Diane Cescutti

Franco-italiano-Cameroonian transmedia artist. Born and raised in France. She holds a bachelor and master in Art practice from the Nantes School of Art in France but has also studied textile at Tokyo University of Arts (GEIDAI) in Japan and art at The University of Houston in the interdisciplinary practice and emerging forms department. Her practice unfolds between an approach to weaving and digital questioning. The weaving loom, at the origin of computation. She tries to consider, through a speculative, fictional and narrative approach, the new potentials of weaving and explore a thin interface between the material world and virtual world. She investigates those potentials by rethinking virtual images and their support, thickness, pattern, weft, texture and exploring transmedia forms: weaving, fiction, videos, sculpture, performances, writings… She navigates a territory made of textile handicraft knowledge, material and immaterial artifacts and vernacular sciences and knowledge. She lives and works between Lyon and Paris in France.

Q: WHAT WAS YOUR ROUTE TO YOUR CURRENT ARTISTIC PRACTICE?

After High School, I entered an art preparatory class to prepare for the entrance exams of different french arts schools. I got accepted to various places and ended up choosing Nantes School of Arts where I stayed for 5 years for Something that deeply sculpted and enhanced my practice was the 2 school exchanges I made there.

For the first one, I went during my second year of bachelor’s degree to The Tokyo University of Arts ( GEIDAI) in Japan. I went there for 6 months to the craft department instead of art and learn in the textile section. This is where I learned the technical aspect of weaving. I always had an interest for the process but that stay in GEIDAI really put the structural, conceptual and metaphorical approach of weaving at the core of my practice. I came back to France and pursued this matter, weaving as code and code as the ethereal form of weaving.

The second one was during my first year of graduate school. I went for 4 months at the University of Houston in the interdisciplinary practice and emerging forms program. There I dive into video and the idea of making a film for a residency, also got interested in 3D printing and 3D images. The screen became the landscape where thanks to fiction and speculation, the potentials of my research could exist. That is how I reached my current practice, one where the art pieces persevere in an ontological unrest. It is also a practice that was nourished by research and my encounters with writers, curators, artists that gravitate towards concerns similar to mine.

Q: CAN YOU IDENTIFY ANY ELEMENTS OF YOUR COMMUNITY OR COLLABORATORS THAT HAVE HAD A STRONG INFLUENCE?

In 2019, I met a curator named Oulimata and worked with her in 2020 and 2021 on a project and exhibition called UFA, University of Africain Futures. This introduced me to a sphere of intellectuals, artists, designers of the African diaspora. This encounter created a shift in my practice and the subconscious craters of my process, one where I allow my own African roots to find a meaningful position in my research and artwork.

Q: HOW IS YOUR PROJECT TIED TO THE CIRCA X DAZED CLASS OF 20:21 THEME OF ‘COMMUNION’ ?

There is this phenomenon that I am quite interested in because it is the perfect word to describe the thin interface between reality and virtual that I’m interested in that project and my work. This phenomenon is one of transubstantiation. It is part of the holy communion in Christianity. The wafer does not represent the body of Christ, it is its body. As if the matter could be transformed into another entity. The idea that the material world mixes with a virtual one is a belief of the same nature. The protagonists find their communion in that journey toward their own upload in Active World. They think, just like the Christians who think there is a real presence of the body of the Christ in a small unleavened bread, that they could become a real presence in a totally virtual world, through a journey of transubstantiation. On another layer, there is this sense of communion, as people that unite around a mindset or idea, in Active Worlds that sincerely interests me. It’s a truly huge place managed by a small community of 60 active players that have been around for 20 years or more.

Q: HOW WOULD THE CIRCA PRIZE OF £30,000 IMPACT YOUR FUTURE PRACTICE?

As I just graduated and I’m at the premises of my career, it will heavily help me to establish myself as a professional. As we know the transition from the art school to a state of independence can sometimes be harsh. The CIRCA PRIZE would allow me a smooth transition to be able to focus and start right away to continue my researches and work on my new projects. Buy new gears, materials and tools to develop my practice outside of the infrastructure of an art school. Also I love this quote from H. Jackson Brown,Jr. : ” Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.” The #CIRCAECONOMY prize will give me a big dance floor to dance on.

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