july - september 2004	focus on film 12
no ghost just a shell by pierre huyghe and philippe parreno by Anabella Sánchez
			no ghost just a shell by pierre huyghe and philippe parreno about the work about the artist and her philosophy history opinions
about the work "No Ghost just a Shell" was initiated in 1999 when French artists, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno, got together to choose, from a stock of characters in a sales catalogue of Japanese manga characters, one that was best suited to what they were looking for. They found it in a vacuous schoolgirl they decided to name AnnLee and bought the image and copyrights for a mere 46,000 Yen (around 430 dollars). AnnLee stood out from the rest of the characters in the catalogue of Kworks, a design company, because she lacked, what? Everything. Except for her sad face, AnnLee is the perfect all purpose character. She has no special traits, sports no specific costume, has no catchy phrases, keeps no weapons, has no super powers, and that is why her price was so low in comparison to the other characters designed for commercial purposes. She was conceived as another extra, and because of her lack of truly effective means of survival, she was destined not to survive, which symbolizes both death as well as oblivion. By choosing her, the French artists rescued her from one of these two ends. Or from both. Or perhaps, from neither. Alas, with the rights and AnnLee in their possession, the artists invited several others to redesign the character adapting her to 3 D digital format and began to play with her, placing her in different situations. These situations can be seen in the seventeen final works that were created, and they are also the seventeen steps towards AnnLee s liberation. In addition to Huyghe and Parreno, other participants were François Curlet and the video Écrain Temoin (Witness screen) where, with her back to the audience, AnnLee reads the newspaper the artist ordered and paid to the person who responded to the ad in the paper; Rirkrit Tiravanija, who has the character read for eight hours from the text by Phillip K. Dick, "Do androids dream of electric sheep?"; Pierre Joseph and his piece "De la Lucidité"; Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, author of "AnnLee in Anzen Zone", where AnnLee "prophesies": "I warn every one of you: there will be no safety zone"; Henri Barande, Liam Gillick, M/M Paris, Melick Ohanian, Richard Phillips, Joe Scanlan and Vaney; with works ranging from short feature animations and movies lasting hours, lithograph posters, neon light images and fireworks, to installations. On their part, Huyghe and Parreno created works individually and together. Huyghe made two short feature films: "One million kingdoms", on display to high acclaim at the 2001 Venice Biennial, and "Two minutes out of time", that along with Parreno s "Anywhere out of the world", show AnnLee talking about herself, describing herself, in the third and first persons, respectively. "Quoting" AnnLee in Huyghe s piece, "Nobody planned she would ever have to speak. Given no particular ability to survive, she would probably be dead by now. This is her true story: a fictional character with a copyright designed by a company and proposed for sale. That s it. While waiting to be dropped into a story she has been diverted and has become what she is now: a deviant sign". Also, in keeping with instructions from Catherine Deneuve, who was invited to participate, both artists materialized the piece on view today, "Skin of light", where the purchased image of AnnLee is crystallized, sadness and all, in neon lights, which can be associated with the pinnacle of fame. Because of their persistence, these lights burn her figure, her ghost, onto the spectators retinas for some time after contemplating her. It is important to point out that the main title of the exhibit, "No ghost just a Shell" is not accidental, it plays on the 1995 film, "Ghost in the Shell", derived from Masamune Shirou s homonymous manga, in which the main character, Motoko Kusanagi, an android, wonders about its own humanity while struggling against its enemy, the ?Puppet Master". Thus, the title of the exhibit tests the audience s knowledge of the film, the concepts of humanity and the relationship between the puppet master and the puppet. And, if the film is unknown to the audience, it makes references to the sign void of meaning. Fortunately, Major Kusanagi does have the necessary weapons to put up a good fight against the puppet master.
about the artist and her philosophy As AnnLee s "life manifestations" come to light, you cannot help filling her with qualities, which is, let us not forget, her main quality: her emptiness, her endless capacity to change. In Huyghe s words, "She s just a virgin; we bought a virgin... what s interesting about this manga figure is that it s a way to tell a story. A sexual story? You can use her. A dark story? You can use her. A nice story? You can use this character. She s almost like a tool". It is hard to talk about AnnLee as if she were a subject, but if we consider the words of her other puppet master, it is the way we should refer to her. Parreno explains: "work with her, in a real story, translate her capabilities into psychological traits, lend her a character, a text, a denunciation, and address to the Court a trial in her defense? Do all that you can so that this character lives different stories and experiences. So that she can act as a sign, as a live logo". Generally, an artistic project is not finished but surpassed by another. This is not the case of the project, "No ghost...". Part of it consisted in, upon finalizing the manifestations of the character, signing over the copyright in accordance with statutes. This means that there will no longer be any possible "performances" or representations. There will be no merchandising, or public appearances or commercials. The moment AnnLee belongs to herself and stops being a puppet thus acquiring autonomy, she will die, because she is unable to animate herself. The legal document was part of the exhibit presented by artist, Joe Scanlan, who in his latest installation "Last Call (Do it yourself)" displayed a copy of this document along with a white coffin in reference to the death of the sign that was once AnnLee in one of the three cold rooms that made up the travelling exhibit. The artists, to a certain extent, achieved what they had planned: to save the character from an industry that, sooner or later, would have killed her. Of course, her complete liberation also implied her death. It is impossible to describe the philosophy that inspired the project "No ghost..." without considering the artists birthplace. Not surprisingly it is France, birthplace of artists such as Duchamp, author of 20th century fetish artworks, such as the ready mades, of gibes of art from the past and of the life of his alter ego, Rrose Sélavy and part of the Dadaist movement, the father of conceptual art where the focus is on discussions on authenticity, authorship and theoretical supporting information, among others. From her multiple appearances, AnnLee is thought provoking, touching on subjects such as empty signs, life, death, and the risks of unlimited reproduction in the digital era. Going back to Duchamp s work, in many aspects it is easy to identify it with that of artists, Parreno and Huyghe: both are thought provoking, both can be easily reproduced and in both, ideas are more important than the visual. In many regards, AnnLee functions as a Duchampian bride; except that, instead of being "undressed by Bachelors", they "dress" her during the seventeen life experiences they grant her. And then, they disconnect her.
Bio Pierre Huyghe was born in 1962 in Paris, where he lives and works. He attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, where he graduated in 1985. He has participated in several group as well as individual exhibits, at venues such as the Guggenheim Museum of New York, the Kunsthaus Bergenz gallery of Austria, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art of the Ville de Paris. He has also presented his work at the Documenta 11 of Kassel in 2002, the Manifesta 2 of Luxembourg and Biennials such as the 1995 Biennial of Contemporary Art, the 1997 Johannesburg Biennial, the 1999 Istanbul Biennial and the 2001 Venice Biennial, where he presented his animations of AnnLee. Philippe Parreno was born in 1964 in Oran, Algeria, and currently lives and works in Paris. He attended the School of Fine Arts of Grenoble and the Institute of higher studies of Fine Arts in Paris. He has participated in numerous group exhibits in London, Austria, Tokyo, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Paris and New York, among others, and also in individual exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art of the Ville de Paris, France; the San Francisco Art Institute, United States; and the Institute of Visual Culture of Cambridge, England.
history "No Ghost just a Shell" was not conceived by the anonymous designer of the quality lacking character AnnLee, but by her having been chosen in 1999 from other options in the Kworks catalogue. "No Ghost..." was initially on view at the Kunsthalle Zurich in late 2002 and curated by the two original artists, Huyghe and Parreno. In January of this year it was on display in England, at the Institute of Visual Culture of Cambridge and, almost simultaneously, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, United States. It was the product of many years of work and of varying forms of research leading to the liberation of the character. As previously explained, a project is not finished, rather it is surpassed, and this is not the case. Is there any other final way than to exhibit AnnLee s coffin along with the document purporting her liberation / sentence? The answer is yes, and this final point was reached a little over a year ago, on December 4th, 2002, when at the new art fair, Art Basel Miami Beach, the character reached its end with her sad face drawn in neon lights and fireworks for the last time in the Miami sky, to later disappear and fade into the night.
opinions
Marcia Tanner (Curator and art critic) "They started filling her in, so to speak, and expanding the French Surrealist tradition of the "exquisite corpse" they lent her free of charge to other artists they commissioned to do likewise. Since AnnLee s life expectancy had been short to begin with, the artists were arguably doing her a favor. Thanks to her new handlers she acquired an identity, multiple identities, in fact, and a voice, several voices. She achieved something approaching self consciousness. Her existence was prolonged; she d have experiences her original creators had never dreamed of for her". Philip Nobel (Critic of design and architecture) "Huyghe is careful to avoid the word "death", preferring to posit Ann in some never never Valhalla where meted signs talk among themselves for all eternity. But now that the work around Ann has humanized her so relentlessly, it s not hard not to imagine for her a conventional mortality. In AnnLee, Huyghe, Parreno et al. have found a disarming Lolita vector for oblique mediations on death (?) To artists involved, this experiment is about naming, signification, the creation of a platform for the artistic community, even about the perils of copyright in the digital age (?) (and) the limits of vitality".

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