Fred Forest
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Fred Forest (born July 6, 1933 in
Mascara Mascara is a cosmetic commonly used to enhance the upper and lower eyelashes. It is used to darken, thicken, lengthen, and/or define the eyelashes. Normally in one of three forms—liquid, powder, or cream—the modern mascara product has vario ...
,
French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...
) is a French new media artist making use of video, photography, the printed press, mail, radio, television, telephone, telematics, and the internet in a wide range of installations, performances, and public interventions that explore both the ramifications and potential of media space. He was a cofounder of both the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication movement (1983). Forest has taken part in the
Biennale of Venice The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
(1976) and the Documenta of Kassel (1977, 1987) and his work has won awards at the Bienal do São Paulo (1973) and the Festival of Electronic Arts of Locarno (1995). In 2004, Forest's archives, including his video works, were added to the collection of the
Institut National de l'Audiovisuel The (abbrev. INA), () is a repository of all French radio and television audiovisual archives. Additionally it provides free access to archives of countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. It has its headquarters in Bry-sur-Marne. Since 200 ...
of France. A retrospective of his work was held at the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia in 2007. The holder of a state doctorate in the humanities from the
Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...
(his 1985 thesis committee included
Abraham Moles Abraham Moles (19 August 1920 – 22 May 1992) was a pioneer in information science and communication studies in France, He was a professor at Ulm school of design and University of Strasbourg. He is known for his work on kitsch. Biography Mo ...
,
Frank Popper Frank Popper (17 April 1918 – 12 July 2020) was a Czech-born French-British historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He was decorated with the medal of the Lé ...
, and
Jean Duvignaud Jean Duvignaud (22 February 1921 – 17 February 2007) was a French novelist, sociologist and anthropologist. He was born in La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, on February 22, 1921. Duvignaud was a secondary school teacher first at Abbeville, then ...
), Forest has also taught on the faculty of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Art, Cergy-Pontoise; the University of Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne; and the University of Nice, Sophia-Antipolis. He is the author of numerous books on art, communication, and technology including ''Pour un art actuel: l’art à l’heure d’Internet'' (1998, ''For an Art of Today: Art in the Internet Age''), ''Fonctionnements et dysfonctionnements de l’art contemporain'' (2000, ''The Inner Workings and Dysfunctionality of Contemporary Art''), and ''L’œuvre-système invisible'' (2006, ''The Invisible System Work''). Aside from his artworks, which are often imbedded in the mass media and use publicity as a raw material, Forest is well known in France as a fierce critic of the contemporary art establishment—a critical stance that led him to take the
Musée National d'Art Moderne The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. In 2021 it ranked 10th in ...
(
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
) to court (1994–97) over its refusal to disclose the purchase prices of recent acquisitions. He is also one of the founders of the French Fête de l’Internet, or Internet Fest.


Beginnings

A self-taught artist whose formal education ended after primary school (he was later authorized to present a doctoral thesis under special provisions), Forest worked for fifteen years as a postal service employee, first in Algeria and then in France, before deciding to devote himself exclusively to artistic pursuits. In the early 1960s, he worked as an illustrator for the French newspapers Combat and Les Echos and experimented with the projection of moving and still images on ''tableaux-écrans,'' or screen-paintings. Having received a
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
CV-2400 Portapak video recorder in 1967 as part of a promotional campaign by Sony France, he ranks as one of the first artists in Europe and the world to experiment with video. Forest's first experimental video tapes, "The Telephone Booth" and "The Wall of Arles," date from 1967. His first formal exhibition of
video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
, "Interrogation 69," an interactive video installation, took place in May 1969 in the city of Tours. Influenced by the political and cultural ferment of
May 68 Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ha ...
,
Situationist The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...
critiques of the society of spectacle,
Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...
's writings,
Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...
's concept of the "open work," and the avant-garde's proclaimed goal of breaking down the barrier between art and everyday life, Forest stopped producing traditional art objects in 1969 and focused instead on a utopian form of "social praxis" operating "under the cover of art." Because of its portability, low-fi aesthetic, immediacy, and potential for interactive feedback, video was the tool of choice for such experimental social praxis; however, Forest also became interested in the mass media at an early stage in his career. His first major series of works with the mass media was the "Space-Media" project of 1972, which included a small "parasitic" blank square ("150 cm2 of Newspaper") published in the January 12, 1972 edition of the daily ''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
,'' which the readers were encouraged to mail back to Forest, filled in with commentary, creative writing, or artwork of their own. "Space-Media" was the subject of a major article by the philosopher and new media theorist
Vilém Flusser Vilém Flusser (May 12, 1920 – November 27, 1991) was a Brazilian Czech-born philosopher, writer and journalist. He lived for a long period in São Paulo (where he became a Brazilian citizen) and later in France, and his works are written ...
, with whom Forest collaborated throughout his career.


Sociological Art

In 1974, Forest joined forces with
Hervé Fischer Hervé Fischer (born 1941) is a French artist-philosopher and sociologist. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure (Rue d'Ulm, Paris, 1964) and defended his Master's thesis on Spinoza's political philosophy with Raymond Aron and devoted h ...
and Jean-Paul Thénot to form the Collectif d’Art Sociologique (disbanded in 1979). The members of the Collective were invited to represent France at the 76th Biennale of Venice by
Pierre Restany Pierre Restany (24 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher. Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning ...
, who became a lifelong friend and supporter of Forest and his work. Forest's video and video-based installation and performance works from this period include "Gestures in Work and Social Life" (1972–74), "Electronic Investigation of Rue Guénégaud" (1973), "Senior Citizen Video" (1973), "Video Portrait of a Collector in Real Time" (1974), "Restany Dines at La Coupole" (1974), "TV Shock, TV Exchange" (1975), "Madame Soleil Exhibited in the Flesh" (1975), and "The Video Family" (1976). In 1973, Forest was awarded the grand prize in communication at the 12th Bienal do São Paulo for a series of provocative actions that included a mock street demonstration featuring marchers carrying blank placards, interactive experiments in the press, and a multimedia installation with an uncensored telephone call-in center. These actions elicited the attention and displeasure of Brazil's
military regime A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...
and Forest was detained by the political police, released only after the French Embassy intervened on his behalf. Forest's actions throughout the 1970s and beyond took aim at cultural as well as political power structures. This included the
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...
establishment, whose perceived lack of imagination, corporatist logic, arcane traditions, star system, and speculative practices he lampooned in works like "The Artistic M2" (1977). For this project, Forest formed a certified real estate development company and placed ads in the national and international press announcing his plans to sell "artistic" square-meters of land—small plots of undeveloped land near the Franco-Swiss border. The ads prompted a police real estate fraud investigation and authorities intervened to halt the sale of the first square-meter plot at a public auction alongside a number of contemporary paintings and sculptures. At the last minute, Forest substituted the tiny plot of land with a square-meter piece of common cloth that had been trampled by the auction attendees as they crossed the threshold and this officially "non artistic" square meter of cloth fetched a usually high price of 6,500 Francs at the auction—thanks, no doubt, to the publicity Forest's action and the police investigation had attracted. At the auction's conclusion, Pierre Restany publicly declared that Forest's m2 was indeed a bona fide work of art. For actions such as the São Paulo experiments and the "Artistic M2" operation, Forest can be considered a precursor of such current counter-cultural practices as
tactical media Tactical media is a term coined in 1996, to denote a form of media activism that privileges temporary interventions in the media sphere over the creation of permanent and alternative media outlets. Examples Tactical media projects are often a mix ...
,
culture jamming Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It atte ...
, and
hacktivism In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hack ...
.


Aesthetics of Communication

Although the social and political concerns first developed within the framework of Sociological Art have remained strong in his work to this day, in the 1980s, Forest became increasingly interested in the "immanent realities" of electronic and networked communication—for instance, issues of space, time, the body, knowledge, and identity. He faulted contemporary art for having largely ignored these means of communication, which had transformed everyday life and added an entirely new dimension to reality: the virtual space of information and communication, which Forest likened to new territory "dredged from the void." In order to promote artistic research into the sensory, cognitive, psychological, symbolic, aesthetic, spiritual, and social properties of electronic telecommunications media, Forest and Professor Mario Costa of the University of Salerno formed the International Research Group for the Aesthetics of Communication in 1983. They were joined by the media theorist Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the
McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology started in 1963 as the Centre for Culture and Technology, initially a card pinned to the door of Marshall McLuhan's office in the English department at the University of Toronto. In 1965, McLuhan draft ...
at the University of Toronto, and a wide array of artists including many of the pioneers of telecommunications and telematic art. Among those affiliated with the group at some point were Robert Adrian X,
Roy Ascott Roy Ascott FRSA (born 26 October 1934) is a British artist, who works with cybernetics and telematics on an art he calls technoetic by focusing on the impact of digital and telecommunications networks on consciousness. Since the 1960s, Ascott ...
, Stéphan Barron, Jean-Pierre Giavonelli, Eric Gidney, Natan Karczmar, Tom Klinkowstein, Mit Mitopoulos,
Antoni Muntadas Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, 1942) is a postconceptual multimedia artist, who resides in New York since 1971. His work often addresses social, political and communications issues through different media: such as photography, video, text and image ...
,
David Rokeby David Rokeby (born in 1960 in Tillsonburg, Ontario) is an artist who has been making works of electronic, video and installation art since 1982. He lives with his wife, acclaimed pianist Eve Egoyan, and daughter, Viva Egoyan-Rokeby, in Toronto, C ...
, Christian Sevette,
Norman White Norman White (born January 7, 1938, San Antonio Texas) Canadian New Media artist considered to be a pioneer in the use of electronic technology and robotics in art. Life White was born in San Antonio Texas in 1938. He grew up in and around Bosto ...
, and Horacio Zabala. Forest himself was the author of the group's manifesto, "For an Aesthetics of Communication," published in 1985. This important text laid out his vision of the metacommunicational artwork, whose goal is not to convey any particular message or imagery, but to create experimental micro-environments of communication in which certain salient, normally hidden features of the media themselves may be discovered. This usually involves the artist's conception of special media configurations of his own, composed of different elements of existing media deviated from their normal uses. The work is created by the users of system; it emerges from their consciousness-raising interaction with the system and each other. The artist's role is that of an "architect of information." Forest's own metacommunicational artworks fall into three broad categories. The first involves media performances that are somewhat like technological versions of the koans that
Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
masters ask their students in order to elicit sudden flashes of insight into existence and surrounding reality. In Forest's case, such works often focus on altered perceptual realities of time and space in the media environment. Notable examples include "Immediate Intervention" (1983), "Here and Now" (1983), "Electronic Blue, In Homage to
Yves Klein Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein w ...
" (1984), "Celebration of the Present" (1985), and "The Broken Vase" (1985). Another type of work involves whimsical exercises in telepresence and long-distance agency. Examples include "Telephonic Rally" (1986) and "Telephonic Faucet (1992), in which people contributed to filling a bucket in a Turin exhibition hall by turning on a faucet electronically triggered by their local and long-distance phone calls. Finally, there is a series of ambitious works that present alternative interfaces to the existing media and solicit public participation on a large scale. Examples include "The Stock Exchange of the Imaginary" (1982), "The Press Conference of Babel" (1983), "Learn to Watch T.V. by Listening to Your Radio" (1984), "In Search of Julia Margaret Cameron" (1986), and "Zenaide and Charlotte Take the Media by Storm" (1988). "The Press Conference of Babel" involved a multimedia installation that was also the set and makeshift studio of a pirate radio broadcast of expert analysis and public opinion over the broadcast of a leading French news interview program. As the preceding example suggests, Forest's works of this period were by no means devoid of political implications. Other examples include his installation of LED message boards juxtaposing
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
verses and
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
news dispatches ("The Electronic Bible and the Gulf War," 1991), his public campaign for the presidency of
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
n National Television ("For a Utopian and Nervous Television," 1991), and his broadcasting of peace messages into the former
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
via radio and loudspeakers mounted on towers near the border ("The Watchtowers of Peace," 1993).


Web Art

With its
multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
capabilities, the opportunities it provides to bypass traditional art venues and to take interactive projects directly to a broader public, its rapid and profound impact on contemporary society and culture, and the mythical aura of
cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
and the virtual, the Internet was naturally appealing to an artist of Forest's interests and practices. His first work utilizing the Internet, "From Casablanca to Locarno," a multimedia public participation redubbing of certain famous scenes from the Humphrey Bogart-Ingrid Bergman classic, was created in 1995. In 1996, Forest's web-based digital work "Network-Parcel" was sold at a public auction carried live on the Internet—the first event of its kind. Forest went on to create a number of important online works including "Time Out" (1998, for the inaugural Fête de l’Internet), "The Time Processing Machine" (1998), "The Techno-Wedding" (1999), "The Center of the World" (1999), "Territorial Outings" (2001), "Networked Color" (2000), "Meat: The Territory of the Body and the Networked Body" (2002), "Memory Pictures" (2005), "The Digital Street Corner" (2005), and "Biennale 3000" (2006). Many of these works are concerned with developing new anthropological models for a world in which both individual and community have had to deal with the dual effects of dematerialization and
deterritorialization In critical theory, deterritorialization is the process by which a social relation, called a ''territory'', has its current organization and context altered, mutated or destroyed. The components then constitute a new territory, which is the proces ...
, processes accelerated by the new digital technologies of networked communication. Some of the works literally constitute rites of passage. This is certainly true of "The Techno-Wedding," a collaborative project of Forest and fellow digital media artist Sophie Lavaud. The work was in fact the real-life wedding of Forest and Lavaud, which was
webcast A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...
live alongside a
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...
variant of the ceremony. Another example is to be found in "The Center of the World," which offered the public an opportunity to make a physical or telepresent
pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
to a shrine-like installation containing a digital
relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...
of the old territorially centered world. Beginning in 2008, Forest launched a new series of performances in the environment of
Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...
. The first in the series, "The Experimental Research Center of the Territory" (2008) is in continuity with a lifelong exploration of the notion of territory beginning with "The Artistic M2" (1977) and continuing through "The Territory of the M2" (1980, a simulated independent state on the grounds of Forest's property in the town of Anserville, near Paris) and "The Networked Territory" (1996, a hypertext work that Forest considers the Territory's transposition into cyberspace). Each Second Life work is adapted somewhat to the physical location in which it is presented (
Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
,
Sao Paulo SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
,
Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, etc.). In addition to staging debates and discussions at a think tank for avatars and offering public access to a mystical disintegrator of trash, some of the Second Life performances center on the philosophical musings and personal confessions of Forest's digital alter ego, Ego Cyberstar.


Recent Activities

Forest's most recent work continues to demonstrate his critical approach to contemporary art and society as well as his commitment to exploring the anthropological, sensory, and philosophical ramifications of life in media space. Examples include "The Traders’ Ball" (2010), which examined the implications of the global financial meltdown of 2007-08 through an online performance in Second Life coupled with an installation at the Lab Gallery in New York; "Ebb and Flow: The Internet Cave" (2011), a multimedia environment in
Albi Albi (; oc, Albi ) is a commune in southern France. It is the prefecture of the Tarn department, on the river Tarn, 85 km northeast of Toulouse. Its inhabitants are called ''Albigensians'' (french: Albigeois, Albigeoise(s), oc, albig ...
, France, which allowed visitors to encounter their own digital shadows in a cave-like setting reminiscent of
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
’s famous
allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
from The Republic; and an unauthorized protest performance at the site of the Centre Pompidou’s ''Video Vintage'' exhibition in 2012 (Forest had himself bound from head to toe in old Portapak videotape and then invited members of the public to cut him free while he offered his critique of the institutional memory of early video art). In 2012 performance at the MoMA The conversation. In 2013, Forest was treated to his first-ever major retrospective in France: ''Fred Forest, homme-média no. 1'' (''Fred Forest, No. 1 Media Man''), held at the Centre des Arts in
Enghien-les-Bains Enghien-les-Bains () is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the département of Val-d'Oise. Enghien-les-Bains is famous as a spa resort and a well-to-do suburb of Paris, developed in ...
, outside Paris. "Soirée Nomade " Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain. In 2014 performance at the Moma " Sociological walk with Google glass ". In 2015 exhibition at Jeu de Paume Paris " Sharingmédia ". ZKM and Adk Berlin " Flusser and The arts ". In July 2015 with Derrick de Kerckhove,
Maurice Benayoun Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957) is a French new-media artist, curator, and theorist based in Paris and Hong Kong. His work employs various media, including video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, the In ...
, Tom Klinkowstein and other art people, thinkers and philosophers, he participated to Natan Karczmar's seminar ArtComTec.


References


Bibliography

*Ascott, Roy and Carl Eugene Loeffler, eds. ''Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunications.'' Special issue of ''Leonardo,'' 24.2(1991). Articles by Derrick de Kerckhove, Mario Costa, and Fred Forest. *Costa, Mario. ''Il sublime tecnologico.'' Salerno: Edisud, 1990. *---. ''L'estetica della comunicazione: sull'uso estetico della simultaneità a distanza.'' Roma: Castelvecchi, 1999. *Fischer, Hervé. ''Théorie de l'art sociologique.'' Paris: Casterman, 1977. *Flusser, Vilém. "L'espace communicant: l'expérience de Fred Forest." ''Communication et langages.'' 18(1973): 80-92. *Forest, Fred. ''Art Sociologique Vidéo: dossier Fred Forest.'' Paris: 10/18, 1977. *---. "La famille vidéo: art sociologique." ''Communication et langages.'' 33(1977): 85-102. *---. "La bourse de l'imaginaire." ''Communication et langages.'' 55(1983): 86-95. *---. "Manifeste pour une esthétique de la communication," ''+ ‒ 0,'' 43 (Oct. 1985): 7-16; English trans., "For an Aesthetics of Communication," 17-24. *---. "Communication Esthetics, Interactive Participation and Artistic Systems of Communication and Expression." ''Design Issues.'' 4.1/2(1988): 97-115. *---, "Cent actions Art sociologique Esthétique de la communication, Nice, Z'Editions, 1995. *---. ''Pour un art actuel: l’art à l’heure d’Internet.'' Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998. *---. ''Fonctionnement et dysfonctionnement de l’art contemporain.'' Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000. *---. ''Repenser l'art et son enseignement: Les écoles de la vie.'' Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002. *---. ''De l’art vidéo au Net art.'' Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004. An illustrated catalog of Forest's work with critical essays. *---. ''L’œuvre-système invisible.'' Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006. *---. ''Art et Internet.'' Paris: Cercle d'art, 2008. *Forest, Fred and Michael Leruth. "Interview avec Fred Forest: Braconnier des espaces virtuels de l’information." Part I, "Dépasser l’art contemporain." ''Contemporary French and Francophone Studies,'' 10.3 (Sept. 2006): 275-289. Part II, "Réaliser l’événement utopique." ''Contemporary French and Francophone Studies,'' 10.4 (Dec. 2006): 397-409. *Forest Fred and Pierre Moeglin. "Regardez la TV avec votre radio." ''Communication et langages.'' 64(1985): 100-112. *Galland, Blaise. ''Art sociologique: méthode pour une sociologie esthétique.'' Carouge, Switzerland, 1987. *Lassignardie, Isabelle. ''Fred Forest: catalogue raisonné (1963-2008).'' Doctoral thesis in art history, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, Amiens, France, 2010. An illustrated 4-vol. catalog plus a chapter of commentary covering nearly the entire span of Forest's career. *Leruth, Michael. "From Aesthetics to Liminality: The Web Art of Fred Forest." ''Mosaic,'' 37.2 (June 2004): 79-106. *Millet, Catherine. ''Contemporary Art in France.'' Engl. ed. Paris: Flammarion, 2006. *Mœglin, Pierre. "Ce qu'il y a d'esthétique dans la communication et réciproquement.", ''Esthétique des Arts médiatiques'' 1 (Poissant, edit). Montréal: Presses de l'Université du Québec (1995): 63-75. *Nedeltcho, Milev. "Fred Forest et la télévision bulgare: entre Eisenstein, Buñuel et Fellini." ''Communication et langages.'' 91(1992): 47-54. *Popper, Frank. ''Art of the Electronic Age.'' London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993. *---. ''From Technological to Virtual Art.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007. *Roland, Dominique, ed. ''Fred Forest, homme-média no. 1.'' Enghien-les-Bains, France: Centre des Arts - r-diffusion: 2013. French-English retrospective exhibition catalog. *Wilson, Stephen. ''Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002.


External links


Web Net Museum, an online museum started by Fred Forest, incorporating a full and up-to-date retrospective of his work and an archive of critical texts.A list of Fred Forest's online actions.Integral slideshow from Fred Forest's retrospective at The Slought Foundation of Philadelphia.Art And Society: The Work of Fred Forest at the Slought Foundation of Philadelphia.
* ttp://www.artscapemagazine.com/resistance_f09.html Ferdinand Corte text on Fred Forest in Winter 2009-10 issue of ''Artscape.''br>Website of Fred Forest's "Biennale 3000" operation.Location of Fred Forest's "Experimental Research Center of the Territory" on ''Second Life'' (must have ''Second Life'' account to access)Online publication of Isabelle Lassignardie's doctoral dissertation on Fred Forest in the form of a ''catalogue raisonné'' of Forest's work from 1963 to 2008.An account of Forest's "The Traders' Ball" from 2010.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forest, Fred 1933 births People from Mascara, Algeria French mixed-media artists French photographers Living people Postmodern artists Mass media theorists French performance artists