In his exhibition, 'Room', at Dulcinea, the iron shaped gap (figure) Denis Pondruel has been placing in different spaces repeatedly in his work for many years, aiming to create a meaning full space within the iron shaped gap itself, is taking on a different meaning this time in this installation questioning new technologies. Also in his previous work, Pondruel had placed his iron shaped hole in both public and private places. In this case, the entrance of the hole is not situated in a place where entrance becomes impossible like in his previous work in a lake in Enghien, but in the art space in Dulcinea. The images coming from a camera placed randomly in the train station of the city Amiens, are being transfered by the most disctinct technology of our day, the internet, and projected on this structure in Dulcinea. The images from the internet projected on a secreen, bring us the images of the people walking in the train station on line, in shadow like forms. By blowing up this screen, the projected images become life size and the shadows of the viewers in the gallery fall on the same screen with light of the projector which creates the impression that they are occupying the same space. This draws the viewer into a magical atmosphere; the neon lights and the light of the internet.

In this work which questions the significance of the new technologies in the interlocking of time and space, Denis Pondruel chooses to place the opening ( which, on its own, forms the iron shaped hole he deals with each time) on the enormous screen where virtual images are projected on raising issues about the stress between the virtual and the real. Which images are we a part of? Will the possibility of seeing what is real exist, when our shadows mix into the characters on the screen? On a rhetoric questioning the differences between simulation and the real, coming from this philosophical background, the artist chooses to focus on this interesting moment; what kind of thoughts can it evoke when the opening is placed on the virtual images? Which images can present the moment directly? To what extent is existance possible in the world of images? At this point, we face the problems of the concepts of the famous French philosopher, Derida, on existance and difference. To what extent are these on line images capable of providing an on line reality? Is there also a differenece in time with on line images? According to Derida, we are presently living in a culture of 'difference' and every absent existance has to leave behind a representation, a trace. This also stands out as the main issue in Denis Pondruel's work.

Pondruel is showing us the invisibile nature the physical in our lives has taken on by opening a hole in the screen, (in the same way Fontana makes a cut in the canvas with a knife to remind the viewer that reality is not on the canvas but in the invisible behind it) and having the dancer perform behind the images on the screen, still maintaining his invisibilty.

In today's world where everything is starting to get operated through nonmaterial ways (money being replaced by credit cards, chats over a cup of coffee being replaced by chats on the internet, sexual realtionships involving the the physical touch being replaced by virtual sexs), in other words becoming postmodernised, the materializing and the coming into existance of the invisible empose a question about art and esthetics: what is the figure? Gerard Genette defines the figure as the space between the idea and the actual work of the artist.

This 'space' is appearent in Pondruel's work. In this case, figure becomes the space between the actual ability of language (what the artist says) and the virtual ability of language (the outcome of the simple, common expression). If this space is reflected upon the expression of the artist as virtuality, the virtual ability of language overlaps with the real one more time. We can feel this overlapping of the two virtual aspects, when the vision which derived from the common language of the viewer overlapps with the virtual image of the artist. This is when the iron shaped hole brings us to the essence of the artist's expression. Obviously, the people passing through the Amiens trainstation as virtual images overlap with the virtual language of the viewer and the hole in between points out, in a literal way, the space where the figure is formed. This hole esthetically formed by the artist is not at all an empty space; it presents itself as a space which can be occupied any moment and can contain a presence. When the performing dancer is placed in this space, he continues his presence in the flesh behind the images passing through the gar. Although this physicality which stands behind the virtual, hides the ideological structure (nation, extreme-capital) that lies behind the 'generation y' of this virtual period of the internet, it can not make it nonexistant.

Ali Akay, Milliyet Sanat, June 2000.