Franciscopolis
Founded in 2012 by Jean-Michel Géridan and Yann Owens, Franciscopolis produces prints, multiples, artists' books, and essays on contemporary art.
This is an attempt to explore and push the boundaries of two different media by combining them ; an attempt also to test how far either art technique can stand its own in this confrontation. The challenge of finding a common iconic ground means translating every aspect of engraving into digital artwork, starting with the medium, the technology and even the very process of conception.
Franciscopolis aims to use mixed media to recycle images produced by other art forms and turn them into new, complex objects, in order to shed a radically different light on one medium and its destination, e.g. screenprinting and its place in art technologies. In addition, the cross-purposing of technologies and techniques can be seen as an attempt to counter the deterioration pinpointed in Rancière's concept of translational poetics, according to which downgrading occurs while bridging the gap between the virtual and the actual.