Small Renderings Lack No Breadth of Vision:
The Art of Simulacra in Daniel Corbeil

Is it all that surprising that scale models have likely always been an object of fascination for the human mind? Children’s games confirm the human inclination to make small-scale reproductions of objects whose large dimensions are often difficult to see or apprehend. So familiar is the miniature’s virtual representation of the world, we sometimes ­forget its fictional nature. The small-scale model is indeed founded on the ­conventions of verisimilitude, which, while implicitly assimilating the object and its representation, allow one to play on differences of nature and scale, thus enabling effects of simulacra, which postmodern art and thought are particularly fond of.1 1  - Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, 1996). On the notion of simulacra in art history, see Michael Camille, “Simulacrum,” in Critical Terms for Art History, Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 35-48.

In recent years, many artists — among them, Kim Adams, Oliver  Boberg, Christian Carez, Philippe De Gobert, Stéphane Gilot, David Hoffos, Holly King, and Bernard Voïta — have exploited the possibilities afforded by models, sometimes in conjunction with video and photography, with respect to dissimulation and the refraction of the real.² 2 - Camille Morineau, “Images du soupçon: photographie de maquettes,” art press, No. 264 (January 2001): 33-40. In this group, Daniel Corbeil, known for his landscape models, is one whose ­production, both installational and photographic, has been readily associated with the idea of simulacra.³ 3 - John K. Grande, “Daniel Corbeil,” Artforum (October 1998): 131. Driven by thoughts on the rapport between nature and industrial development,⁴ 4 - On this topic, see John K. Grande, Balance: Art and Nature (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1994). particularly the transformations that ­urbanization imposes on northern environments, Corbeil’s work has, since the 1990s, explored various facets of simulation in the form of maquettes and scale models.⁵ 5 - On this subject, see Jocelyne Fortin, L’art du canular, booklet accompanying Daniel Corbeil’s exhibition “Machine volante, leurre et réalité,” presented at the Musée régional de Rimouski, from June 19 to September 11, 2005. While it is difficult to take into account Corbeil’s entire production — tied as it is with the scale model paradigm — one can nonetheless highlight some aspects of his work on formal representations of the effects of global warming on the countryside.⁶ 6 - The very title of his recent exhibition at AXENÉO7, “Maquettes et autres dispositifs climatiques” (February 3 to March 7, 2010) underlines the artist’s use of the miniature in the framework of environmental concerns. Environmental concerns, though not the sole focus in the artist’s production, are prevalent throughout his use of and singular engagement with reduced scale models. At a time when computer technologies foster an increasingly abstract and, in some sense, disembodied projection of the model, Corbeil takes the opposite tack. He embraces complexity, detail, and texture, thus providing a sensuously generous experience,⁷ 7 - Gentiane Bélanger, “Faire avec la nature des choses,” ETC, No. 88 (2010): 4 and 10. as replete as the world the model is ostensibly reflecting. Suggestive in its way of both the mechanistic ­precision of Kim Adams’ installations and the poetic atmosphere of Holly King’s photography, this sensualist approach to modelled landscape emphasizes the materiality of the scale model; it recalls the golden age of film and television models,⁸ 8 - This golden age occurred in the 1960s; see Derek Meddings’ 21st Century Visions (Limpsfield: Dragon’s World, 1993), devoted to Gerry Anderson’s model sets and puppet work, or “supermarionation,” for television. espousing the literalness of representation while transcending it by revealing the simulation. Indeed, through artifices of sculptural and photographic staging, Corbeil’s works are flagrantly obvious about the simulation, leaving spectators in admiration of the construction in its own right. Small renderings lack no breadth of vision: on the contrary, miniatures may encompass things which, by their size, often escape our perception, just as the telescope or microscope can bring the infinitely distant or infinitely small into light. Favouring that most improbable of human experiences — aerial perspective — Corbeil practices a somewhat expressionistic form of model-making. His excruciating attention to detail interrogates the assumptions of the spectator’s perceptions. Since the miniature, in many respects, can seem more real than life, it speaks to our way of apprehending the world, suggesting how constructed and artificial that apprehension is, more indebted to current images than to true personal experience. In other words, the “realist” attributes of Corbeil’s landscapes are not meant to create a seamless illusion. It is all a question of scale; looking closer, one sees that the overall effect is a sham, because not only are the model’s components eminently constructed, they may even be foreign to the environment they point to — whether natural or human. Thus, in Topographie aérienne du Moyen-Nord, site n^o 30 (2000), a hotchpotch of used objects — electronic circuits, various metallic objects, rugs — come together to form a whole that isn’t merely the sum of its parts, as evinced by the presence of the flying contraptions and the heightened sense of perceptual depth resulting from it. To ensure the illusion is flawed, Corbeil has also incorporated peculiar objects that break the realist convention and steer the apparently ordinary landscape toward other purposes, some in the realm of science-fiction — though we don’t quite know what to make of those strange propellers breaking through the earth’s crust.