epidemic home
jean michel bruyere - lfks
CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
> SUP de SUB — Merci de vous libérer (2023)
merci de vous libérer
Merci de vous libérer, Forum libre des étudiant·e·s de Sup de Sub.

A selection of collective works by SUP DE SUB students presented at the Théâtre de la Criée as part of the Marseille Festival on 1st of July 2023.

Co-production: LFKs, Festival de Marseille, La Criée Théâtre national de Marseille
> IDM (L'indépendance des mains or Inner Direct Metaphysics (2016-2020)
idm - independance des mains
IDM © LFKs
Since 2016, Jean-Michel Bruyère and the LFKs collective are in residence in Seine Saint-Denis, in the suburb of Paris.

From their exploration of the territory came the IDM project, in partnership with the Théâtre de la Poudrerie, the Municipal Conservatory of Music and Dance in Sevran and the MC93 in Bobigny.
This three-year project involving inhabitants from all socio-professional profiles, will result to a "social sci-fi" full-length movie to be released in 2019.
During the residence, a series of home theatre plays, Au_tour de, have also been presented in Sevran.
> L'habitude (2018) — prologue to the Violence & institutions cycle (2018-2020)
violence et institutions - l'habitude (prologue) Thus custom becomes the first reason for voluntary servitude, Étienne de La Boétie wrote in the 16th century. And 400 years later, Assata Shakur states in her autobiography: People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

On 2 May 1973 Assata Shakur, a Black Panther activist and member of the Black Liberation Army, was stopped by the New Jersey police, shot twice and later convicted of the murder of a police officer. After more than six-and-a-half years under extremely brutal conditions in the maximum security wing of a correctional facility for women in New Jersey, she was able to escape to Cuba in 1979 and was granted political asylum there.

In L'habitude (custom), a musical, visual, theatrical installation and prologue to the cycle Violence & Institutions, author, film and theatre maker Jean Michel Bruyère and his Marseilles-based collective LFKs evoke Assata Shakur and the spirit of revolt.

Co-production Wiener Festwochen, LFKs Marseille, Epidemic
> TOUR-RÉSERVOIR (2014-2017)
tour-réservoir This first generative web-series conceived and produced by the collective LFKs and dedicated to women from Caucriauville, the biggest suburb of Le Havre (FR), is online since September 2016 on:

tour-reservoir.com/en/
tour-reservoir.com/en/tv

This project was commissioned and hosted during two years in residence by Le Volcan, Scène nationale du Havre (FR).
> Third Life of Francis of Assisi (2013-2016)
third life of francis of assisi Le Simple et l'Ouvert  (2013)
Based on the figure of Saint Francis of Assisi, this 7th collaboration with the Festival d' Avignon, is a reflection on poverty and joy, humility and courtesy. Theatre, philosophy, music and song, cinema, art: the members of LFKs couldn't care less about categories. Used to creating in huge venues and large spaces, they have, this time, decided to invest a bicycle shed..
Creation: Festival d'Avignon 2013 (FR)

FRANÇOIS et CLAIRE (2016)
Second chapter of the cycle Troisième vie de François d'Assise (Third Life of Francis of Assisi), this eight-hour performance will be running from 4pm to midnight in the whole Vestlandhalle in Recklinghausen.
FRANÇOIS & CLAIRE is an attempt to represent the Franciscan meditation and, for the visitors, a place and time to meditate, or consider the act of meditation.
Creation: Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen (DE)

> Les progrès de l'immobilisme (2013)
A creation combining performance, visual arts and music in Tour-Panorama, the new building of La Friche Belle de Mai in Marseilles (FR)
> Suspended Congresses (2006-)
suspended congresses
Congress of Shanghai © LFKs
Chairs intended for large gatherings of people are assembled together and suspended. They have been organized, or are in process of organization and therefore in movement. Stacked, clustered, laid out in columns or rows, layered or piled together, the chairs are always chosen from what is most habitual for a public space in the relevant location. Chairs for assemblies, gathered in assembly; a meeting of meeting chairs, all empty. A fullness of empty and suspended chairs: the congress is suspended.

Each convention takes its name from the city of assembly: the Congress of Aix-en-Provence, Congress of Arles, Congress of Baumettes, Congress of Berlin, Congress of Marseilles, Congress of Munich, Congress of Shanghai... These names provide a geographic reference but also evoke History.

> vitaNONnova (2011-2013)
vitanonnova
LFKs wished to establish in the time (three years) a series of creations investigating the link between America of the sixties and current segregated French cities. This series is entitled VitaNONnova (in reference to Dante) and will contain essentially three scenic and film works, carrying each the name of one of the leaders of the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary and reformist political movement, built in the energy of the riots of the sixties and disappeared at the beginning of the seventies, once the American black community better represented in the field of the traditional politics.

Each approaches the history of the fight of the population of the American black ghettos under a different angle and with means andvery different mediums: theater and performance, opera, cinema and arts media.

vitaNONnova is composed by:

vNn #1 / Eldridge Cleaver (2011-2013)
Premiered on 28 September 2011 at Théâtre Garonne à Toulouse (FR)

vNn #2 / Une Situation Huey P. Newton (2012) — contemporary opera
Premiered on 7 July 2012 at Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence (FR),
as part of Marseille-Provence 2013, European Capital of Culture.

vNn #3 / Polyptych Bobby Seale (2013) — Film in 4K resolution onto a giant screen, videos, exhibition and performances in a 50,000 square feet hall
Premiered on 28 March 2013 at Grande Halle (Former French Railway plant) in Arles (FR) as part of Marseille-Provence 2013, European Capital of Culture

 
vitaNONnova #3 / Bobby Seale is co-funded by the European Union

vitaNONnova #4 / Back to Chicago (2013)
Creation on 4 December 2013 at the University of Chicago (US)

vitaNONnova #5 / It's now, Baby! (2013) — application for IPAD

 

> Assistante sociale (2011)
assistante sociale
Installation premiered 28 May 2011 at Borusan Music House, Istanbul (Turkey) as part of "Madde-Isik 2" exhibition
> Le Préau d'Un Seul (2008-2010)
le préau d'un seul
Le Préau d'Un Seul © LFKs
The failed decolonisation of Europe – the internment camp as the victory of colonialism over the present, is the starting point for the artistic actions of Le Préau d'Un Seul.
An autonomous aesthetic universe and a tribute to Cheikh Anta Diop, whose research on the historical influences of African science and philosophy on Europe made a vital contribution to the ideological foundations of the anti-colonial struggle. In 1954, the Senegalese archaeologist wrote: We have to do our duty with respect to Europe. We must help it to recover from its old customs, which are rooted in colonialism…
> La Dispersion du Fils (2008-2017)
la dispersion du fils
La Dispersion du Fils © LFKs
La Dispersion du Fils is a collection of sequences from more than 500 movies filmed between 1999 and 2007 by Jean Michel Bruyère, most of them used in the past LFKs perfomances, related to the Achteon tragedy. La Dispersion du Fils itself is refering to the tragedy.
In this 360° immersive, interactive and stereoscopic environment, the spectator may progress through the narrative and explore the constituent threads whose spatial distribution is redefined and recomposed according to the unique pathways chosen by each spectator through the filmic material.
Each experience of La Dispersion du Fils is original, since the spectator can assemble its 609 constituent units into the viewing space in infinitely varied ways. 

AVIE, Advanced Visualisation and Interaction Environment developed at the iCinema Research Centre.
> Le Chemin de Damastès (2008)
le chemin de damastès
Le Chemin de Damastès © LFKs
Le Chemin de Damastes (The path of Damastes) is a moving sculpture made of 21 medical beds overhung by 21 fluorescent “daylight” tubes.The beds are animated with permanent movements, set and synchronized with a computer. Together they perform a true ballet.
> CaMg(CO3)2 (2007)
camg(co3)2
CaMg(CO3)2 © Clémentine Crochet
CaMg(CO3)2 -chemical formula of a dolomite-
A 360x240 panoramic ring film shot using a 15-lens video spherecam.
CaMg(CO3)2 offers a flight across the Dolomites, a first-degree illustration of the journey of the spirit as described by the Amerindians and the Tungus in their shamanic meetings. 
The film is projected onto the interior surface of a cylindrical environment evoking both futuristic habitat and primitive shamanic tent. Designed with ZKM and Bernd Lintermann, CaMg(CO3)2 was premiered at "Vom Funken zum Pixel" exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (October 2007 to January 2008).
> Si poteris narrare, licet (2002)
si poteris narrare, licet
Si poteris narrare, licet © LFKs
Si Poteris Narrare, licet is a new form of interactive cinema and was the first iFilm created for Jeffrey Shaw’s EVE interactive Cinema.
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