PROCESSUS is an art-science duo created with Jérémie Descamps, urban planner and doctor of geography, whom I met during a residency at MOTOCO (an artistic production space in Mulhouse). Since 2023, we have been exploring together the mental representations of space and territory, and their collective memory, through dedicated research-creation protocols. Notably, through the prism of urban gates, we probe notions of thresholds, passages, and borders, leading us to question ideas of territory, nation, and the subdivision of space by humans.
The idea behind this research is to create a Book of Gates that reflects the multiple social configurations of cities through the device of the gate. Throughout history, the gate has been adorned with aesthetic, symbolic, and geographical attributes that grant it a particular functionality, acting upon the city. Consequently, we have become interested in cities whose histories are closely tied to fortifications and gates, such as Paris, Rome, Chongqing, Kyoto, Berlin, and Mulhouse.
In our protocol, we traverse these places to collect various data, catalog it, and then distill it to arrive at an artistic form that reflects a synthetic vision of the gate's imaginary. This form is made up of an aggregate of several elements, from various mediums, following a grammar that can be deployed both in public spaces and exhibition spaces.
You will find more details about our project on the dedicated page : Impressions d'Espaces