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Myr Muratet, David Cayley - Silent Blocks

Myr Muratet, David Cayley - Silent Blocks

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Silent Blocks met en parallèle deux points de vue sur la gestion de la pandémie du Covid-19 au printemps 2020. Myr Muratet a photographié, à sa façon, un Paris silencieux. À Toronto, à la même période, le journaliste scientifique David Cayley s'interroge sur le sens de cette crise et de sa médiatisation en s'appuyant notamment sur les travaux d'Ivan Illich.

Au printemps 2020, à Toronto, David Cayley, ancien journaliste scientifique pour la radio publique canadienne et écrivain, s'interroge sur la pandémie. En s'appuyant sur sa connaissance des travaux philosophiques de son ami Ivan illich, il se demande si « l'ontologie de systèmes » dans laquelle nous vivons n'aurait-elle pas créé cet état de crise ? Il alerte sur une forme de négation de la mort, laquelle « dissimule tout le reste, à savoir l'expérimentation à grande échelle du contrôle social et de l'obéissance sociale, la légitimation de la téléprésence comme mode de sociabilité et d'enseignement, l'accroissement de la surveillance, la normalisation de la biopolitique et le renforcement des mesures préventives comme fondements de la vie sociale. »

À Paris au printemps de cette même année, avec l'instauration du confinement pour juguler la pandémie du coronavirus, la rue s'est soudainement vidée. Le dispositif sanitaire adossé à un dispositif policier aura permis au pouvoir une montée en régime – sans rencontrer de grande résistance – dans sa politique sécuritaire initiée des années plus tôt avec notamment le plan Vigipirate. Le photographe Myr Muratet a documenté, à sa façon, la ville silencieuse.

Le travail photographique de Myr Muratet implique la ville – celle où il vit –, mené depuis ses crans, multipliant les allers et retours dans des lieux occupés et au gré des rencontres avec les personnes photographiées, des années durant. Ainsi réalise-t-il Paris-Nord, une série de photographies sur un groupe polyconsomateurs et occupants de la gare du Nord, ses alentours et les dispositifs mis en place pour les contraindre ; Wasteland, une recherche autour des notions d'occupation, d'invasion, d'enclosure menée dans les friches urbaines de Seine-Saint- Denis ; ou CityWalk, sur quelques conséquences de l'avancée du Grand-Paris. Déjà paru : Flore des friches urbaines, op. cit., éd. Xavier Barral, 2017 ; La Sécurité des personnes et des biens, avec le poète Manuel Joseph, éd. P.O.L, 2010.

David Cayley est un écrivain et producteur de radio canadien basé à Toronto. Au cours de sa carrière, il a documenté la philosophie d'éminents penseurs du XXe siècle : Ivan Illich, Northrop Frye, George Grant et René Girard. Pendant plus de trente ans (1981-2012), il a réalisé des documentaires radiophoniques pour l'émission Ideas sur CBC, la radio publique canadienne.

Texte de David Cayley
Conception graphique : Marie Pellaton
Publié par Nouveau Palais, Rennes.
Paru en avril 2021
Édition bilingue (français / anglais)
16,5 x 27 cm (relié)
96 pages (ill. coul.)
ISBN : 978-2-9572072-1-3
EAN : 9782957207213

***

Silent Blocks considers two point of views on the Covid-19 pandemic and the way it is dealt by Western countries during the lockdowns of spring 2020. First, Myr Muratet's photographs in a silent Paris. Then, the thoughts of Canadian science journalist David Cayley, based on the work of philosopher Ivan Illich.

During the spring of 2020, in Toronto, David Cayley questions the Covid-19 pandemic and the way it is dealt with by Western countries. Based on the work of philosopher Ivan Illich, he asks if “the ontology of systems” we live in could have been the cause of this time of crisis. He warns against a certain denial of death, which “hides the other things that are going on – the mass experiment in social control and social compliance, the legitimation of telepresence as a viable mode of sociability and instruction, the increased surveillance, the normalization of biopolitics, and the reinforcement of risk awareness as a foundation of social life.”

At the same time in Paris, following the introduction of lockdown measures to control the coronavirus pandemic, the streets suddenly emptied. Sanitary measures, enforced by the police system have allowed the revving up – met with little resistance – of its security policy, which was introduced a few years prior with the Vigipirate plan (national antiterrorism security alert) among other things. The photographer Myr Muralet documented the silent city in his own way.

Myr Muratet is a Paris-based photographer. His work involves cities, both those he lives in and those he visits, and he carries it out from within their very sinews. The comings and goings in the places that he observes multiply according to his encounters with the people he photographs. This work has been under way for several years and has no determinate duration; in this way, he has created Paris-Nord, a series of photographs begun in 2003, about the people who use the Gare du Nord and about the mechanisms put in place to coerce and contain them. The series that he has already begun overlap one other and together constitute a kind of addendum to the topology of the forms and mechanisms that are adopted by the agents of the processes, processors and other procedures that are involved. Without interrupting these series, Myr Muratet has shown more recently in Wasteland, CityWalk, Calais, the results of hugely destructive policies and the work of “sanitation professionals” under the boot of the petty bosses of the “administration of containment.” In this work in progress, he investigates the notions of occupation and invasion in the abandoned urban areas of Seine-Saint-Denis. One might say that it is a way to make a fixed photographic representation of a systematic concatenation of methods of counterinsurgency, and then to go beyond it. The intersection of these different series reveals the stakes of domination and abuse exercised by all powers, be they digital, economic, or aesthetic. A paltry gesture perhaps, but nonetheless effective, at least as a lament and clearing of the accounts for these wounded spaces and the people who inhabit them.

David Cayley is a Toronto-based Canadian writer and broadcaster, who is known for documenting philosophy of prominent thinkers of the 20th century—Ivan Illich, Northrop Frye, George Grant and René Girard. During more than thirty years, his work has been broadcast on CBC Radio One's programme Ideas.

Text by David Cayley
Graphic design: Marie Pellaton
Published by Nouveau Palais, Rennes
Published in April 2021
Bilingual edition (English / French)
16,5 x 27 cm (hardcover)
96 pages (color ill.)
ISBN : 978-2-9572072-1-3
EAN : 9782957207213

© Nouveau Palais

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