Edouard
Cabay

The research of Edouard Cabay links digital culture with drawing and manufacturing processes, questioning the relationship between the human body and the machine in today’s novel technological context. His work cultivates high precision, yet integrates notions of “accidents” to lead his production towards unexpected plasticities. His work unfolds both as automated live performance and kinetic installations, by machines and people, and their emerging series of drawings, maps and paintings. He has since 2016 directed Machinic Protocols, a research project in which automation and creative production are intertwined as means of creation: this work initiates autonomous mechanical processes that produce drawings, structures, unpredictable landscapes, responsive systems, etc… He explores the thin space that lies between the deterministic ideal of theoretical models and unpredictable nature of their performance in the physical world, as a confrontation between the two seemingly opposing forces of control and chance. This method gives rise to creative results that contain a great deal of unpredictability. His exploration aims to dissect and reinvent the link between idea and gesture, deploying it in collaborative processes that may involve people, but also machines, robots, algorithms and forces of nature.