Thomas Pendeliau
Vindija 33.19 - Installation - 2026
présentée dans le cadre de l'exposition Panorama 28 - Invisibles ?
Installation
It all begins with a fragment of bone found in Croatia, that of a Neanderthal woman born around 45,000 years ago. Her DNA was extracted from this fragment, enabling the sequencing of her genome, named Vindija 33.19.
From this single sequence, biotechnology and artificial intelligence reactivate a dynamic of life and a cultural memory. Each gene in the genome becomes a form of artificial life that evolves, coexists with others and hybridises autonomously and unpredictably, overflowing the projection surface to permeate the space and the audience’s bodies. At the same time, fragments of mythological motifs that were circulating during her lifetime, and in her part of the world, are assembled in real time to form new myths, narrated by an artificial voice. A co-evolution begins between life and the narratives. A genetic memory and vanished collective imaginations are reactivated, not to resuscitate what was but to engender something different: metamorphoses, hybridisations and bodies that change species, where the boundary between human and non-human becomes porous.
Thomas Pendeliau is a french artist-researcher. Transdisciplinary, his practice spans film, installation and the still image. His speculative approach probes the agency of contemporary imaginaries in the face of ecological, technological and scientific transformations. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles, and in art history and archaeology from the University of Burgundy, he is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Lille. Informed by science fiction literature, anthropology and posthumanist philosophy, his work draws on the life sciences and the challenges of biotechnology. Artificial intelligence has been central to his practice since 2020, both a medium and an object of critical inquiry. His projects have been shown at the NOÛS festival at the BnF, the Rencontres de la photographie d'Arles, Octobre numérique, the Rencontres de la jeune photographie internationale in Niort and the Lumière d'Encre art centre, among others.
