On the materiality of digital reality

Recently, fires have become more and more frequent in the news, and although they are often caused by humans, they are made worse by global warming. In March 2021, the OVH data center in Strasbourg caught fire; these huge warehouses host computers and servers, whose function is to store information useful to companies or individuals (websites, clouds, etc.). Despite the questions that revolve around the origins of this particular incident, it is not without reminding that the risks linked to the overconsumption of energy are very real. After all, it is only flammable materials in plastic boxes that overheat, and can ravage entire buildings.

Behind our screens, the digital world seems harmless, yet the consequences of our actions are real for our planet. We wrongly separate them for the sake of personal comfort. Fortunately, art is a great way to put these issues into perspective; take virtual reality, it's a space created in the digital world in which we are totally immersed thanks to a headset. We enter an image and explore it, but the sensations and emotions are authentic. Marion Roche is passionate about this technology, which not only reconnects with stereoscopy, her first artistic love, but is also destined to illustrate in part the topic of her project Je viens de te voir en rêve.

The sensation we feel during the virtual reality experience can be likened to dreaming, even lucid dreaming. We would be able to consciously direct our dreams, it seems, with a little willpower and training. All we have to do is get used to writing them down as soon as we wake up, which is the method Marion uses before her visits to the Neuroscience Research Centre in Lyon. It enables her to improve her ability to remember them and to become aware of the effect of the events she experiences during the day. Here again, the experiment sheds light on the influence and impact of one world on another.

We are talking about a largely unexplored field, without scientific dogma and open to all sorts of interpretations. Philosophy, a chameleon-like discipline, deals with all subjects, but combined with art, Marion can establish a dialogue between all these fields. And depending on the project, it can be diverse; today it involves neuroscience, but in six months it will be biochemistry or archaeology.
The art science segment offers the possibility of touching other worlds, of learning about a field, admittedly in a superficial way, but of being in a constant position of discovery.

It's a new vision of exploring science through art, and the possibilities are endless. However, Marion has a much more down-to-earth dream than we imagine: to build an open and autonomous house. It could be a residence, a gallery, a workshop, a multidisciplinary place for artistic production and dissemination, or all of these things at once.

We may have the impression that her journey is not going in the direction of the final destination. But for Marion Roche, this place is simply the result of a combination of the manual work that has motivated her since childhood, the values and convictions that drive her, and her desire for stability.

Somehow, she encourages us all to build and accept ourselves, to dare to explore our unconscious in order to act consciously, with the aim of transforming, little by little, our dreams into reality.