a plus o minus Objects

 α + ο -

(104 Objects)
https://a-plus-o-min.us

α + ο - is a collaborative artistic and curatorial practice by Arthur Fouray and Nastassia Cougoulat Montel. We bring found, purchased and leftover objects into relation. Objects can work as notes in music or signs in a language: selection and arrangement give them a position among other things, without making their earlier uses disappear. 

The process begins with looking, often while moving from place to place. We select, extract, juxtapose and present. These are separate decisions. Choosing something does not yet decide how it will be photographed, or what it will be placed beside.

Visual attraction, difference, social value and cultural associations enter the selection. The criteria can pull in different directions. A collection does not need to make its objects alike in order to bring them together. 

Photography is one form of extraction. Clipped pack-shots borrow the apparently neutral presentation of a commercial catalogue. Removing a background makes the object easier to isolate, but also changes what can be known about its setting. That loss of context belongs to the method rather than disappearing behind the finished photograph. 

The website a-plus-o-min.us is a showcase, a collection and a catalogue. The database lets objects from different contexts meet while their names, forms and associations remain available to question. A position in the collection is one arrangement, not a final definition of an object’s value. 

In an exhibition or nightclub, objects can become readymades, gestures, ingredients or images. A change of setting gives them other neighbours and other possible uses. The space and the people encountering them participate in that change. 

Advertising and merchandising enter as ways of selecting, displaying and producing desire. We work with their forms as well as with the objects they put into circulation. The project makes those operations available to look at, including where visual attraction and critical distance remain difficult to separate.

α + ο -
Arthur Fouray
α + ο -
Nastassia Cougoulat Montel