For the Bourse de Commerce, he has restaged his performance Annlee: young actresses play Annlee in the space, stimulating interactions with the audience. What are you presenting within Echo2, Philippe Parreno’s piece in the Rotunda?

Philippe and Pierre Huyghe did this piece called Ann Lee with a manga character who is in various videos. I in some way resuscitated Ann Lee and made a live version of her. A real girl who talks and wants to live, who wants to be “embodied”. And there’s the whole issue of the sun, which Philippe Parreno dealt with so well. Clearly the sun is the most beautiful thing at the Bourse de Commerce. So, there is a video, because Philippe Parreno creates stages. He made a video and then another video. The heliostats move, and there we have a live stage with a dancer who sings and who is also in the sunlight. 

Why do you prefer the term “situation” to “performance”?

A situation is something you share. A performance is more “I’m active and you’re passive”.  I’ve never been too interested in that. Having studied dance and worked a little in theatre, I always found that to be a bit rigid. In a society like ours, in which people are active as citizens, as consumers, in which they produce content on social media, we aren’t just people who receive; we also produce.

There is this word in English, “prosumer”, which combines “producer” and “consumer”. I don’t know if that exists in French. My work seeks to integrate that notion. In the beginning, when I was young, when I was working in the visual arts, people were searching for a term for my work. They would always invoke these terms from the 1960s. So, I said, if that’s the case, if we have to root out terms from the 1960s, let me use the Situationist term “constructed situation”, which is funny because what they said was interesting in some ways, but in reality, they didn’t construct many situations. It was very French. People talked, drank, but they stayed at the café. I thought to myself: “They didn’t really construct many situations, so I will”! 
 

Who are the young women singing and dancing in the Rotunda?

These are people who have been working for me for about ten years who are very familiar with my work. Philippe Parreno gave me his instructions with his hand in the sun. I said, OK, I’m going to ask the right people who know how to take on this kind of space. We understood one another. It went very quickly. Lots of people can do lots of things, but that takes a lot of rehearsing if they don’t know, if they don’t know the work. There is always a DNA to the work of a choreographer, of a director, and understanding it takes time. Then, once it’s been well absorbed... for example, Margarita began working with me in Venice ten years ago, when she was just 15 years old. Artistically speaking, we understand each other very easily, because she grew up with my work. 

Does your situation mingle with Philippe Parreno’s installation?

I believe that Philippe Parreno is trying to imbue all this technology with a kind of living element. I’m doing a bit the opposite. You could say that I’m sort of showing the “technologicity” of our abilities, even if that’s not a word.  It’s something that has always interested me. Western industrial societies have always been obsessed with technological capacity. I have instead always thought that the most complex technology on this planet is human beings. I really like the term “technologies of self”, from the French thinker Michel Foucault.

Because technology isn’t just objects and machines; it’s us too. And we have complex technologies that are still hard for machines to achieve.

Who is Ann Lee?

Who is Ann Lee? It’s a bit of a game, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a mystery. But if you come here to the Bourse, she explains who she is to some extent. In Philippe Parreno’s videos, she explains who she is, and then, in my live piece, she explains even more. 

What inspires you in the work of Félix González Torres?

We should first of all say that Felix Gonzalez-Torres died very young. Nevertheless, he really did mark to some extent, perhaps even change the course of art history. I believe that what González Torres was able to do were situations, and that’s what’s strong. Situations don’t necessarily depend on a human body. That’s part of the construction of a situation. I believe that the situation that Felix was able to build was above all with the “stacks” or the “candies”. The idea of telling oneself, “Yes, it’s beautiful, but I’m drawn to it too. I want to take it. Am I supposed to take it? It’s a museum...”
The notion of museum rules, moral rules, ethical rules. “What’s going on? If I take this, what will be it like for the others”?  That was a situation he constructed that was very important for me. 

Why don’t you want your situations to be documented?

My work involves doing things live. That’s what I show as a work. And I’m not producing other things, such as documentations, because there is always the danger that it becomes a kind of work in the field of the visual arts. What is important to me is that the piece be conceived for the visitor who is there. It depends a little on my piece. There are differences. But the version is for you. If you see it on a screen, it’s a version for someone else. That’s not very interesting to me. My entire approach to my work is about not producing. I come out of the environmentalist movement of the 1980s. I’m trying to make a work that produces nothing. So, no documentation.

In which real-life situation would you not like to find yourself?

I am a situation snob, ultimately! There are plenty of situations where the energies are a little weird. There aren’t any specific situations, but when I see a situation where the energies aren’t good, I head in the other direction. 

In what state of mind do you expect visitors to watch your situation? 

I want people to come as they are. It’s up to me to deal with that successfully. If I wanted to dictate their conduct, I would go to the theatre. Because that is pretty prescribed: you have to sit down, be quiet. It also has its advantages. Sometimes it’s easier, but I am interested in working in a freer space. It’s true that a screen projects well, but it’s a bit flat; it’s missing some measure of energy. My work is something you have to experience truly in the moment. It’s better to be really in the middle of it.