, keeping a potential. But we do not exclude to release La Fabrique 11 to complete the series in an indeterminate future.