Poeme Infographique

Studio Orta - 002_Pompidou

Date: 1991
Ref: 0002
Catalogued: Lucy + Jorge Orta. Light Works, Black Dog Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-907317-04-0
Exhibition history: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Courtesy: The Artists

Commissioned by the French digital arts festival Art 3000, the poem projected inside the Pompidou Centre is the first example of the artists’ use of computer-generated imagery. In collaboration with the artists, French typographer Eric Paillet digitised Jorge Orta’s archive of symbols, the resulting computerised language intermingles with the skeletal frame of Richard Rogers’ and Renzo Piano’s spatial architecture.

It is my belief that exciting things happen when a variety of overlapping activities designed for all people—the old and the young, the blue and white collar, the local inhabitant and the visitor, different activities for different occasions—meet in a flexible environment, opening up the possibility of interaction outside the confines of institutional limits. When this takes place, deprived areas welcome dynamic places for those who live, work and visit; places where all can participate, rather than less or more beautiful ghettos. Richard Rogers