You Are Still Here, 2008, 5 channel sound installation, 5 speakers, amplifier, cables, audio file, 5'37'' loop, variables dimensions, edition 2/3

Through the five speakers positioned in the corridor one can hear a male voice uttering the sentence "You are still here" again and again. The sound fragment, taken from an undetermined American film, is randomly played through one of the five speakers at a time. This voice brings forth a sequence of sound signals that exemplify the visitor's procession in space. The sequence hinges somewhere between a factual statement and question.

You Are Still Here (7 days, 7 different newspapers, different articles), 2008, 7 lined sheets of paper, newspaper cut out letters and graphite on paper, each sheet 29,2 x 21 cm, frame 176 x 54 x 8 cm

All along seven days, the artist has cut out from daily papers the letters composing the sentence "You are still here". Each sheet of this collage corresponds to a day of the week and a different newspaper. Even if this piece can be perceived as a score for the sound installation bearing the same title, this piece is neither a version nor a visualization of it. The impossibility of a linear reading of the piece disorients the visitor's gaze. The mirror-sided frame conceived by the artist dismantles the temporal line of the work, that otherwise would lead the sequence from the beginning to the end.

In his works, Vittorio Santoro (1962) isolates unities of meaning (images, texts) taken from found contexts or frames of prefabricated evaluation. His practice is mainly based on familiar media, that he re-places so that they enable the viewer for a renewed aprehension of the contemporary world. His works tend to a completely non-descriptive social commitment, beyond humanistic emphasis or political correctness. The temporary dimension of many of them, slightly linked to fragments of social reality through variability and closeness, inserts these works in atmospheres of absence, extinction and fragility. By highlighting the relationships between the work and its recipient, Vittorio Santoro's most recent works adress different processes of language mediation. Among his latest solo projects, You Are Still Here, Galerie 5213, Berlin (2008); The Truth About Your Own Tolerance for Cruelty, Galerie Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux (2007); It’s All In Your Mind / C’est tout dans ma tête, Yvon Lambert, Project Room, Paris (2003). His participations in group shows include House Trip, Art Forum Berlin (2007), Collection, CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2007) or Learn To Read at Tate Modern, London (2007).

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