Founders of the artist studio OCEAN & WAVZ based in Paris (France), we are Larys Frogier (born in Polynesia, Pacific Ocean) & Alfie Chua (born in Singapore). We create visual artworks, compose electronic music, write poems & essays. These practices are based on long-term research and curatorial projects developed in different parts of the world.
In 2018, we made the decision to engage into multi-disciplinary creative practices as : OCEAN for the representation of a multitude of human and non-human components constantly migrating, growing and exchanging through the uncontrollable flow of water in the immensity of the sea &
WAVZ as the reappropriation of a digital audio file “format” to be transformed into “infinite and opened movements of sounds”, echoing the ones of the oceanic waves.
Our roots/routes are crossing Europe (Denmark, France, Germany), Asia (China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore), and the Pacific Ocean (Polynesia and the Latin America shores).
Our take-away from the research and creative practices as mentioned above are as follows:
1- To value caring relations with others based on the following topics: – The development/combination/exchange of bio and cultural diversities in current geopolitical reconfigurations of the world – The reification of art institutions and the urgency to institute differently vernacular artistic/cultural practices as well as to invent new ways of living/working based on active solidarities – The practice of ecology not as an anthropocentric ecosystem to plan, draw, apply, preserve and control, but as a multitude of life experiences, imaginary worlds (natural, digital, human, subhuman…) to embrace.
2- To nurture a strong passion for working on the fabrication of language and image in the interstices of sound/picture/word. We would capture/archive/combine and recreate traces, objects, sounds, images, gestures of daily life most often discarded or forgotten, creating an ambiguous feeling between the historical practices of archive and these new forms of “clouds” or “image garbage cans” in “fake-free” access on the internet. Such practice aims to question our relationship to language in its capacity to turn conventional forms of narration and performance inside out. It is also about a critique of the current devices of control and surveillance that are conceived and exploited by financial and political organizations. And fundamentally, we believe in the power of “poor” images in contemporary contexts of overconsumption of crystal clear images overproduced by “anyone” today (industries, artists, users, followers, artificial intelligence…).
3- To develop works based on unexpected combinations that do not limit our practices to a specific discipline, medium or genre. For instance, our focal points are: – The constructive contradictions/links between the vernacular and the digital – The inter-relations between use of traditional percussions in the Pacific and the late invention of European serial electronic music – The practice of poetry not only as a text but as a daily practice of life – The development of curatorial practices as a collective walk/work with other researchers and art practitioners instead of an exhibition display.
News
2023
Ocean & Wavz, Dis/Placed – Ex/Changed, 2023-2024, movie 70 min., sound text, visual installation Introduction of the project and extract of the movie HERE
LabEurope with the artist Clotilde Provensal, 2023, June 1st Creative workshop organized by Relais Cultre Europe gathering art practitioners working in La Réunion (Indian Ocean) and Europe for echoing/sharing societal challenges, including crucial issues such as climate change as it could be explored and represented by artists, scientists and actors of all kinds in Africa, Europe, as well as in the Indian & Pacific Oceans. These changes do not call for easy, pre-established solutions, but do rather invite for embracing exploratory postures and in-depth researches. Participants: Lauren Barone, Patricia de Bollivier, Sylvia Cascio, Ocean & Wavz, Clotilde Provensal.
Ocean & Wavz, Silence (Inner Peace Mix), 2023, original music composition, 11:04 Link to the soundtrack HERE
Horizon Europe,research seminar, 2023, April 18 with anthropologists, art historians, digital science researchers, cultural and social practitioners Relais Culture Europe, Paris.
Tobias Rehberger, If you don’t use your eyes to see, you will use them to cry,publication, 2023,
London, Berlin: Sternberg Press; Shanghai: Rockbund Art Museum. Curators: Larys Frogier, Billy Tang. Since the book is just out of print with no official promotion yet, please check the artist’s instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CoKtVxiIpEk/
