Oliver Cablat: “Story of the teleported DUCK” – Theory of Evolution

Oliver Cablat Born in 1978, Marignane, France. Oliver Cablat lives and works in Arles, France. After university studies in art, ethnology and photography (1996-2003), Olivier Cablat worked as a photographer for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Karnak, Egypt. Since 2005 he has elaborated his practice in different fields : artist, photographer, publisher and founder of Galerie 2600, teacher, searcher and Artistic Director of Cosmos Arles Books, together with Sebastian Hau.

France –

In 1930, duck farmer Martin Maurer had a duck-shaped building constructed to house his retail poultry shop in Flanders, a small town on Long Island, New York.

In 1972, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour wrote Learning from Las Vegas, a book in which they examined the concepts of vernacular, functional and commercial architecture. They identified two main kinds of buildings: the ‘Decorated Shed’ and the ‘Duck’. Directly referring to the Flanders’s building, a Duck is an architecture taking a form which fully expresses its functional or commercial content.

In 2014, Olivier Cablat reactivated the Venturi’s concept by compiling archives made up of his own photographs, digitalised publications and pictures from the Internet. Those digital archives are the basis of ‘DUCK, A Theory of Evolution’, a genealogical study of the Duck and its evolution towards mobile forms that have more or less strayed from the original concept.


The project is also a reflection on the relationship between a work and the forms it can take. And the most significant of the forms taken by the project is a construction made solely from images and informations collected on the Internet. By covering all the angle of the original building, 10 touristic found pictures were used to re-create the previously unrealized plan of the building.

Then it was possible to create a teleported version of the DUCK, 81% size of the original building, only with a few dust of material found on the internet.


Art & Culture Feature- Oliver Cablat‘s DUCK was published by RVB Books, Paris.

Related Posts

BANG AND BURN – Charlie Grosso

 U.S.A. – Emaho caught up with Charlie Grosso, a Chinese American artist based in California. Her work is primarily photography ...

Tajdar Junaid : Serene World of Sunshine and Rainbows

India – A man of few words but many hits disturbing the Indian pop charts, Kolkata-based musician, multi-instrumentalist, composer and ...

Australian Lecturer Leon Ewing suggests high school students to use ‘educational marijuana’ to fuel creativity

Australia –                                      ...

Jimmy Chin : Into the Great Wide Open

U.S.A. – Initially, Jimmy Chin saw photography as a way to continue a lavish lifestyle on the road, bouncing from ...

Pedal to the Metal : Tyler Kellen

U.S.A. –  In February 2008, Tyler Kellen, an independent software developer along with his partner, Tara, a passionate photographer and ...

Adil and Vasundhara-‘Let’s not obsess over being more exotic than we actually are.’

India –  Emaho caught up with diabolical duo Adil & Vasundhara – Adil Manuel (Guitar) and Vasundhara Vidalur (Vocals), and ...

Rana Ghose: “I’m a pragmatic robot programmed on binaries”

India – Rana Ghose has been committed to two parallel streams of engagement for over a decade, equally passionate for experimental, ...

#High #Higher #SUPERHIGH!

Germany –  Arte co-production explores nine ways to get high without drugs German artist duo Boris Eldagsen and Sabine Taeubner ...

Liberation through Humour and Chaos – Neal Fox

England – Emaho catches up with London – based artist / illustrator Neal Fox who brings together unlikely characters like ...