Some commentators have spoken directly about the relationship between Chevalier’s art and gaming, which in many ways defines or will define creations within the metaverse. Edmond Couchot has noted, for example, a fundamental difference between art and recreation: “A game puts the play in external contact, whether [the player] seeks to defeat his partners (competition) or seduce them by a trick of identity (avatars and role-playing games), or whether he seeks simply to master himself (games of risk, which imperil his self-control, or games of chance, whether he competes with an unpredictable external force).”16 By contrast, Couchot notes “a work of art may borrow from any of these ludic categories, but where the artist seeks primarily to affirm his presence, his singularity – even when he claims not to contaminate it with his subjectivity – the author of a game does not try to manifest himself, does not take part.”17
Such differentiations – whether identified by Couchot or by Chevalier himself – reveal another fundamental difference between the commerce of technology and the commerce of art. The commerce of technology, whether of games or the metaverse, is all about creating material as fast as one can to capitalize on opportunities for realizing profit – whether in terms of the goods sold (versions, land, arms, fashion, music, etc.) or the data gathered from individual actions and decisions made that companies then sell to determine ads designed to sell more product. The commerce of art, particularly Chevalier’s art, is all about the act of creation, which takes time in order to be realized – particularly, when the generative component is coming outside of the artist’s control. One is subjective and exploitative, the other objective and truthful.
One Final Thought
In thinking about the mission and goal of
dig.ni.fy magazine, it would be hard not to think of Chevalier’s art fitting well within the context of telling stories about human dignity and how to live a dignified existence through people who promote cultural traditions or move those traditions forward. As noted by Gunnar Kvaran, “sharply aware of his historical context, but also concerned to break with tradition, Chevalier recomposes visions of unity in a fresh social
space where he invites the public to take part in inter-subjective relationships, and to work towards an increasingly dynamic type of phenomenological communication.”18
The practical result is to hold up a mirror to our lives lived and ask for interaction. Again, Kvaran:
In his work, especially the installations, he draws viewers into specific “social realities” where the artwork is actualized and the viewers made conscious of their own existence within peculiar environments. The end result is to highlight the artificiality of our lived environments, from brimming urban growth to the ceaseless reconditioning of nature.42
In other words, only by confronting the past might we secure imagined futures fully lived. But it is also more. As Chevalier says in response to the question of ‘whether there is hope for the natural world in your work:’
My nature-themed works are joyful in nature. Plants with incredible shapes and bright colors provide rather positive emotions. Visitors are transported into a magical world with flowers with incredible shapes. These artworks imply fun, because of the interactivity. They make you travel, dream and meditate.
Sounds like an appropriate response to the ills and dangers presented in our contemporary world, and a promising start to living a different kind of life.
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https://www.miguel-chevalier.com/