collectif_fact’s practice is rooted mainly in video and photography and address urban life and movie language via data extraction and digital sampling.
The collectif_fact comprised Annelore Schneider and Claude Piguet. They live and work between London and Geneva. Their projects, mainly video based, are often a deconstruction of what we see as cinematic codes within our visual culture. Their videos frequently use the spectator’s ability to construct stories from ruptured narrative fragments. Collectif_fact weaves together a complex mesh of references: fragments of dialogues, citations and music extracts and play with our desire to be gripped and even deceived by images and stories.
Their films have been shown internationally in art festivals and exhibitions, including Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris, Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva, Lianzhou Foto Festival, Metropolis Art Center, Beijing, Fotomuseum Winterthur. They received numerous awards such as the Swiss Art Award and recently Grand Prix Culturel Migors and residency Art + Technology Space Studios, London.
No Wall is Ever Silent
HD Video / 12:20 min / 2017-18
The building, a former bank, holds the leading role, whilst voices of professionals with a unique perspective on the space encourage us to observe hidden details. A police inspector, a geobiologist (ghostbuster), a game designer and a specialist in modern architecture help us discover something only perceived by someone willing to break in. Through their eyes, we explore how built environment can be misused, as if every building was a spatial puzzle waiting to be solved.
Studying urban architecture the way a burglar, or anyone with a unique perspective on the space would see it, encourage us to observe what surround us and to dissect the built environment. This video make you look at architecture as nothing more than an obstacle that can be outwitted and undercut. It reflects on how urban landscape is configured and how it conditioned our behaviours. What does it mean to search for an alternative way to move through space or to search for what is usually hidden or invisible.
No Picture, No Glory or the Triumph of Apophenia
HD Video / 06:50 min / 2016
The National Gallery visitors in London are photographed smartphone in hands as they are exploring the gallery. Their gestures underlay the ones found on the paintings. Postures, attitudes, bodies are juxtaposed and choreographed in this brisk sequence of photographs and details of paintings captured on the spot. Viewers and the object of their gaze merged.
The video editing was deliberately assisted by images analysis and indexing software. So, the people and paintings being filmed find themselves caught up in a scenario devised by a technology that is endlessly selecting, interpreting, framing and retouching everything for us.