Opening Reception: Friday, November 22 at 6:30 PM
Exhibition: November 23, 2024 - April 6, 2025
Location: Galerie du Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre, Nice
The Galerie du Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre in Nice presents Numera // Natura, a thought-provoking exhibition by artist Benoît Barbagli Vautier that explores the boundaries between humanity, nature, and the digital realm. Featuring a series of photographic and interactive installations, the exhibition examines the tension between the raw sensory experiences of humans in nature and their reinterpretation through digital technologies. The opening reception, scheduled for Friday, November 22 at 6:30 PM, will mark the beginning of this immersive journey where the real and the virtual collide.
Benoît Barbagli Vautier’s work invites the public into a collective and sensory experience. By organizing gatherings in nature, the artist encourages participants to shed societal conventions and technological filters. These experiences, marked by nudity and a return to the natural element, are framed around the idea that photography and video serve as mere tools for a deeper return to human perception, creating an emerging aesthetic shaped by an ethics of sensitivity.
Once captured, these moments are reinterpreted through digital means. Using artificial intelligence, embodied by the meta-artist Grand B-NOÏD, the images are transformed, analyzed, and sometimes even redefined, raising questions about what remains human within the digital image. AI attempts to understand, imitate, and sometimes replace the sensitive dimension of the human experience, prompting a reflection on the implications of virtualizing reality.
The exhibition’s scenography has been designed by Aimée Fleury, a long-time collaborator of the artist. Her installations immerse viewers in an environment where photographic, sculptural, and interactive works converge into a unique, immersive experience. The aim is to create spaces where the artwork resonates intimately with the viewer, allowing for an active participation in the creation of the work, much like a collective journey.
Numera // Natura encourages reflection on the profound transformation of our relationship to the world and to images as digital immersion becomes increasingly pervasive. The exhibition questions the blurring of boundaries between the tangible and the immaterial, highlighting a world where the sensory and the human remain our anchor in the face of an ever-growing digital reality.
The work is intrinsically collective. Each participant is not merely a model but a co-creator of the artwork itself, contributing their own dimension to the project. This process of collective creation and encounter among the different psyches of the participants is integral to the artistic project.
Through Numera // Natura, Benoît Barbagli Vautier invites the viewer to a profound reflection on the nature of the image and reality, questioning what in art should remain human. The exploration of these concepts is carried out in a peaceful setting, far from ego and vanity, allowing art to emerge in its simplest and most essential form.
The exhibition will be open to the public from November 23, 2024, to April 6, 2025, at the Galerie du Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre, located at Place Pierre Gautier in Nice. Admission is free, except on Mondays. Don't miss this unique opportunity to explore the depths of nature and digital realities through the eyes of Benoît Barbagli Vautier.benoit-barbagli.com
