May 2, 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟵, 𝟲𝗽𝗺 𝗨𝗧𝗖+𝟮! (no registration needed) 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 – Zoom link available on our website. [https://pantheonsorbonne.zoom.us/j/94039589234…]

We are pleased to invite you to the first session of the Tele-Visions seminar for 2024-2025!
Our first speaker, 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘀 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝘁 (McGill University), will present a talk titled “𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗝𝘂𝗮𝗻 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝘆, 𝟭𝟵𝟲𝟳-𝟭𝟵𝟳𝟯.”
𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 – Zoom link available on our website. [https://pantheonsorbonne.zoom.us/j/94039589234…]
Nicolas Holt completed his PhD at McGill University, where his dissertation, The Radiant Unknown: Juan Downey’s Aesthetics of Energy, explored Downey’s engagement with energy and electromagnetism. His work has been published in Afterimage, Arts, and an upcoming volume edited by Douglas Kahn and Pia van Gelder.
𝗔𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁: A remarkable shift took place in the practice of Chilean multimedia artist Juan Downey between the 1967 to 1973. At the end of the ‘60s, Downey was constructing sculptures and choreographing performances which deployed sensors, transmitters, and receivers to detect and make sensible invisible electromagnetic waves—from radio to radar and even cosmic rays. Beginning in the early-70s, the energies channeled in his practice were decidedly more grounded, as he developed numerous, ecologically informed installations featuring plant, animal, and insect life. From electromagnetic energies beamed overhead to photosynthetic and metabolic energies rooted in soil, Downey was bringing energies down to earth. This shift represents a uniquely illustrative moment in Downey’s art, and as such, an especially instructive opportunity to introduce some of its key themes to a wider audience: the discourses of the Information Age, cybernetics, ecological systems theories, and not just the idea that energies can be channeled as artistic media, but that in doing so, broader cultural shifts in which energies play a pivotal—if often unremarked—role can be aesthetically materialized. From the electromagnetic waves of Information Age infrastructures to the terrestrial energies of ecological life, the very media of Downey’s practice embodied broader historical transformation. And while bringing energies down to earth suggests a spatial passage that maps onto a discursive one, it is also a transductive movement with methodological implications for how we attune to the dynamism of energies in the arts.
𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹: Juan Downey, Life Cycle: Electric Light + Water + Soil ⟶ Flowers ⟶ Bees ⟶ Honey (1971-2017) (detail). Installed at the Pitzer College Art Galleries, 2017.