From the late 1950s, many artists put into practice new approaches to the relationship with the viewer-visitor. From an egocentred posture, which conveyed their feeling in plastic terms, they moved on to propositions of the “allocentred” type, in which the perception of the world was then as it were given to be shared, following a process whereby the “self” and the other blended together, making room for the emergence of the experience per se. So it is important that the Space Brain Laboratory (Station 1) should decode and re-examine these past artistic approaches in the light of contemporary artistic practices.

Above and beyond the visual effects of optical kinetic art, the often three-dimensional works summoned here have generated a new relation to space through their immersive dimension, the introduction of light and movement as raw materials, and also inducing hypnotic or “waking dream” effects (appliances of Nicolas Schöffer, Brion Gysin…). In an apparently more metaphysical mode and following on from Lucio Fontana, James Turrell also undertakes the conquest of the infinite, decreeing perception to be a medium in itself.

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Chromosaturation red and blue, 1965.
Wood, laminate, plexiglas, metal, fluorescent tubes.
Collection Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon © Blaise Adilon

Lucio Fontana, Ambiente spaziale, 1967. 
Black tempera on canvas, aluminium frame with chamfered edges, fluorescent painting, black light bulb.
Collection Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon. © Blaise Adilon

Anthony McCall, Conical Solid, 1974.
Installation. 16 mm film, 10' loop, fog machine. 
Courtesy the artiste © Blaise Adilon

Julio Le Parc, Continuel-lumière cylindre, 1962.
Plywood box, disc ringed with a steel strip, metallic camshaft.
Collection Mac/Val, musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine © Blaise Adilon
 

Julio Le Parc, Continuel-lumière avec formes en contorsion, 1966.
Plywood box, aluminium panels, 2 silver flexible PVC tapes, electric motors, 2 bulbs.
Collection Mac/Val, musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine © Blaise Adilon

Paul Sharits, N:O:T:H:I:N:G, 1968
16 mm film converted to digital, colors, sound. 
Diffusion RE:VOIR, Paris © Blaise Adilon

François Morellet, Boîte à flash, 1964.
Bulbs, metal, plexiglas, electronic flash. 
Courtesy the artist © Blaise Adilon

Ann Veronica Janssens, prototype of colored mist.
View of the container housing the Cabinet en croissance, 1991-2009.
© Blaise Adilon

Ann Veronica Janssens, Cabinet en croissance, 1991-2009.
View inside the container.
© Blaise Adilon