Etranges Exhibitions 2002 Benjamin Beaulieu __full__ | TRUSTED ◆ |

The centerpiece, however, was a machine Beaulieu called L’Automate à Regret . It was a crank-operated diorama. For two Euros, visitors could turn a brass wheel. Inside a mahogany box, tiny mechanical figures would reenact a memory—not a universal one, but a specific memory drawn from Beaulieu’s own childhood: a dog hit by a snowplow, a mother crying at a kitchen table, a birthday cake melting in the rain.

: Known for his "Révélations" project, which uses digital prints and installations to explore human intervention in nature, often featuring muted tones and organic matter like moss and leaves. Kevin Beaulieu etranges exhibitions 2002 benjamin beaulieu

Beaulieu lined the nave with 200 vintage suitcases, each slightly open, each containing a different, low-wattage light bulb and a handwritten letter addressed to a specific person: "For the man who sits alone in Café Central every Tuesday" or "For the woman who threw her wedding ring into the canal in 1989." The centerpiece, however, was a machine Beaulieu called

At the time, Étranges Exhibitions was shown at small media arts festivals (EMAFF in Barcelona, FILE São Paulo) and on a now-defunct web portal called Artefact 2002 . Critics were divided: some called it “pretentious net-art navel-gazing,” while others hailed it as a precursor to the post-internet uncanny later seen in artists like Jon Rafman or Petra Cortright. Inside a mahogany box, tiny mechanical figures would