Quasi Objects: My Room is a Fish Bowl, AC/DC Snakes, Happy Ending, Il Tempo del Postino, Opalescent acrylic glass podium, Disklavier Piano.

For Philippe Parreno, the various elements that make up this work are “quasi-objects”. This notion, borrowed from Michel Serres, refers to the role of intersub-jective mediation played by certain objects which, like banknotes or footballs, act as relational tools enabling individuals to situate themselves in relation to one another. “Quasi-objects” are “almost-subjects”. By their interactional nature, they exist beyond themselves, as a situation resulting from their relationship. Each of the “quasi-objects” grouped together by the artist refers to one of his previous projects. On a rectangular opalescent glass podium, inflatable fish filled with helium—already present in 2016 in the exhibition Anywhen— a Disklavier player piano playing Franz Liszt’s Nuages gris, a lamp designed by Arne Jacobsen, and two AC/DC Snakes—assemblies made up of adapters, multi-plugs, and night-lights, the first versions of which date back to 1995—all coexist. The light and sound elements of the installation are synchronized using an algorithm designed by the artist. Only the helium-filled fish, whose nonchalant wandering follows the uncertain rhythm of the air currents and the comings and goings of visitors, seem to escape this automated programme. By reusing these pre-existing forms, Parreno reinterprets the genealogy of his work, and creates a junction at the intersection of his different projects which, through their encounter, hybridize and reinvent themselves.