David Munoz is a visual artist and has a background in science (ENSCT) and also trained at Gobelins, l'École de l'image. He bases his work on scientific research projects related to the impacts of global warming and ecological issues to develop the forms and narratives that structure his visual creations.
Resolutely focused on the most contemporary issues, between ecology and anthropogenic pressures, he uses the visual arts and cinema to create narratives that challenge the audience's certainties, drawing on the fields of philosophy, anthropology and poetry.
Landscapes, whatever they may be, seem to be full of mysteries which, if we begin to unravel them, speak to us of the impact of human activity on the environment. It is an image of the Anthropocene, the clash of humanity with terrestrial and marine ecosystems, a notion that David Munoz explores throughout his work.
At the same time as this impact has accelerated, we have distanced ourselves from nature. Concrete has replaced the soil under the feet of an increasingly urbanized humanity and little by little the link to the land has been severed, or at least to this particular land, which is increasingly struggling to breathe. So our apprehension of the world has inevitably changed, our perspectives have been reversed - perhaps - and our relationship with the environment has fatally deteriorated. This is what the Universum project is looking at, this paradigm shift that in many ways defines our contemporaneity.
In order to make visible to the public this zone of uncertainty that constitutes our relationship to reality, David Munoz goes out into the field. Accompanied by a guide, he surveys the terrain, equipped with his equipment to capture the images. But here again I am blind, because not all the photographs around me are the result of his wanderings.
On the contrary, some are entirely computer-generated, artificial and yet perfectly natural, in a sense. To construct these images – because it is indeed a construction – David Munoz uses generative processes: fragmented, the image is in fact created by the proliferation of infinitely smaller elements which – assembled – seem to form this necessary whole, as if perfectly natural. There is thus a clash between the natural and the virtual, between perception and reality, which once again questions our relationship with the world and the environment.
David Munoz transposes these questions to the field of sculpture, photography and cinema, in partnership with scientific laboratories such as ENS Paris-Saclay, IPSL, CSM, IFREMER, as well as with organizations such as the Tara Ocean Foundation. Alongside researchers, he studies the movement of glaciers and oceans, questioning our intimate and sensitive relationship with the environmental emergency. Here again, it is about movement, tension and perception of reality, subjects that he has also recently been exploring through film projects.
Ultimately, whatever form David Munoz's work takes, it always expresses the same tension, the same unease in the face of an ambiguous space. A zone of uncertainty that questions our own convictions and which, by testing our belief systems, pushes us to move.
At last! We are alive...
Grégoire Prangé
Curatorial coordinator, LaM