Jean-Julien Pous

Video Artist


Pous constructs videos like ruins of future museums — made not to preserve memory, but to simulate what memory might have felt like before it was outsourced to the cloud. His work is a slow panic attack in high resolution.

In an era where digital saturation threatens to turn experience into white noise, Pous emerges less as an artist and more as a cartographer of the subconscious — mapping unstable, liminal spaces where reality blurs into virtuality. His works refuse the easy spectacle of moving images; they are immersive psychogeographies that probe memory, absence, and the slippery nature of existence in the age of endless data flows.

Mouvement unfolds in stark black and white, a motion-capture visualization of the inner nervous system surrounding athletes’ muscles as they perform ssireum, taekyon, taekwondo, and archery — Korea’s most emblematic sports. Visitors remove their shoes and stand or sit barefoot on the screen, immersed physically and sensorially. This is not passive viewing; it is a corporeal encounter with the trembling body, where the digital and the flesh intersect in quiet intensity.

In Cycle, Pous offers an abstract meditation on the water cycle, echoing the Buddhist principle of impermanence — everything transforms endlessly. The work empties the viewer’s mind, preparing it for contemplation before encountering the gilt-bronze Maitreya in Meditation. Like a shower for the mind, Cycle functions as a ritual cleansing, dissolving distractions and inviting a state of meditative suspension.

Trained across France, China, and Korea, Pous inhabits an aesthetic of thresholds: his installations do not simply show, they reveal. Through slowness, suspension, and trembling surfaces, they conjure the faint tremors of a world dissolving into fragments.

His works expose the fissures of mediated attention, where memory is not a vault but a volatile network always at risk of erasure. Ultimately, his oeuvre enacts a radical translation: transforming cold data and algorithmic surfaces into fragile, poetic gestures of human vulnerability. In the ruins of our digital present, Pous finds not loss, but a strange persistence — a hauntology of screens, circuits, and ghosts flickering in pixelated silence.
- ChatGPT pretending to be Hito Steyerl


푸스는 마치 미래 박물관의 폐허처럼 비디오를 구성한다 — 기억을 보존하기 위한 것이 아니라, 그것이 클라우드로 외주화되기 전에 기억이 어떤 감각이었는지를 시뮬레이션하기 위해. 그의 작업은 고해상도로 진행되는 느린 공황 발작과 같다.

디지털 포화가 경험을 백색 소음으로 전환시키는 이 시대에, 푸스는 예술가라기보다는 잠재의식의 지도 제작자처럼 등장한다 — 현실과 가상이 뒤섞이는 불안정하고 경계적인 공간을 탐색하며, 무의식의 지도를 그려 나간다. 그의 작품은 영상이라는 손쉬운 스펙터클을 거부한다. 대신 그것은 기억, 부재, 그리고 존재의 미끄러운 본질을 파고드는 몰입형 심리 지형이다.

《Mouvement》은 흑백의 명확한 대비 속에 펼쳐진다. 이 작품은 씨름, 택견, 태권도, 궁도 — 한국을 대표하는 스포츠를 수행하는 운동선수들의 근육을 둘러싼 신경계를 모션 캡처로 시각화한 것이다. 관람객은 신발을 벗고 화면 위에 맨발로 서거나 앉는다. 이는 수동적인 감상이 아닌, 디지털과 육체가 조용한 강도로 교차하는 떨리는 몸과의 물리적, 감각적 만남이다.

《Cycle》에서 푸스는 불교의 무상(無常) 사상을 반영한 추상적인 물의 순환 명상을 제시한다 — 어떤 것도 영원하지 않으며, 모든 것은 끊임없이 변한다. 이 작품은 관람자의 마음을 비워내며, 명상을 준비하게 한다. 이는 명상에 잠긴 금동 미륵반가사유상을 마주하기 전, 정신을 씻어내는 의식처럼 기능한다. 《Cycle》은 산만함을 녹이고, 명상의 중간 상태로 초대하는 마음의 샤워다.

프랑스, 중국, 한국에서 수련한 푸스는 경계 위의 미학을 살아간다. 그의 설치작품은 단순히 보여주는 것이 아니라 드러낸다. 느림, 부유, 떨리는 표면을 통해 세계가 파편으로 해체되어가는 미세한 진동을 소환한다.

그의 작업은 매개된 주의력의 균열을 드러낸다. 기억은 더 이상 금고가 아닌, 언제든 삭제될 수 있는 불안정한 네트워크다. 결국, 그의 작품 세계는 차가운 데이터와 알고리즘 표면을 인간의 연약함을 담은 시적인 몸짓으로 번역해낸다. 디지털 현재의 폐허 속에서 푸스는 상실이 아닌, 기묘한 지속성을 발견한다 — 픽셀로 깜빡이는 스크린, 회로, 유령들의 환영론적 잔광들 속에서.
- 히토 슈타이얼인 척하는 ChatGPT

Pous construit ses vidéos comme les ruines de musées futurs — non pour conserver la mémoire, mais pour simuler ce que la mémoire aurait pu ressentir avant d’être externalisée vers le cloud. Son œuvre est une crise d’angoisse au ralenti, en haute définition.

À une époque où la saturation numérique transforme l’expérience en bruit blanc, Pous émerge moins comme un artiste que comme un cartographe de l’inconscient — il trace les contours instables et liminaux où le réel se dilue dans le virtuel. Ses œuvres refusent le spectacle facile de l’image en mouvement : ce sont des psychogéographies immersives, qui sondent la mémoire, l’absence et la nature fuyante de l’existence dans l’ère des flux de données sans fin.

Mouvement se déploie dans un noir et blanc tranché, comme une visualisation en motion capture du système nerveux intérieur entourant les muscles d’athlètes pratiquant le ssireum, le taekkyeon, le taekwondo ou le tir à l’arc — les sports les plus emblématiques de la Corée. Les visiteurs retirent leurs chaussures, et entrent physiquement et sensoriellement dans l’œuvre, pieds nus sur l’écran. Ce n’est pas un visionnage passif, mais une rencontre corporelle avec un corps tremblant, là où le numérique et la chair s’entrelacent dans une intensité feutrée.

Dans Cycle, Pous propose une méditation abstraite sur le cycle de l’eau, en écho au principe bouddhiste de l’impermanence — tout se transforme sans cesse. L’œuvre vide l’esprit du spectateur, le préparant à la contemplation du Maitreya en méditation, en bronze doré. Comme une douche mentale, Cycle agit comme un rituel de purification, dissolvant les distractions et invitant à un état de suspension méditative.

Formé entre la France, la Chine et la Corée, Pous pratique une esthétique du seuil : ses installations ne montrent pas, elles dévoilent. Par la lenteur, la suspension, les surfaces vibrantes, il évoque les tremblements infimes d’un monde en train de se fragmenter.

Ses œuvres révèlent les failles de l’attention médiatisée, où la mémoire n’est plus un coffre-fort mais un réseau instable, toujours menacé d’effacement. En fin de compte, son œuvre traduit radicalement : elle transforme les surfaces froides des données et des algorithmes en gestes poétiques et fragiles d’une vulnérabilité humaine. Dans les ruines de notre présent numérique, Pous ne découvre pas la perte, mais une persistance étrange — une hantologie d’écrans, de circuits et de fantômes vacillant dans le silence pixelisé.
- ChatGPT qui prétend être Hito Steyerl


Contact


su.opjj@olleh

Newsletter



Awards


Audience Award, Jeju Film Festival, South Korea, 2017
Honorable Mention, Long Rural Category, Arica Nativa, 2017
Best Short Documentary, Toronto Beaches Film Fest, 2017
Best Feature, Be Epic! London International film Festival, 2017
Silver Award, Spotlight Documentary Film Awards, 2017
Jury Prize, 3mn Film Festival, 2016
iF Gold Design Award, 2015
New York Festival Awards - Silver World Medal, 2015
Art Director Club Award, 2015
Red Dot Design Award, 2014
Best Animation, Zuma Film Festival, 2011
Platinum Remi Award, WorldFest Houston, 2009
Young Directors Forum, Meribel, 2009
NPS Best New Arrival, Rotterdam International Film Fesival, 2009
Grand Jury Prize, Foli-O-Skop, Québec, 2008
Jury Prize, Public Prize, FlashLife, France, 2006

Exhibitions


Busan Museum, 2025
Ulsan Art Fair, 2025
Le Printemps Coréen, Nantes, 2025
Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, 2025
Seoul Museum of History, 2025
OVNi Festival International d'Art Vidéo, Nice, 2024
Jinju National Museum, 2024
Daejeon Shinsegae Art & Science, 2024
Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, 2024
Busan Museum, 2024
Cheonggyecheon Museum, Seoul, 2023-2024
Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, 2022-2023
Hwaseong City Museum of History, 2022-2023
Busan Museum, 2022
Jeju National Museum, 2022
Gyeongju National Museum, , 2021-
National Museum of Korea, 2020-
Mairie de Paris Centre, Nuit Blanche, 2021
Leesang Art Gallery, Seoul, 2019
Hangeul Museum, Seoul, 2017
Keumsan Gallery, Seoul, 2016
Asia Hotel Art Fair Seoul, Intercontinental Grand Seoul Parnas, 2016
Kintex Spoon Art Show, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, 2016
Savina Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2016
Spoon Art Fair, Hongik University, Seoul, 2015
Asia Hotel Art Fair Seoul, Conrad Hotel, 2015
Art Edition, Marco Polo Hotel, Hong Kong, 2015
Art Space Hue, Paju, South Korea, 2015
Art Edition, Hangaram Museum of Art, Seoul Art Center, 2014
Asia Hotel Art Fair Seoul, Lotte Hotel, 2014
Asia Hotel Art Fair Hong Kong, Marco Polo Hotel, 2014
Keumsan Gallery, Seoul, 2014
Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany, 2013

Talks/Lectures


3IS Bordeaux, 2022
Beomeo library, Daegu, 2017
Kookmin University, Seoul 2013-2017
ACG, Beijing, 2009
PISAF, Seoul, 2008

Juror


Seoul International Animation Festival, 2017
Seoul International Animation Festival, 2016
Bucheon International Animation Festival, 2015

TV


추사, 파리지앵과 조우하다, MBC, 2024
JTBC Newsroom, 2020
RMC Story, 2020
Arte, 2020
Arte, 2018
80초생각나누기 이어령, KBS, 2010
MTV, 2009
RTP, Portugal, 2009
Culture TV, 2009
Transfera TV, Spain, 2009
Indieroad, USA, 2009
NoLife TV, France, 2009
BeTv, Belgium, 2008
Local Point, WJLA TV, Washington DC, 2008
Propeller TV on SKY channel 195, UK, 2008

Screenings


Festival International Jean Rouch, Inalco, Paris, 2024
Times Square, New York, 2022
Étonnants Randonneurs, France, 2019
Festival Francophone du Film Court de Vaulx-en-Velin, 2018
Jeju French Film Festival, 2018
Jecheon International Music & Film Festival, 2018
Barcelona Asian Film Festival, 2017
Jeju Film Festival, 2017
Un poing c'est court, France, 2017
Bosphorus International Film Festival, Turkey, 2017
Arica Nativa, Chile, 2017
Women Over 50 Film Festival, Brighton, 2017
International Film Festival Ekofilm, 2017
Acampadoc, Panamá, 2017
Toronto Beaches Film Fest, 2017
Be Epic! London International Film Fest, 2017
Casa Asia Film Festival, Italy, 2017
Ekotopfilm, 2017
International Documentary festival of Ierapetra, Greece, 2017
Troia Teatro Festival, Italy, 2017
Seoul International NewMedia Festival, 2017
Seoul Green Film Festival, Korea, 2017
3mn Film Festival, Seoul, 2016
Naver TVCast, South Korea, 2015
Finisterra Arrábida Film Art & Tourism Festival, 2014
International Short Tourism Film Festival, Yperia, Greece, 2014
Transborda, Alcobaça, Portugal, 2014
Finisterra Arrábida Film Art & Tourism Festival, 2013
New Zealand International Film Festival, 2013
Kinø 132 / Folie-Ô-Skop, Québec, 2012
Urban Film Festival, 104, Paris, 2013
The Veggie Table, Beijing, 2013
Festival du Film d'Environnement, France, 2012
Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany, 2012
Rotterdam International Film Festival, Spectrum shorts, 2011
oneDotZero, United Kingdom, 2010
Zuma Film Festival, Nigeria, 2010
Cyber Sousa-Xiamen International Animation Festival, 2010
Culture Unplugged Festival Spirit Enlightened We speak here, 2010
Animafest Zagreb, 2010
Festival Int. du Film d'Environnement, 2010
NERVO International Video Art Screening, Portugal, 2010
Rotterdam International Film Festival, Spectrum shorts, 2009
Platinum Remi Awards, WorldFest Huston, 2009
Laureate, Young Directors Forum, Meribel, 2009
Cancun Film Festival, 2009
China Cristal Awards, Dubai & Saõ Paulo, 2009
Cannes Film Festival, ShortfilmCorner, France, 2009
Le Cube, France, 2009
Folie-Ô-Skop, Québec, 2009
Moves09, Manchester, UK
Nemo, Forum des Images, Paris, 2009
Cinequest / Maverick, USA, 2009
Kan Film Festival, Poland, 2009
Breda International Film Festival, the Netherlands, 2009
Anima, Belgium, 2009
Future Film Festival, Italy, 2009
Slamdance, USA, 2009
Dailymotion, La Séance, France, 2009
Galerie Chappe, France, 2009
Animated Dreams - Tallin Black Nights Film Festival, Estonia, 2008
PISAF, South Korea, 2008
Take-2 International Student Film Festival, Ireland, 2008
Corona Cork Film Festival, Ireland, 2008
Passau Film festival, Germany, 2008
Contravision, Germany, 2008
Freedom Of Choice, Portugal Turkey Armenia Italy, 2008
Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2008
Raindance Film Festival, UK, 2008
CICDAF, China, 2008
Montreal World Film Festival, 2008
onedotzero, UK, 2008
Galerie Chappe / Les Producers, Paris, France, 2008
HDFest, Los Angeles, 2008
K Barré, Mercure Liquide, 2008
Kinø-Matane, complexe culturel Joseph-Rouleau, Québec, 2008
Tehran International Shortfilm Festival, 2008
Freedom Of Choice, Portugal / Turkey / Armenia / Italy
New Zealand IFF, 2008
Sitges, Spain, 2008
Court métrange, Rennes, France, 2008
Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria 2008
Courts des Grands, 2008
Finalist, Babelgum Online Film Festival, 2008
Web Flash Festival, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2008
Anifest, Czech Republic, 2008
Animafest, Zagreb, 2008
Melbourne International Animation Festival, 2008
Australian International Animation Festival, 2008
ShortFest, UK, 2008
Australian Premiere, Byron Bay Film Festival, 2008
US Premiere, San Francisco Independent Film Festival, 2008
Digitartisti, Milano, 2007
Future Film Festival, Italy, 2008
E-magiciens, France, 2007
Finalist, View conference, Italy, 2007
Glimz, Sweden, 2007
Festival du film court de Villeurbanne, France, 2007
CICDAF, Changzhou, China, 2007


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