Echoes of Oblivion by Benjamin Bardou
Echoes of Oblivion
Bio
Benjamin Bardou (b. 1981 in France) is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris. His work revolves around themes of the city, dreams, and memory. He employs digital techniques such as point clouds and artificial imagination to explore urban spaces. For him, the architecture of cities is a sedimentation of memories that he deciphers to better reveal its contours. Bardou has collaborated with renowned artists like Ridley Scott, Liam Wong, and Ikumi Nakamura and has worked for companies such as Apple and Microsoft. His works have been exhibited at numerous festivals and museums, including in Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, and Copenhagen.
About the Work
For many years I have been developing a project around the city called Megalopolis. I use various techniques such as volumetric video, AI or editing to explore the collective memory that is inscribed in our cities. I go through them using 3D scanning, the traces of which I rework to offer another reading.
About This Piece
For the CryptoCube, I used AI as a memory source. Indeed, my goal, as for the cities, was to wander through collective memories. Here, it was the latent space from which I extracted certain images. I used a volumetric video process to simulate a walk in an imaginary landscape.
Future
I see NFTs as the last missing piece of artist autonomy. In fact, these allow artists to sell their works themselves and to interact directly with their collectors. They also allowed digital art to become popular and democratized.
