Annlor Codina creates artistic situations in the form of installations, devices, and participatory experiences. A large part of her work centers on questioning archetypes, the forms taken by power and violence that run through history, our societies, and the fascination they exert. She works to generate means of creating cracks in patterns, of diverting and disturbing codes, norms, customs and habits, of wringing the neck of certainties, short-circuiting functions, defusing. She also works to offer spaces of freedom. To put it simply, she relocates, deterritorializes, and takes you off to dance a few steps sideways so you can look at things from another angle.

While the artist also prefers to avoid categories (norms) when discussing her work (neither « critical art, » nor « interstitial art, » nor « contextual art, » nor « relational art, » etc.), she nonetheless acknowledges its critical function, in the sense that it allows things to be unveiled through a certain distance, brought to light, questioned. « My pieces take reality apart and put it back together to examine the mechanics of power struggles and to propose a shifting alternative by playing with the surrounding violence. » But the stakes—and the nuance matters here—are in no way to arrive at a (ready-made) truth, a (complete) transformation of the individual, a (total) awakening of consciousness. No, she sees herself more as the « grain of sand » in the works, jamming things when least expected. With a smile, and without your knowing it, she plants a tiny homeopathic detonator that gives no warning of when it will go off, and that may not even be felt—or only on an infinitesimal scale, yet still acting. That said, this small crack she induces in your system, despite a certain aesthetic of combat and struggle, she wants to keep free of violence: playful, festive, poetic, joyful.

Because if she stages, in her often interactive installations, conditions of possibility that let us see and think about the world differently, she does so while having fun, playing, inventing. A cocktail into which enter questions of imagination, creation, dialogue, encounter, resistance, autonomy, the sharing of knowledge, mutualization, the diversion and blending of technologies, tinkering, alternative knowledge and know-how, Open Source, DIY philosophy…

Indeterminism, uncertainty, randomness are, moreover, key notions for Annlor Codina, who « builds systems in which random parameters are deliberately included in order to lose control of the final result and grant the installation a degree of relative independence »: a certain autonomy of development.

During her research and creation residency at Oudeis in July 2017, Annlor Codina worked in particular on two projects: No Bird and Clandestine Workshop, which perfectly capture her approach, her practices, her state of mind.

The Clandestine Workshop project originally consists of an installation, a participatory clandestine workshop devoted to modifying hunting cartridges into festive cartridges (festive materials: pigments, sand, salt, confetti, glitter, streamers, feathers, pigments, petals, colored semolina, party favors, beads, etc.), and a video loop that was fed during the exhibition. It was very specifically on the art of (re)loading cartridges—heavily dependent on ballistics (in the most common sense) and on concerns that are at once aesthetic, sculptural, and safety-related, as well as on test firings, all documented—that we focused our energy.

Several stages therefore took place: a multi-stage cartridge-modification workshop and numerous test firings with experienced shooters.

We took part in a genuine apprenticeship in the art of reloading cartridges, training with Pascal Molières in the Cévennes, in Mandagout. Thanks to his know-how, his knowledge, and his talent for passing it on—and to the equipment he had available (a crimping tool, an instrument for tamping or « packing »)—the alternative and clandestine cartridge-making could take place. Over two days, in a magnificent setting, we experimented, improvised, took notes, formed hypotheses, and searched for constants, following a thoroughly scientific methodology. A summit meeting that let us make giant strides, and an unprecedented one: for while it is indeed common practice to load a few confetti into cartridges to be fired at weddings, it is quite rare to explore, for instance, multi-pigment tri-compartmentalization dosed with fine sand and combined with feathers and confetti, packed into the skirt of a re-crimped 12-gauge cartridge. And it should be noted: each modified cartridge is unique, bearing the imprint of its creator.

During the first test sessions to refine the packing of the cartridges, Pascal Molières was kind enough to carry out the series of test firings (about fifty), after which the artist managed to bring together five experienced shooters (Pascal Molières, Philippe Ruas, Pascal Ruas, Christian Ducros, Jean-Louis Portalez) for one final collective firing session (45 cartridges in total). All of them very kindly agreed to step outside their usual grooves and to lend themselves, with great skill, to this deadly serious game that was thoroughly subversive and poetic.

With the complicity and participation of Elsa Molières, Pascal Molières, Philippe Ruas, Patrice Ruas, Christian Ducros, and Jean-Louis Portalez, whom we warmly thank.

On the Art of Modifying Cartridges (Among Other Things).
Manuel Fadat, July 2017.