PATRICK TRESSET
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Patrick Tresset (°1977) is a French artist based in Brussels. Best known for his performative installations, he explores human presence, the necessity to pass time, the mundane, and memory using computational systems, robotics, and traditional media.
"Drawing is a universal human activity, constant since prehistory. I use mark-making to look at presence, the necessity to pass time, mundane moments, and social traits. I author computational and robotic systems used as actors in performative installations and as autonomous tools to produce digital animations, paintings and drawings. The paintings and drawings depict human presence, while the animations explore the depiction of the mundane, like looking out a train window, watching passersby, the sea or flowers. Recently, I have been using autonomous agents as outside observers to tell stories about humans. In installations, I stage robots as actors performing repetitive routines that leave traces like memories, prompting viewers to project their own narratives onto the machines. Computational technology is my medium; the subject is us."
Tresset studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he earned a Master’s and an MPhil in Arts and Technology.
Since 2011, he has presented nineteen solo exhibitions, and his work has been shown internationally in major institutions, including the Centre Pompidou and Grand Palais in Paris, Fondazione Prada in Milan, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, MMCA in Seoul, BOZAR in Brussels, Today Art Museum in Beijing, Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM) in Shanghai, and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.
His work is held in private and public collections worldwide and has received numerous international distinctions, including from the Prix Ars Electronica, the Lumen Prize, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and the NTAA (Fondation Liedts-Meesen). In 2017, he was named a World Economic Forum Cultural Leader.
His work has been featured in major press and media outlets, including The New York Times, Le Monde, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Arte, Frieze, ArtReview, artpress, Beaux Arts Magazine, Wired, Vice, and Neural. In 2016, a monograph on his practice, Human Traits and the Art of Creative Machines, edited by Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, was published and reviewed in Leonardo and Neural.
