Artistic Approach
Néo Valen
Poetic Act of Délestage (2012)
Néo Valen: The Délestage, a Monumental Poetic Pulse
Néo Valen, a Parisian visual artist, embarks with the Délestage on a work of boundless ambition, a performative and poetic practice that stands as a bulwark against the era of algorithms and instant consumption. In a world where poetry fades under the weight of digital routines, Valen, proclaiming himself the Délesteur, orchestrates a titanic revolution: to produce a living poetry, an essence that can only be born from a poetic act, to re-enchant existence. This quest, embodied by the Vibrance System (vibrance.systems), a poetic architecture designed by Valen alone, establishes him as a visionary whose radically unique approach redefines the boundaries of contemporary art.
At the heart of this odyssey are the emochains, painted aluminum plates of apparent simplicity, which might, at first glance, seem austere in their materiality. Yet, this simplicity is a deception: the emochains are vessels of unsuspected complexity, living manifestos that demand interrogation to reveal the hidden depths behind the scenes. Embedded with RFID chips, they harbor codified emotions, synchronized with Cell-ion, the machine conceived by Valen. Each emochain pulses in rhythm with the luminous flashes emitted by Cell-ion, a radiance of life that evokes the beating of a human heart. With each pulse, Cell-ion translates a codified emotion into an electromagnetic wave, projected into the universe as a poetic vibration, linking the physical work to the infinite. This synchronization, with its organic precision, imbues the emochains with a unique aura: they are not mere paintings but portals to a poetic cosmos, their depth unveiled only to those who dare to explore their digital memory and universal connection.
The poetry at the core of this system can only be born from poetic acts, ritualized performances that Valen executes with near-monastic rigor: he throws a cobblestone into a pond to spark rebellion, runs around the Santé prison to invoke vitality, or feeds the Lion of Belfort statue to awaken courage. When he cannot perform these gestures himself, he entrusts Triggers with symbolic materials to extend his vision. Thus, to evoke pride, a Trigger is given an immense haystack, tasked with finding the needle it conceals – an absurd challenge, yet carried by the certainty of triumph, where effort transforms into poetry. These acts, primarily performed by Valen, weave a collective poetic fabric, each gesture contributing to a universal reservoir of codified emotions.
Each emotion is codified into a Vibrance, a digital imprint encapsulating its information, recorded at a precise moment in Unix time. The Vibrance is not the raw emotion but its essence distilled into binary data, a poetic trace ready to be unleashed. Cell-ion, the beating heart of the Vibrance System, decodes these Vibrances into luminous flashes synchronized with the emochains, emitting a radiance of life with each pulse. Accessible through a digital interface, Vibrances manifest as vibrating circles, accompanied by a video of the original poetic act, offering an ephemeral sensory experience lasting 30 days. Integrated into the emochains, they endow each work with a living memory, a pulse of the poetry that gave it life.
The Vibrance System rests on a poetic economy of critical fragility, coupled with a subversive reflection: a Vibrance exists only if it has been produced, and Valen does not create emotions spontaneously. In a sharp critique of the consumerist “click and collect” model, each production requires a click, an intentional command that triggers a poetic act. A world devoid of pride or love is one where no one has clicked to summon these emotions, a striking metaphor for our reliance on conscious actions in an instant-gratification society. Valen shoulders this Herculean task, feeding the reservoir through his own poetic acts, while occasionally opening the path to Triggers. The uniqueness of this approach is absolute: no one but Valen has conceived such a system, merging performance, technology, and materiality in a quest to re-enchant the universe.
The emochains, with their apparent simplicity, are an invitation to move beyond superficial observation. To grasp the monumentality of the Délestage, one must be willing to question and discover: to observe the texture of the emochains, activate a Vibrance to witness the poetic act that birthed it, and listen to the pulse of Cell-ion. These works demand active contemplation, a dive into the videos, digital interfaces, and gestures that underpin them. Within the field of contemporary art, the Délestage converses with the transformative visions of Joseph Beuys, the digital installations of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, or the algorithmic critiques of Hito Steyerl, yet it carves a resolutely new path, a poetic pulse resonating with the universe.
The Délestage is a work in progress, a promise of future innovations. Néo Valen, through the magnitude of his endeavor and the singularity of his vision, emerges as an artist to watch, a pioneer whose every new creation could redefine the possibilities of art. To those who behold his emochains, a call: look closely, probe the hidden depths behind the scenes, for in these pulses of life, a poetic revolution is at play, poised to illuminate the future.
