—-
‘The French artist Gilbert Peyre (born 1947) is impossible to classify: artist, inventor, D.I.Y. genius, mechanic or in the words of Ben Vautier a ‘Realist Tinquely’. But Gilbert Peyre really has nothing in common with any artistic movement at all. Since the beginning of the 1980’s he has enjoyed himself by endowing sculptures / objects with the ability to move which he shows in the window of his Montmartre studio before exhibiting them, for example, in the provinces, Paris (Centre Georges Pompidou, Halle Saint Pierre) and Berlin.
‘In his own sculptur Opéras as well as in his plastic art installations Gilbert Peyre makes alive his wishing, tender, fragile, affecting machines and denounces with a humour tinted with surrealism the ridiculous agitation of our society which does not stop taking itself seriously. Successively Plastic Artist, Stage Director, Visionary, this unclassable artist is mixing with grace the technology, the drama, poetry, the absurdity, and with nothing, says all to us.
‘Peyre is perhaps best known outside of France due to the prominent appearance of his mechanical devices in the films Delicatessan, City of Lost Children, Alien: Resurrection, Amelie, and Micmacs by the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. French art critic Gilbert Lascault says: “The cosmos of Gilbert Peyre is at the same time a museum of Arts and Métiers, an engine room, a funfair, a music hall, an opera, a spectacle of conjurer or magician, a phantasmagoria, a ceremony, a liturgy, a cavalcade, a procession, a zoo, a circus, an orgy, a mechanical comedy, a comical apocalypse”.’ — Le Petit Festival du Theatre
______
Interview
________
L’exposition Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Marc Caro/Gilbert Peyre
à la Halle Saint Pierre (2019)
____
Further
Gilbert Peyre Site
Gilbert Peyre @ Facebook
Gilbert Peyre @ youtube
Book: Gilbert Peyre, Fun de chantier’
____________
Gilbert Peyre’s studio
___________
from Cupidon, Propriétaire de l’immeuble situé sur l’Enfer et le Paradis (2009)
‘Visual artist and self-taught director, Gilbert Peyre is an inventor of automata. He sets objects in motion and for so long he has only worked from mechanical and pneumatic systems, he now calls on computer sophistication and surrounds himself with very specialized engineers.
‘But what dominates in this new proposition is the mechanical strangeness. Lights, colors, voices, sounds, music, tones, movements, appearances … everything is astonishing, everything is enigmatic. Peyre leaves everything in suspense. He does not give us the keys to his kingdom, he lets us watch him for an hour … and then, hop, the protagonists go backstage …
‘We sit in front of this sculpture which never ceases to come alive. We enter the book of a cruel and sarcastic, libidinal and sentimental tale, enchanting and distressing, funny and moving.’ — Armelle Héliot, Le Figaro
The Making of “Cupidon” sculpturOpéra de Gilbert Peyre
____________
Selected works
‘La peur au ventre’ (2018)
‘Le Piano’ (2011)
‘Mangemange’ (2008)
‘Haltérophile’ (1987 – 1990)
‘Ballerines’ (2009)
‘Aquarium’ (1990)
‘le distributeur d’idées’ (2009)
‘Rap Danse’ (1998)
‘J’ai Froid’ (1998)
‘Rampeur’, détail de “Cupidon” (2009)
‘Poète ! Vos Papiers’ (2011)
‘Champagne et bruits de vaisselle’ (2001)
‘Hond’ (1988)
—-
*
p.s. Hey. ** Adem Berbic, Hi. No, I don’t. I really like ‘Disquiet Drive’, but apples and oranges always. I would need to google translate those great sentences to read them, which I fear would defeat the purpose. I wish French had the bursting at the seams quality of English. ** Carsten, Quite a generic title, but I guess that can be a plus. I think the powers that be allowing a bit of formal play within a generally popular particular genre is not nearly enough. I agree that the success of ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ holds promise, certainly in that their progenitors are so young and arriving out of ‘nowhere’, but they are not by any stretch of the imagination radical works. They also both had budgets in the millions. Congrats on the poem publication. Finding a press that can be a reliable home for your work is the best. I was really lucky with Grove Press for a long time and ongoingly with my great and so far loyal French publisher Editions POL. ** DonW, Hi, Don. Oh, you’re so lucky seeing Pavement. Even if they did ‘Starway to Heaven’, ugh in theory. I’ll go find your Spotify and enjoy the pain of what I missed. I don’t think they’re coming over here. ‘Closer’ has been republished, yes. They’re doing ‘Frisk’ next. You sound like you’re doing ace, bud. ** Bill, Oh, god, that humidity. You really are so tough. Malayalam, huh, I’ll see who/what that is. New album! Holy crap! I’m so extremely there when this place is out of my hair. Everyone, *trumpets* the great Bill Hsu has just released/uploaded his new track/single/EP/album! It’s called ‘Flue’, and go listen to and get it, for goodness sake. Wow! Stay dry. ** Dominik, Hi!!! It was actually really pleasant here yesterday. Hard to believe. Amazing. You can peek at length, yes. I understand that Larry Clark has some revealing VK outtakes from the film, but he’s too crotchety to leak them. After love stops wondering about your fruit fly invasion, he starts wondering why my apartment is suddenly beset with hundreds of gnats, G. ** Steve, Nonetheless I will reserve ‘The Odyssey’ for a future plane flight where there are no other options. It’s been honestly lovely here for the past two days. It feels like a miracle, an untrustworthy miracle, but still. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s fun stuff, for the most part. Suzuki. Fantastic that you can go to the ‘Room Temperature’ screening! That makes me very happy. I haven’t even checked to see who won the World Cup. All I saw was blah blah about the half time show. What a world. ** Travis (fka Cal), Whoa, Cal or formerly Cal! How crazy nice to see you! Well, what you’ve been watching doesn’t sound that bad. How are you? What’s been going on? It was awfully hot here, but we’re having a little vacation from the misery at the moment. Big up!! ** Sam F, That smoke is entering legendary status. Crazy. Great luck with the readings this week. Good old KGB. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, wow, nice. Surely they’ll have you. I want to see the trailer when it’s real, duh. Everyone, Go back to yesterday’s comments and scroll down until you see Sam F and discover how he watches films because it’s an interesting method, and, hey, it might even change your life. Wishing you even more well. ** HaRpEr //, If you get the chance, absolutely see ‘Adieu au language’ in 3D. It’s even more astoundingly great than I remembered. Holy shit. I for one (among many) applaud and anticipate your new Instagram strategy. Such a great Ashbery quote. If I wanted a tattoo, I’d put it somewhere. ** laura w, Welcome back! Are you all tanned and stuff? My dad always lived on or near a beach, and I remember having no choice but to relax when I visited him, which I’m not great at. Yes, the indie bookstore boom is so great and inspiring. What’s your handle on Instagram? I’ll follow you lickety-split. Uh, I’ve mostly been enjoying the positive downward swing in the temperature here without really doing all that much other than immersing myself in it. I’ve got to get busy. What’s on your return-to-real-life agenda? ** Laura, Hey. Generally the producer tells you how much the film is going to cost to make, so I don’t know. We wrote it deliberately so it’ll cost less to make than ‘Room Temperature’, but we’ll see if we guessed right. I have to wear only organic materials, mainly cotton, with organic dyes, which is actually very hard to come by. Most of the so called organic clothes makers lie. 90% of the time when I see ‘organic clothes’ in a store, and I test them by placing my palm on the clothes, I start getting an allergic reaction in about 5 seconds. I have no problem or feeling about being the basis of a character. It would be very hypocritical of me to have a problem with that. I don’t know ‘Heated Rivalry’, and I never will, but I believe you. xo. ** Armando, Hey, man. Oh, being busy is all I do pretty much. The rest is just eating food and see friends and stuff. ‘Stuff around’ is promising to read. Nice, the rain. We’re in a big drought, which is insane since generally it rains in Paris every day no matter what season it is. The Zoom club is really nice. I do it with my dear old writer friends from the Beyond Baroque days — Amy Gerstler, Jack Skelley, David Trinidad, Benjamin Weissman — so it’s a way to keep our friendships tight. I don’t know that Bessette book. I’ll look into it. Take care. ** Okay. A billion years ago I did a post about Gilbert Peyre, but I looked back at it the other day and it has been decimated by the internet’s progression, so I made a whole new post about him because his work is terrific, I think, as well as being completely unknown outside of France. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
An extreme transliteration of “On est bien dans le ghetto. Il y a du monde” would be: “One is truly in the ghetto. There is crowd.” But “on” and “bien” aren’t high-register like “one” and “truly,” they’re very neutral. The “on” pronoun is funny. You can use it as a drop-in for the normal equivalent of “we,” or as a completely impersonal thing, or play around in this weird middle zone. Levinas made “il y a” (“there is”) into a philosophical concept – the “residual texture of existence when you subtract all its contents” or something like that – and I argued in a journal paper that Blanchot took note.
Bursting at the seams. It’s funny you phrase it like that. The writers I like who I think work most with the grain of English – Faulkner, Shakespeare – I always think they do exactly that, they make it burst at the seams. I could probably sift most of the writers I like into people that do that, or that do the opposite. But doing the opposite in English seems like it would be more like mud-wrestling in terms of getting there.
This weekend I saw some pleasingly weird music live – one very wholesome act from a group making a symphony with the system sounds on their laptops, and encouraging the audience to do the same with their phones – and watched the final, and thought about the next chunk of writing. How was yours? I do think I’ll be drifting over for the new breast celebration around 5 September. Let me know if you’re around, although I feel like you said you and Zac will be adventuring somewhere.
ooh Adem translationcore time lol. i would have said, just based on the idiomatic stuff ‘ we’re really in the ghetto now, everyone and their mum is there too’— but the side-eye loss of ‘it’s a world unto itself’ lowkey smarts lol. English is ofc a v replete language, vocabulary alone >> French vocabulary. and ofc English is insanely rich in description, esp description of movement, the romance languages don’t remotely do that. in exchange there is superior emotional expression imo, but that’s less language and more person lol, for another day <3
Hey Dennis – very cool art today. I’m not an expert on art at all, but this sort of 3-d collage always charms me. It reminds me a bit of the Quay brothers, although being moved physically, rather than by stop-motion is unique.
Saw “The Odyssey” with my mother on Saturday. Maybe the most inert Nolan yet, and that’s saying something. She’s sort of in a scary headspace, really missing my father, so I think the movie affected her emotionally in a way I found quite unnerving. It was probably the least interesting film I’ve ever seen, it felt like a direct-to-video film with a trillion dollar budget. Snore! Hope you’ve been well.
Gilbert Peyre seems a maverick, a true outsider artist. Have to wonder what might happen should someone like this ever turn up at any conventional art school. Their uniqueness would probs get thoroughly lectured out of them, I think.
The World Cup final last night was deservedly won by Spain although it never made for much of a spectacle. You see the next France manager will be none other than the great Zidane? Will hopefully usher in a new era of footballing excellence for you guys.
Hi!!
Same here, extending into today. Maybe love will decide to be extremely generous and keep this up for the rest of the summer?
That’s just cruel of Larry Clark—if it’s true. I mean, certainly morally sound but cruel, haha.
What’s up with the insect invasions?!
Love wondering whether there’s an alternate universe where he actually grew up to be a paleontologist, Od.
“Interview with a Killer”—not only is the title generic but so is the show. It already outwore its interest. It’s the typical TV format with the stern interviewer playing up his moral outrage. Part of me wants to interview killers & go about the interview in a very different way. But they’d never let me if they knew my angle & perspective, haha—which, in case you’re wondering, is my theory that the draw of killing for some (though by no means all) people is to fill that gap in the totality of human experience. No one ever second-guesses someone’s desire to give birth as an elemental human drive, but killing—an equally foundational act so to speak—is instantly shoved off into the corner of the aberrant. This is obviously no endorsement of murder, just a recognition that for a lot of folks it holds a deep, primal fascination.
Re. “Backrooms” & “Obsession”: I agree that their example is far from enough, but at least it’s a nudge in the right direction, away from the franchise-chain model. I mean I have no desire to see either of them, but I’m glad they beat out “Star Wars” at the box office.
Well you & Grove Press were a match that was meant to be. And glad that you’re vibing with Editions POL. Yeah I’m quite happy that Cathexis seems to get my work, because from my submission & publication experience so far I’ve noticed that work like mine—rooted in the oral & the revelations of ethnopoetics—is not what most literary mags are looking for. The majority cling to the written, not the spoken, word. And obviously the spoken also gets written down, but I for one can tell the difference pretty quick.
Spent last night celebrating Spain’s well-deserved world cup with the locals & a bunch of friends, & I gotta say the joy was quite infectious.
@Carsten somos los más mejores! patria aside, or not, it’s been great to have our Palestinian flag out and our Muslims doing du’a and Trump all flummoxed, the fucker. the joy is great lol ^_^
Yeah it was quite beautiful
hi Dennis!
didn’t know Gilbert Payre but he seems awesome, and also like he’s just playing which is v important to me. also his work reminds me a bit of Freaks the movie lol, like idk how much to trust it, it’s crazy endearing and ominous by turns. love it, ty <3
generalised organic liars!! don’t break my heart!! sucks for you but now it also sucks for me lol. i’ve got v sensitive skin so i can sometimes tell when someone is stretching the truth, but not like you can. where do you shop?
i recently started watching films the excellent Sam Farhi way and it’s a v slay way. can’t commit fulltime but it’s already doing a bunch for me, def recommend ^_^
think i’d like it if you’d steal me a Hüsker Dü casette from work to validate my pestering =D
how’s the day going? heat truce holding? i’m still struggling w hardcore restlessness and ughhhhhh. i just wanna write, i just wanna sing lol. etc. hardly too much to ask, i’d say, considering how ill-suited i am to not writing, not singing, not etc lol.
<3
I keep typing shit into my notes and tellin’ self I’ll post as a comment come the evening but then keep being busy in the evening and forgetting. Anyway, here’s a comment I got in too late from the other day:
Tom Scott voice ( https://youtu.be/pA2vWc2eeNE?is=XeEs7wvCtWoOh2bo ): I’m reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the seating of a courtroom whilst someone is on the stand for exposing themselves in an ambulance. I’m being taught how to make ‘jail munch’ with instant ramen and crisps and pepperami (it looks awful). I’m making tarragon chicken for my ex and his lover. I’m helping plan a magazine my friend will be publishing (it’ll be the exact dimensions of Glasgow magazine The Digger). I’m trying not to look at pitch black infomercial spray paint ‘hair. I’m watching My Chemical Romance live with a ticket I got for free. I’m drinking ten pints of water at a night out cause I’ve Pavlov’d myself to do that whenever I realise I’m rat arsed. It keeps flashing swelter in Scotland and I’m worrying more of visiting Paris in August.
I work now with/around people who’ve had somewhat Cartoonishly (Dennis) Cooper-core childhoods and are just now becoming adults. This, predictably, has me thinking on your work differently than before; apologies if this is a trite and well-trodden question, but: how do you see those boys growing up ? I know why they don’t grow up. Someone said to me the older men are the boys grown up (“Bro ain’t never escaping the cycle of Samsara lmfaoo”) — I can’t mind if this is a textual or subtextual observation. I’m finding myself thinking often of George Miles in I Wished when he wasn’t a child anymore. I’m sure I’ll send this and be humiliated after that up-loading wheel blinks white in completion and mind all those plot details I don’t absorb when I read the way I do. *Online article listicle voice* who is the Dennis Cooper boy ten years later ? What kind of life does he get to have ? I’m thinking on this more and more because I’m helping some of them have that. Maybe.
I’m wanting to re-read my Dennis Cooper shelf with this in mind; where should I start ?
Hey there Dennis! :3
Been keeping busy for myself lately. I mentioned earlier that I started a job working at an arcade, and that has been an interesting experience. For one thing, I’m getting a better number of hours, so my finances have been marginally improved compared to before. It’s the first time I’ve been able to speak to others who work in the same environment as me. In my prior jobs, I would be quiet and not bother with those whose prejudiced thinking is enabled by others who share the same hateful outlook as them. Whilst there are some personalities akin to that, I found a little group of co-workers that I’ve been sticking with. I regularly work shifts with them, so I have the time to get to know them. Often the shifts are dead, so I’ve been using it as a space to continue writing and reading. It’s helped a ton to be in a space like that whilst writing my novel. Being in a place that’s intended for high attendance but regularly sees no one helps settle me into the voice of my main character. She’s someone who is obsessed with texture, and I think it’s benefited me to sit down there.
I’ve been reading The Rings of Saturn and Chaosmosis. Both are interesting reads for me as I think they inadvertently converse along the discussion of semiotics and how ambiguity is involved in its construction. I know you recently posted about Guattari. Have you read Chaosmosis?
Progress on my novel has been furthering along. I completed a draft I’m happy with for my first chapter. Shared it with some friends, and they all really liked it. I’ve been comfortable sharing extracts with my group lately because I’m surrounded by people who recognise what I’m trying to translate. My tutor looked at it as well, and he was enthusiastic about it. Didn’t have much to critique, and he was really pushing me to finish the novel. I mentioned the environment of my workplace has helped, and right now, I’m steadfast in developing what this novel is going to look like.
It’s made me consider other modes of creativity that I want to get back to. I’ve been thinking about video creation again, and I was watching a video by Patricia Taxxon called Art, Furries, God. I’ve seen it before, but it made me tear up reflecting on how I perform language as a means to chase a translation of something I’m trying to understand about myself. A friend of mine mentioned to me that my writing has a defined autistic voice to it. I’ve had that diagnosis since I was 5, and watching that video made me reflect on the ways I’ve been using my interests as a vessel to reach close to the heart of what I want to share. This novel of mine is something that cuts into that space for me. In my recent chapter, I’ve been writing about a person’s relationship to their interests and the disruption that plays into that. Gonna throw another recommendation for you, but the chapter involves a character talking about one of my favourite bands, The Brave Little Abacus. They were a group that lasted for 5 years, existed when the band members were becoming adults, and consisted of only 2 albums and a couple of EPS. I mention them in this discussion because lately it hit me that I associate their music with this position in my life, where I often broke down publicly. After all, I struggled to feel comfortable in how I expressed myself. As I write from the voice of my main character, I see her partially as a vessel to deconstruct my experiences in translating my own performance. I think remaining productive through several outlets is going to help me, and I’m excited to see what will come of that.
Hope all has been well with you, Dennis. I realised that a few days ago it’s been a year since we met each other. Thank you for keeping up a dialogue with me. This space has helped me to become comfortable with the ways I try to translate myself. I’m hopeful we’ll meet again someday
Take care! ^w^
Since your needs are so specialized, where do you find clothes you can wear?
I’ve traveled back to ’70s France today, watching Guy Debord’s WE SPIN AROUND THE NIGHT CONSUMED BY FIRE and beginning to read Ian Thompson’s SYNTHS, SAX & SITUATIONISTS, his history of the radical French underground rock scene of the same period. (As much as it paralleled Krautrock, even the scene’s biggest bands haven’t had the same influence or hipness quotient. For a long time, Gong were just seen as goofy hippies.) Debord’s voice-over of WE SPIN AROUND THE NIGHT is beautifully written and delivered, and the sadness of his conviction that he once came upon the secret of living a life free from alienation, only to have spectacle seize it from him, is extremely moving. I don’t know if this is even a criticism, but his view that real life ended in his youth and no one could be possibly living with such intensity or find beauty in late ’70s Paris comes across as fundamentally conservative (as is the intense misanthropy of his contempt for consumers who think they’re free). But he sure didn’t want everyone to nod along in agreement.
Take my flesh! Take my bones!
Been interested in the human body as a machine. This is so cool.
(I wont feel bad if you skip a chunk of this)
Hello poppin in!
About my friend who is christian now: im not too worried about him , how odd of me. Huh. I read him my poem about muscic and he said im a very niche form of neurodivergence which made me feel fuzzy inside. THey are neurodivergent too.
sad yet strangely beautiful realizations have recently filled me with a painful streak to passionately pour my heart out into playing/learning piano aswell as fixating on anatomy and cosmology. I desire more fiction in transgressive/experimental ways but this friend reinvigorated my interest in biology and philosophy aswell as such spirituality that almost detracts me from my path of hedonism/ and impulsive desires…but not ideally….idk..im just figuring this all out these past weeks.
For some reason ive been afraid that this crush might be turning/reverting back to christianity. Odd stuff happening lately. strange yet sentimental. Maybe something in the water.
As much as I think they like me(maybe they do, to my credit)
recent eventshave cast me into a state of uncertainty. Im just going to give fake names to make this less obfuscating. So I went to my friend Jay’s apartment who turned christian recently to talk about this person. (we live in the same complex)
I found out they were chasing my crush after I introduced them months ago. I remember on that SAME DAY I had what I thought was a very vulnerable confession at a hookah bar of.
“I really like this person, like I really never liked a person so lovingly”
I guess they were drunk and forgot. im not mad, or obviously I still lov em as a friend, but it hurts to know that they forgot and starting pursuing them. It hurt more when they started to pick up on what couldve been romantic-e exchanges? Also this is their word and one thing ive learned is that experiences are never completely retold in accuracy that encompasses all human emotion. anyways they said they stopped chasing them because they didnt think they would be able to fulfill their emotional needs,
“There is nothing Marty loves more than the pursuit of knowledge”
For love, I think I want someone who I could pursure my creative dreams beside me. I dont have much emotional needs outside the outbursts and instable periods but even then I prefer to deal with them on my own, So idk maybe they do like me…Do I even care anymore? I dont know..I think ive entered this state of asaxual ambivalence while writing this out. Well maybe they are so focused on their passions and wisdom that another person would rock their stability….or my friend is subconsciously still in love and unwilling to accept that maybe there is a chance for me? Im not asking you, just reciting.
I dont know. Ive been seeing fragments of care either related to love or their innate kindness.
Ive been distracting myself by focusing on our bodies as machines (this post reminds me of that), the perpetual decay of our bodies, empowered without external forces.
If I cant find power in my soul, I find power in this eternally regulating machine, lasting outside the restrains of a tortured heart’s wishes to accelerate its own deterioration out of impatience.
I am not my soul, I am the flesh that writes. That has boundless protocol. The flesh that plays the note before me. I am flayed of vulnerabilities and will prevail
–fuck. Yeah its the end of the day, my brain isnt working. Ill give you a better explanation tommorow morning! I write alot about it in my notebook
I wrote a really nice poem on my wordpress blog the other day. Got deleted. Wahhhhh it was so beautiful.
heres some cool shroom oscillator visuals
https://youtu.be/ECLWihsF_PA?si=IV554bNGDy2PElsx
Tommorow I promise im going to give a more blog-related comment and im going to start fresh, Idk what is up with the compulsion of “You have to ” right now.
I dont even feel bad if you possibly skipped a chunk of this comment. I would understand
really cool post today. mildly terrifying, but i like it.
i do not tan, i burn. i also hate wearing sunscreen (i don’t like shit on my skin) so i often tell people i’m on a pro-aging regime. of course, i work in a basement and live in new england so the sun is rare thing anyway.
i’m also with you on relaxing, which is why i went back to work today instead of tomorrow. right now my back-to-reality agenda is reading destroy, she said (i was inspired), reading heartstopper (a faintly nauseating graphic novel series a friend really really likes for some reason), and potentially finally starting the new season of the bear. i tend to put off things i get really, really excited for for whatever reason, like i’m scared they won’t live up to the potential i’ve built for them in my mind. i also am now in possession of a switch 2 and might get that newish donkey kong game?
my instagram handle is laurawachterrrrrrrr! i think you deserve to enjoy the lovely weather while it lasts, especially after these last two heatwaves lol.