We spoke to french artist Maxime Houot about his history, Collectif Coin, and the relationship between choreography and physics in his art.
Based in Grenoble, France, Collectif Coin is a trans-disciplinary laboratory that is built around curiosity, invention, and art. Founded in 2013 by artist Maxime Houot, Collectif Coin uses digital art as a medium to explore themes of movement and space whilst challenging our perception of these concepts.
Inspired by the movement of physical and unseen forces, Maxime creates technology that best represents his ideas, and help from an ever-changing group of artists and inventors bring these ideas to reality. The result is a decade worth of work that has been premiered at locations the world over including LUX (Helinski), Sonica (Glasgow), and 104 (Paris) to name a few.
Whether it’s large-scale exhibitions such as Globoscope that takes its spectators on a walk through a constantly shifting digital space, or the intimacy of the structure forming laser display Ataraxie, Collectif Coin’s art offers a unique viewpoint into the nature of physics.
We spoke to founder Maxime Houot on his history, Collectif Coins origins, and more.
I’m interested in your education. I read that you were an applied physics graduate.
I studied physics in France around 20 years ago in Annecy. It was a small engineering school.
What led you towards physics? Did you come from an academic household, or was it a case of following your curiosity?
Honestly, I don’t know why I studied physics. At the time, I wondered what to do with my life. At school, I had two choices: computer science or physics, but truthfully, I didn’t want to become an engineer.
For one year, I studied new interfaces for digital art and creation which was more interesting to me. From there, I attempted to try and make my art my living, which I was practising alongside my studies. It’s funny because at first, I didn’t want to become an artist at all.
You touched on your musical background. What type of music were you creating around this time?
I’m so old that I was playing the guitar in a post-rock band. At that time, social media and the internet weren’t a part of our lives like nowadays. We were a group of friends in a small town in France, playing in a cave with loud drums and a big guitar amp. We were just doing our own thing on the side.
When did you start to experiment with light and art? Was this around the same time as the music and physics and stuff?
It was around the same time. When we were playing in our band, we would control our lights. In the beginning, it was a simple setup. We had just two par cans, and we tried to control them with Max MSP.
Can you remember when you decided to pursue light and art more seriously?
Yeah, I remember it exactly. I was in my car coming back from a job interview to become an engineer. The guy told me I would never be an engineer. It was very helpful to be honest, because he helped me decide my future.
And you formed Collectif Coin in 2013. What was going on in your life leading up to its creation? Was that job interview the trigger?
Actually, Collectif Coin was a thing from the start. Originally, it was a non-profit organization we used with the band. First, it was just an administrative structure, and then later, we tried to experiment with our friends in the band.
We started to do performances, photography, video, and stuff like that. By the end of university, everyone was looking for ‘real jobs’ and I kept the collective going. Collectif Coin was a real collective, but it’s not the case anymore. Now it’s more like my company, but I kept the name because it’s my history. For me, it’s important to rely on that.
Where does the name come from?
It’s a very long time ago, but the inspiration came from a bottle of beer, I think. Sometimes there is beauty in the simplicity.
Choreographed performance and contemporary dance have been key features in your previous work. Is dance another passion of yours?
I am interested in movement. Human movement, light movement, object movement. They are basically the same things. For me, everything is choreography. The forces at play through different movements and the physics that holds everything together are what interests me. On our website, you can find some of our old projects that have included live dancers, buildings and such. I’m not a dancer or a choreographer, and I can’t really work with a dancer by myself, but I love to work with choreographers.
Did you feel that this interest in human movement influenced the development of other projects like MA or Atraxie that were more mechanical in their form?
For me, they are both the same thing. If you look at Atraxie, it has 15 poles, and each pole is some kind of a dancer, moving slowly, so yeah, when I work just with machines, there is an influence there.
When I work with people, I guess there is some influence as well. What I am trying to do is replicate some movement or feeling we can have with the dancers or machines. When you experience MA or Atraxie, I think you can find something very organic.
Technology and invention are at the heart of Collectif Coin. When it comes to design where do you begin?
Each time it’s quite different, but It’s kind of always a similar kind of thing. I always need to build something, so if I don’t build a setup, it’s not right for me. Firstly, I ask myself: what do I need? It all depends on what kind of movement I want to achieve.
I don’t draw, and I don’t know how to make 3D modelling or stuff like this either, so it starts in our workshop with a rod of steel. With the material, it’s kind of a direct relationship, and it often starts with a rod and a rope that I attach to the ceiling. Then I try to make it move. Sometimes I achieve something, and when I’m working in the workshop with the equipment and the material I come up with a more conceptual idea. This is where my physics background comes into play.
I have only studied physics for five years, so there are still things that I don’t understand. It’s a form of poetry for me. When you read the theory of relativity and when you see that, for example, time travel is something real that can be experienced, to me, that is amazing!
What’s next for Collectif Coin?
By the end of 2024/beginning of 2025, we have a lot of new setups. Our shows should be premiering, but we are still working on them. Everything comes very fast with Collectif Coin. All our projects are completed in urgency. It’s maybe eight or 12 months between the ID and the premier.
For now, we have two or three new ideas I want to work on. But I think we will have to do another interview in six or eight months, and then we will have lots of new things to talk about.
