19.11.2021 - 13.02.2022
The 5th International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN), organized by ELEKTRA
Arsenal Montreal
2021.05.08 - 2021.06.07
Ruhr Ding: Climate
Urbane Künste Ruhr, Germany
2020.02.09 - 2020.08.30
La main du magicien dans la froide lumière du jour
Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Canada
2020.06.25 - 2020.11.08
Zero Emission
Museum Leipzig, Germany
2020.03.17
Courant Vert
Espace EDF, Paris
2020.02.11 - 2020.05.12
Thresholds
Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Canada
2019.10.31 - 2019.12.08
Montréal ~ Habana : Rencontres en art actuel / Encuentros de Arte Contemporáneo
Havana, Cuba
2019.09.09
Poetry Lies In Between
CityLeaks Festival Center, Cologne, Germany
2019.05.20 - 2019.05.24
CoExistence
2019 ICRA-X Robotic Art Program, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Canada
2019.05.04 - 2019.07.13
Revolution
Biennale d’architecture et de paysage Versailles, Paris
2019.03.08 - 2019.04.13
Salle des maquettes
Galerie de l'UQAM, Montreal
2019.02.07 - 2019.05.18
Bonne conduite
Angoulême, France (FRAC Poitou-Charentes)
2019.02.20 - 2019.06.09
Thresholds
Âjagemô art space, Ottawa (Canada Council for the Arts)
2018.11.02 - 2018.11.04
Man Ray, Michel de Broin, Juliette Goiffon & Charles Beauté
Artissima, Turin (Galerie Eva Meyer)
2018.10.20 - Work in progress
Deviations
Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver
2018.09.13 - 2018.11.17
La conduite des conduites
Galerie Division, Montreal
2018.07.07 - 2018.08.12
Natura Loci
Magasin Général, Sainte-Madeleine-de-la-Rivière-Madeleine
2018.03.26
Michel de Broin & Kim Gerdes – Machines organiques, machines textuelles
École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
2018.03.08 - 2018.04.17
Elective affinities
Galerie Division, Montreal
2017.08.17 - 2017.10.15
Thresholds
KM3 - A Public Art Event, Quartier des spectacles, Montreal
NEWS ARCHIVES

2012.03.15 – 2012.07.20
Vivement Demain
Musée d’art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris, France

Curated by Alexia Fabre

Dossier de presse


Installation view of Reciprocal Energy.

As part of the new arrangement of their recent acquisitions, Michel de Broin’s work, Reciprocal Energy is currently on show at the MAC / VAL. This project seeks to draw attention to a particular problem: the fact that automobile drivers and their automobiles are not yet sufficiently well assembled. In effect, when the human body uses a machine, it economises a certain quantity of energy. The energy provided by the ingestion of food is then stored in the form of fats. At the same time as the automobile driver stores energy and accumulates fat, the automobile consumes fossil fuel and wastes energy resources. Why not couple man and machine in order to resolve both the problem of obesity and the energy crisis? The automobile could in fact acquire its energy directly from the driver. This coupling would make possible an intimate reciprocity between man and machine. Moreover, the use of fat as a fuel would contribute to resolving the problem of which it is itself a symptom by maintaining the resource both renewable and accessible.


Station, 2008

The model presents a development project for a liposuction clinic directly related to a gas station where the human fat will be resold as anthropo-diesel fuel. The liquidating of fat will be refunded at the market price of biodiesel (per liter), wherein the price of fuel reaches that of the cost of extraction by liposuction.



Station, 2008


Transesterification, 2008, 2 min 33 sec

Transesterification is a chemical process whereby human fat is transformed into anthropo-diesel fuel.  The chemical reaction is catalyzed by the addition of alcohol (CH4O) and caustic acid (NaOH).  The video depicts a suspicious car in a deserted parking lot performing a senseless dance. The vehicle’s interior is saturated with smoke, as if processes of combustion were occurring inside the car. The driver disappears in the dazzling white light.