Action Trouvée
ongoing archive

Action Trouvée is an archive of ephemeral, unintended gestures—slight actions marked by coincidence, clumsiness, or the barely perceptible play of objects and bodies. Inspired by Duchamp’s objet trouvé, the found action shifts attention from object to event: not what is made, but what happens.
Unlike the object, the action cannot always be repeated. It is rooted in motion, in timing, in the unrepeatable choreography of boredom, accident, or delay. A cigarette paper stuck to a nose rises and clicks with every breath—then unfolds again. A roll of toilet paper unspools itself in spirals. Such scenes emerge not from performance, but from a state just before or after it—gestures between rest and interruption. Moments where the body or object is no longer acting with intention, but hasn’t yet returned to stillness. Whereas traditional performance implies purpose, audience, and drama; the action trouvée arises from idleness, inattention, or routine. Their meaning is not expressed but appears, as if by accident. They are not quite random, but also not authored in any conventional sense—charged with latent potential that wasn’t planned or performed, only noticed.