Ethics

Room to take part. Room to step away.

L’Élanographe explores how words, rules, habits, interfaces and systems shape the directions available to us. Some of the situations it engages with may involve uncertainty, conflict or unequal power to act. Working with them requires attention to who sets the frame, who can change it, what participation may ask of someone, and what happens to the traces an encounter leaves behind.

The following principles guide the development of its artistic and research propositions. They apply to the way invitations are made, situations are activated, materials are documented and contributions are shared.

Four commitments remain central:

• Participation is voluntary;
• Silence, refusal and withdrawal are valid responses;
• Participation, documentation and publication are separate choices;
• No therapeutic effect or personal transformation is promised or inferred.

These principles are part of an ongoing practice. They may be revised as projects develop and as their limitations become perceptible.

Begin from a situated position

Every proposition begins somewhere: with a person, a question, a history, a setting and a series of material and editorial choices. The words selected, the roles assigned, the duration of an encounter and the design of a space or interface all influence what can happen.

L’Élanographe does not occupy a neutral position outside these conditions. Its founder’s experience as an artist, researcher, coach and mediator informs the questions she notices and the methods she develops. These practices remain distinct, but their proximity requires particular attention to boundaries, authority and interpretation.

The person who designs a proposition is responsible for making its context, intentions and limits explicit. Participants may understand or use a device differently than anticipated. Such differences are not errors to be corrected: they may call the initial proposition, its language or its conditions into question.

Power is not evenly distributed within an artistic or research situation. Institutional roles, professional relationships, funding structures, employment, age, language, disability, social position and familiarity with contemporary art can affect how freely someone feels able to respond. An invitation may carry pressure even when none is intended.

Responsibility for recognising and revising these conditions remains with the person who designed the proposition. It is not transferred to participants through their involvement or consent.

Make constraints perceptible

Every frame distributes possibilities: who speaks, what can move, how long something lasts, what remains visible and what stays out of reach. A game, an open instruction or an invitation to participate does not automatically make these conditions equal.

L’Élanographe seeks to make constraints available for observation and, where possible, negotiation. This includes the constraints introduced by its own instruments: a page, a rule, a screen, a score, a spatial arrangement or an expected form of response.

Making a constraint perceptible is not the same as resolving it. Moving a sign on a screen may open a question; changing the institutional or material circumstances to which that sign refers may require resources, authority or collective action beyond the artistic situation.

The distinction matters. L’Élanographe’s instruments are not presented as solutions to structural contradictions. They may externalise a tension, change its scale or redistribute its elements so that it becomes more visible, manipulable or discussable.

A proposition should therefore make clear:

• what is already given;
• what may be moved or altered;
• who can change the rules;
• how long the situation lasts;
• what forms of response are possible;
• how someone may pause, refuse or leave.

Make participation a genuine choice

Before taking part, people should receive information proportionate to the situation and reasonably easy to understand. This may include what is being proposed, who is organising it, what participants will be invited to do, how long it may last and whether any documentation or public sharing is intended.

A person may:

• observe without acting;
• take part without speaking;
• decline a question or instruction;
• alter the proposed course where the situation allows it;
• pause or leave something unfinished;
• stop participating without providing a reason.

Consent to one stage does not imply consent to the next. Agreeing to participate does not mean agreeing to be photographed, recorded, quoted or publicly identified. Agreeing to documentation does not mean agreeing to publication.

When the nature of a proposition or the intended use of its traces changes substantially, there must be an opportunity to reconsider consent.

Particular care is needed when employment, institutional authority, financial dependence, educational assessment or group expectations could make an invitation feel compulsory. Where such asymmetries are present, non-participation must have no adverse consequence.

Allow non-performance

There is no correct journey through the instruments of L’Élanographe. Participants are not expected to be inventive, articulate, emotionally open, productive or visibly changed.

Watching, hesitating, misunderstanding, remaining silent, taking a detour or declining an invitation are legitimate ways of responding. A drawing, arrangement, gesture or choice is not assessed as a measure of someone’s character, abilities, psychological state or readiness to change.

An activation may produce movement, uncertainty, pleasure, amusement, disagreement—or very little. Its value cannot be assumed in advance.

Silence and refusal should not be interpreted on someone else’s behalf. They do not automatically become artistic material, research findings, or evidence of an unspoken process. A refusal can remain simply a refusal.

The same applies to absence and withdrawal. Choosing not to participate is not, by itself, a contribution to the work. L’Élanographe will not present a person’s non-response as meaningful material unless the use of absence has been explicitly discussed and agreed within that particular proposition.

Activate without prescribing an outcome

A partition offers a structure for action while leaving room for variation, interruption and unforeseen responses. It distributes conditions, durations, choices and possibilities of transmission; it does not determine the meaning or result of the experience.

The difference between a partition and an order is not absolute. A score can impose a conduct as readily as it can open a possibility. Its rules must therefore remain open to examination.

Each activation should ask:

• Does the rule allow more than one use?
• Does it reproduce an expected form of performance?
• Who is authorised to change it?
• Can someone respond through silence, stillness or refusal?
• What does the device prevent from happening?
• What happens when the proposed action does not work?

The purpose is not to lead participants towards a hidden answer, an authentic direction or a predetermined insight. L’Élanographe does not promise to help someone “find their way”. It examines the material, linguistic and relational conditions through which directions become possible, necessary, contested or impracticable.

Map without fixing

A map makes certain relations visible while leaving others aside. Its scale, categories, legends and omissions shape what it allows us to perceive.

Maps and diagrams developed through L’Élanographe remain partial, situated and revisable. They should help people examine configurations without turning a person into a type, a position into an identity or a moment into a definitive account.

Where a map concerns other people, its choices should remain visible: what has been selected, combined, reduced, anonymised or left blank. Those concerned should have room, where relevant and possible, to question its terms and challenge what it suggests.

A map should not claim a complete view of a situation. It may hold several positions, contradictions and returns without resolving them into a single narrative.

Care for words and traces

Writing does not preserve speech intact. It selects, condenses, reformulates, spatialises and transforms what it attempts to follow. A notation is therefore not a transparent record of another person’s words.

A fragment can remain sensitive even after removing names and dates. Handwriting, phrasing, professional circumstances, relationships and contextual details may still make a person or situation recognisable.

L’Élanographe consequently distinguishes three levels of material.

Confidential historical archives

The historical notebooks were produced within confidential professional relationships, primarily during coaching sessions. They were not constituted as a public research corpus involving the people accompanied.

These notebooks remain in a private working space. The research concerns the artist’s own operations of listening and notation—not the identities, histories, psychological states or outcomes of the people whose speech contributed to their formation.

Access to these archives does not, by itself, authorise artistic display or publication.

Non-identifying derived research material

Artistic research may proceed through operational skeletons, composite fragments, abstractions, reformulations or other sufficiently transformed materials.

Removing a name is not always enough. Derived material must be examined in relation to its context and the possibility of indirect recognition. It should preserve relevant graphic or relational operations without allowing a fragment to be connected to a specific person or professional situation.

Future artistic activations

Future artistic terrains are separate from professional coaching and mediation. Participants are invited outside any commercial support relationship and receive information specific to the proposition.

These activations are based on their own terms of participation, documentation and publication. Consent given in one context does not transfer automatically to another.

When adequate protection cannot be established, the material remains outside public circulation.

Give documentation its own boundaries

Documentation is not a neutral afterthought. A photograph, recording, transcript, drawing or written account changes the duration, audience and possible interpretation of an encounter.

Before documenting a situation, L’Élanographe considers:

• what needs to be retained;
• why it needs to be retained;
• who will have access to it;
• how long it should be kept;
• whether it needs to be identifiable;
• whether it needs to be made public at all.

Words, images and contributions shared during an activation or in subsequent correspondence are not automatically available for publication.

Any public use requires explicit permission covering both the material and the context in which it is intended to appear. Naming, credit, anonymity and the possibility of recognition should be discussed where relevant.

Group participation does not erase individual choice. Agreement from an institution, organiser or group representative does not automatically authorise the identifiable use of each person’s image, voice, words or work.

Where practicable, participants may be offered different options: taking part without appearing in identifiable documentation, agreeing to one medium but not another, or choosing whether their name is used.

Clarify withdrawal and its limits

A participant may stop an activity at any time. They may also ask for an identifiable, unpublished contribution to be removed from active project materials, where this is technically and practically possible.

A withdrawal request does not require justification and will not be treated as a failure to complete the process.

Once material has been printed, publicly exhibited, distributed, broadcast or incorporated into a completed publication, full withdrawal may no longer be possible. L’Élanographe may be able to remove material from spaces under its direct control or prevent future use, but cannot guarantee the recovery of printed copies or the deletion of screenshots, press coverage, citations, cached pages or third-party records.

Explain these limits before seeking permission, not only after a concern arises. Requests made after publication will nevertheless be considered carefully, with attention to possible harm, the rights of others, technical feasibility and the context of the work.

Handle sensitive information with restraint

Artistic encounters may bring forward information concerning work, health, disability, family life, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion, political views, finances, migration, trauma or legal circumstances.

Participants are not encouraged to disclose intimate information to make an encounter appear more authentic, meaningful, or artistically valuable. An unexpected disclosure does not automatically become usable material.

L’Élanographe seeks to collect only what is relevant to a proposition. Sensitive information should be minimised, protected and kept separate from public-facing material. Access should be limited to the people who genuinely require it for the project.

Digital correspondence and storage involve third-party systems and cannot be treated as entirely risk-free. The relevant privacy policy provides further information about data collection, retention, access and deletion.

Absolute confidentiality cannot be promised where disclosure is required by law or where information indicates an immediate and serious risk of harm. Any response should remain limited, proportionate and, where safely possible, discussed with the person concerned.

Attend to accessibility and consequences

Access is part of a proposition’s design, not an adjustment added afterward.

Language, mobility, sensory access, duration, pace, social expectations and familiarity with artistic conventions all shape how accessible an invitation really is. Depending on the context and available resources, adjustments may include:

• written or spoken alternatives;
• seating and rest periods;
• additional time;
• smaller groups;
• captions or transcripts;
• step-free or remote participation;
• low-sensory options;
• the presence of a support person.

Participants should not need to provide a diagnosis in order to describe what would help them take part.

Not every setting can be made fully accessible. When a barrier cannot be removed, communicate it plainly rather than hiding it behind a general claim of inclusion.

Play and experimentation can bring pleasure and surprise; they can also produce discomfort, exposure, confusion or pressure. Artistic intention does not cancel these effects.

Care may require slowing down, modifying an instruction, providing another form of participation, interrupting an activity or recognising that a particular setting is unsuitable. Continuing is only one possibility among others.

Learn from what does not work

Misunderstandings, interruptions, non-effects, refusals and detours can reveal the limits of a proposition. They deserve attention alongside more visible or satisfying outcomes.

This begins with examining the device:

• Was the instruction unclear?
• Did it ask too much?
• Who could access or understand it?
• Did the form introduce avoidable pressure?
• What kinds of response did it exclude?
• What did the situation make impossible?

Learning from an encounter does not require turning every response into research material. Someone’s refusal can remain private. The person who designed it remains responsible for revising the proposition.

Research documentation may record that a version failed, that a rule produced an unintended restriction or that an activation was interrupted. It should not expose an individual participant in order to demonstrate that failure.

Claims about an experiment must remain proportionate to what happened. Participants’ words, gestures and traces should not be used to suggest a transformation they have not described or endorsed.

Distinguish art from professional support

L’Élanographe offers artistic and research propositions. Although its founder also works independently in coaching, supervision and mediation, participation in L’Élanographe does not establish a professional support relationship.

Its instruments do not provide:

• therapy or counseling;
• diagnosis or clinical assessment;
• crisis support;
• coaching or professional supervision;
• legal advice;
• individual decision-making advice;
• any promise of personal transformation.

Where coaching or mediation is offered elsewhere, it is governed by a separate agreement, purpose and framework of confidentiality. Information shared in that context does not become artistic or research material without distinct, explicit consent.

Likewise, an artistic invitation will not be used as an implicit route into a coaching relationship. Where roles are close or potentially ambiguous, state the nature of the relationship clearly before participation begins.

Keep the route revisable

These principles do not remove uncertainty from artistic research. They provide a framework for noticing how uncertainty, authority and responsibility are distributed.

Feedback may lead to changing an instruction, withdrawing a form, removing unpublished material, reconsidering documentation, modifying a context or bringing an experiment to an end.

The route must remain revisable. A workable direction includes the possibility not to proceed.

Raise a question

If a proposition, interaction, or use of material raises a concern, you can write to contact@elanographe.com.

You do not need to provide further personal information in order to begin the conversation. Questions, corrections, access requests and withdrawal requests are welcome, including after an encounter has ended.

For projects developed with a partner organisation, an alternative contact may also be provided where possible—particularly when contacting the artist directly would feel difficult or inappropriate.

L’Élanographe cannot anticipate every consequence of an encounter. It can, however, make its choices visible, respond when circumstances change and avoid turning vulnerability, silence or refusal into evidence of artistic value.

You may take part, pause, refuse, revise or leave.