PARTICLES

Mohamed Youssef is a visual artist from Alexandria, participant in 2003 establishing the network ANIMANET, then the first workshops of the RAMI in 2007. He was welcomed on two residence time in Marseille:
in June 2011 by ZINC, CRVM(Virtual Reality Center in the Mediterranean) and GMEM.

In Automn 2010 , a research residency at theIMERA (an Institute for Advanced Studies) for a duration of 2 months, in partnership with ZINC to develop this project.

Mohamed YOUSSEF could move in his research and strengthen working relationships with the team of Daniel Mestre, director of the CRVM- filiation of the ISM (Institute of Movement Sciences, UMR CNRS-INSB and Université de la Méditerranée) and GMEM - experimental music group from Marseille, labeled National Center for Musical Creation).

He collaborated on this project with singer and composer Emilie Lesbros and choreographer Brice Gaubert.

During the residency, a workshop co-organized by IMERA and ZINC as a reflection of a hundred researchers and artists around the question: “Art and Science in the Mediterranean, what interculturality?”

Summary of the research project

Far from the classical form of plastic arts, visual arts, digital arts come, and especially interactive works to broke up the respectful classification of classical arts. Still far from the question of inheritance or replacement, far from being accepted as modern artistic tools, digital works were and still under trial and criticism. Abstract in its forms and its profound sense, despite the criticism led to the wonderful alloy between virtual reality and fiction, between the action and the reaction of an audience in an interactive space.

The “Particles” already imagined to the end of 2006, is an essay in the same direction. 
 I am considering the project of particles as a programmable digital imaging acquisition and processing of the human form in virtual form identical in an interactive space.The challenge is from a lack of particles or a chaotic presence.When the public comes in and begins to discover the system of the artwork, identical particles in form of the spectators, are free in their movements, interacting with the audience and finally, the performance will be projected on screens.

Composed of virtual particles, through an interactivety and multimedia process, the project consists in 3 steps:
1 - creation of particles flow freely moving but when the spectator passes through, he picks up (the particles) in sync with its movement and begins to manage their movement spontaneity to his original movement.
2 ° - the particles are subject to a performance by Brice Gaubert and Emilie Lesbros
3 ° - the public sees the birth of the particles in the form of characters (the public) that mimic their movements and will be very bright and sensitive to any spontaneous change.

The project aims to invent a new way of looking at motion detection and its representation on the screen, and this is the interest of the sphere of research. 
 The project Particles has benefit for its implementation, from the support of ZINC and complicity support of Dunes Group, two structures that facilitated the stages of initial diagnosis of the project, which enabled me to identify research topics to explore.