Research

Archives at screen: spectatorial experiences of databases

PhD in Esthetics, Paris-Nanterre University

My research in esthetics questions the reading of archival material once a database isn't designed as a tool for research, but as a means of an esthetic experience, while still working through indexation. This implies an absence of narrative that most artistic experiments around archive relied on, questioning at the same time what writing history meant: so what remains of the archive on screen when no narrative is sollicited?

This path leads us to departing the archive of the ideology that created it, but also to unveiling the transparency of the screen, in the same movement: what remains is the technical and therefore, material aspect of both of them. Our problem is then to reconcile the inner logics of technicity with an interactive experience of trace: in this perspective, not only is it necessary to ponder on the specific spaces created to display databases, it is also primordial to question what kind of duration these spaces provide. The term "user" is no longer appropriate: as the interaction doesn't rely on the usual association action/reaction, but on a new kind of motion, through wich the nature of the archival content becomes self-explainatory.

Editing Électre: a curatorial experiment around Antoine Vitez' archives

Post-master's degree in type design,
at the National Atelier for Typographic design, Nancy

This research project in graphic design questions the way we show archival resources online.
If we take a look at the recent governmental applications, we notice that in 2013, the OpenData circulatory was adopted in Europe: this one led to the massive creation of websites offering databases and graphics, showing anything related to the public domain in a pseudo ultra-transparency – including archives. The aim of this project was to reconsider the analytic point of view of the database, and try to show a specific point of view on an archival fonds. This statement led to the creation of a «virtual exhibition» of the archives related to the three stagings of Electra by the French stage-setter Antoine Vitez: the event of the performance being lost, the issue was to create another kind of experience, which would be more related to the notion of historicity. This could be antithetic with the support, here a website; it takes form through extractions of manuscripts, videos, photographs inserted in the text of the antic play, playing on the materiality of the archival ressources and the historical imaginary that surrounds them.

Authorship in constraints of reproduction: the graphic designer's manoeuvres in editions of Tristram Shandy

Master's degree in Media Studies, CELSA, Paris IV

The goal of this thesis was to explore the notion of "graphisme d'auteur" in the transmission of patrimonial content such as literary classics. While confronting the problem of transmission with the emergence of thenartist as a genius, the aim was to think of a graphic design ethic towards creation and transmission.

Publications & Contributions

"Archive et détermination technique: le bug comme dépense", contribution to the international colloquium "When the Interface Slips Away", 26/11/2019, Université Paris 8 / Archives Nationales.

"Des transformations médiatiques des œuvres" in Vikhi Vahavek: biographie d'une artiste très professionnelle, édition Les Commissaires Anonymes, 2020.

"Le design graphique au prisme de la transcréation", revue Appareil [online], to be published.

""Stables et artificielles": les archives en ligne à travers le travail de Hanne Darboven", in Revue Proteus, no 17, esthétique et politique de l’archive en art, Cyrielle Lévêque et Mélodie Marull (coord.), 2021, p. 106-117.

"Visible language ou des mobilités du texte", contribution to the 13th editionn of the Printemps de la Typographie, 2022.

About

Gabriele Cepulyte is a graphic designer, type designer and researcher based in Paris, France. Her work ranges from visual identity, editorial design, signage to web design. She also teaches history and theory of graphic design. Her research deals with the esthetics of archive at the age of the screen.

Contact

contact[at]gabriele-cepulyte.com
(+33)6 80 48 73 51

Fonts

If you want to buy a font, please send an e-mail to contact[at]gabriele-cepulyte.com. If you want to try one, ask for a demo version.

• Editorial
• Identity
• Type
• Posters
• Web