French artist Cyril Lancelin combining technology and art by mixing fiction and reality. He engages the public in immersive installations, forcing the viewer to question their own relationship toward their built environment. As his own words, his project highlights our “social cloud” that define our daily lives.
1-) You are building big installations in different places, how do you create immersive experience in a space?
I started by creating fictional homes with an emphasis on an immersive spatial experience inside. I wanted to test architectural ideas, without being constrained by the reality of the context. These images of houses were successful on social networks, so clients contacted me and the adventure began. I implemented ideas developed in these architectures in immersive installations.In a space, I imagine a fictitious house free from certain constraints linked to architecture. I transform this idea of a house into a spatial labyrinth, where partitions are replaced by immersive experiences.
2-) What is the importance of geometry when designing a space?
The geometry allows me to control the scale of the work, and therefore indirectly the dimensions that will make the immersive experience interesting. I use parametric drawing tools in 3D software to make multiple variations. I can thus vary the general geometry of the installation, but also the geometry of the modules that make up this installation. For example, on my immersive Pink Pyramid made up of pink balloons, I can vary the size of the pyramid, its openings, but also the size and shape of each balloon, and their arrangement / spacing. I work in several parameters at the same time, and instead of drawing a shape, I describe a shape with parameters. The work remains flexible, and can adapt to its new context.
3-) What are some likes/dislikes between architecture and installation building?
I find the architecture process too slow. I prefer more ephemeral projects like art installations. I work a lot with inflatable materials, I like the idea that the work travels and is confronted with different contexts. In addition, ecologically the work is recycled, it is easily transportable, and can be installed in different contexts: in a park such as Governor Island in New York City for the Pinknic festival, or in a shopping center at MallPlaza in Santiago, in the garden of a public library inCleveland, on a beach in Cancun, in an old factory in Hangzhou, in a financial center in Dubai ... This wealth of different places brings a lot to the work.The work is above all the interaction between the audience and the immersive installation.
4-) What is the philosophy behind designing patterns which are not repetitive?
My visual identity is known by the use of primitive shapes, such as cubes, sphere, cylinders... I use the repetition of the elements, but the spacings, the distribution grids, the models are not repetitive but drawn specifically to achieve a particular effect. I set myself rules that help me build complicated shapes but which can always be described very simply.
5-) How do you manage your creative journey when working ona project
Every day I work on several projects. I always try to save time to come up with new ideas and draw them. It is important for me to test artistic experiences outside the context of a particular and defined project.It's a laboratory of ideas that I will then tap into when a specific project arrives in my orders. Time plays an important role in my works from their conception. You have to be able to do multiple tests to find the right balance.Anticipation and the reservoir of ideas are a big help.
