La Maison du Geste et de l'Image is a research center and arts education that serves students from Paris and suburbs for creative workshops. Its main task is to put students in direct contact with the creation to enable them to engage in collective action and to realize their own artistic sensibility. The demand expressed by the MGI team focuses on creation able to support this process of emancipation. The team also wanted to open a discussion on the visibility of the place, which, located in the heart of Les Halles in Paris, hides behind tinted windows.

À Distances is an interactive installation by artist Samuel Bianchini for the House of gesture and image ( MGI ) .
A black monolith is installed in the main window of the MGI , facing Place de la Fontaine des innocent. Black in the absence of the public, it illuminates when somone passes by. As the public keeps at a distance, the work displays an image, a portrait seen from the back. Approaching, the passer takes the place of the representation which becomes progressively light. Taking an unusual mode of the history of art, the portrait from the back, this device invites us to discover an image that eludes us as that it enlightens us. An image that inspires us to become public and, perhaps, actor. A unique way for the MGI, to challenge us and to represent its mission on this animated square in the heart of Paris.

Samuel Bianchini, artist and resecher, lives and works in Paris. He shows regularly in France and abroad. His work investigates the impact of technology on modes of representation, on our new forms of aesthetic experiences and our socio-political organizations. To bring his projects to fruition, he collaborates with scientists and technology research centers. In tight correlation with his artistic practice, Samuel Bianchini has undertaken theoretical work.