The Ever Changing Book This catalogue

Transcription

Marine Hugonnier
Works
Bionnassay, Haute-Savoie, France
*
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
ECONOMIES
Tending to hinder or act against the achievement of an aim
TRAVAIL CONTRE PRODUCTIF
Book/Box
22.5 x 31.3 x 3.5 cm
On going since 1996
TRAVAIL CONTRE PRODUCTIF was started in 1996 while working at the Photography Department
of the Museum of Mankind in Paris. Mostly compiling notes for future works, this book also
includes quotes and thoughts about subjects as diverse as anthropology, economy or art criticism
which are all threads for possible modes of operation or methods of investigation. TCP works
like a restraint where resistance to formalization is understood as a way to nurture all of these
possibilities.
The artist could perhaps be a geographer, a tourist, a soldier, a worker, a pilgrim,
a flaneur, an anthropologist, a journalist, a mad man... but none would resume
what the artist is or does. In fact these points of view are the material of his study.
Sur la route du Col de la Bonnette (2802 m), 5 septembre 96, 19:50.
X- Sais-tu ce que veut dire l’expression “travail contre-productif”?
O- C’est un travail qui va à l’encontre de l’objectif attendu. On appelle
ça “red tape’’ en anglais. Ce sont, par exemple, les démarches
administratives qu’il faut faire pour créer une entreprise et qui en réalité
entravent sa création. Ces démarches sont dites “contre-productives”.
X- On parle donc de “démarches contre-productives”, mais peut-on
dire cela d’un travail?
0- L’expression “travail contre-productif”est correcte malgré le paradoxe...
X-Comment decrirais-tu un travail qui n’atteint pas son but, mais que
l’on va quand même considérer comme un travail?
O-Un travail qui n’atteint pas son but n’est pas pour autant stérile, car
il peut servir à quelque chose. Par exemple, si une femme de chambre
fait un lit à moitié, son travail n’atteint pas son but, il pourrait être dit
“inutile”car cela ne sert à rien de commencer quelque chose sans le
terminer; cependant, ce travail n’est pas complètement stérile car la
chambre pourra paraître rangée malgré tout. Par nature, tout travail
de recherche peut ne pas atteindre son but puisque toute recherche
n’aboutit pas nécessairement à une découverte. Pourtant, aucune recherche
n’est inutile puisque le travail d’aujourd’hui pourra éviter de refaire
demain les mêmes expérimentations.
X-Y a-t-il une expression pour désigner ce travail qui n’atteint pas son
but mais qui produit quelque chose qui sera tout de même considéré
comme un travail?
O- Je sais que je n’ai pas encore répondu à ta question et je vois où
tu veux en venir. Un travail peut devenir “contre-productif”lorsqu’un
changement d’objectif intervient pendant son déroulement...par exemple,
si l’on diffère un objectif pour le bienfait d’un travail.
X- L’expression “travail contre-productif”désigne donc un travail qui
n’est pas toujours inefficace. Dans certains cas ce changement d’objectif
ou cette retenue, advenue pendant une recherche, peut être envisagée
comme un progrès, les moyens de cette démarche devenant les fins de
ce travail. Tu es d’accord?
O- Oui, je suis d’accord.
X- Peut-on aussi envisager qu’un “travail contre-productif”soit un travail
qui refuse de produire quelque chose?
O- Pourquoi pas?
X- C’est-à-dire que la personne qui effectue ce travail refuse
consciemment de produire quelque chose de quantifiable, le but du
travail étant sa démarche, la distance à parcourir pour comprendre ce
qu’impliquerait d’arriver à une fin, à une production... Que ce travail
reste toujours en amont d’une réalisation possible.
O-Le problème reste de savoir ce qui permet alors de parler de travail
puisqu’il faut bien pour parler de travail qu’il y ait quelque chose
d’effectué. La question reste alors de l’ordre de ce qui fait trace de ce
travail et qui va le constituer.
X-Ce qui fait trace et donc va devenir ce travail peut être quelque
chose qui n’a rien à voir avec ce que le but du travail devait être en premier
lieu...non?
O-Donne-moi un exemple.
X-Le but d’un travail serait de produire des objets mais alors que toutes
les conditions sont réunies pour que ce travail soit un succès, il va
échapper à la logique qui l’anime et ne devenir que le fait de réflechir
à ce que ces objects devraient être sans qu’ils soient produits...
Art can be understood according to its historical production conditions.
Mutual influence is exercised between a historical context and a
work; they are indexed to one another, more or less impregnated with
one another. This means that art history could provide a certain insight
into the history of our civilisations, and cultural anthropology would
be the only methodology able to formulate art criticism.
FLOWER
Fresh flowers, spray paint for flowers, vase, water
Spray paint Oasis floral product (5101/yellow, 5104/white)
1998/2000
The work comprises a list of flowers which is reinterpreted each time according to the season,
location and to the florist who arranges the bouquet. The bouquet should always be crisp and
fresh. Each flower is painted with special florists’ spray paint, leaving a very thin coat of paint
matching the colour of the flower. The colour of each flower is therefore slightly enhanced.
CANDLE
Wax, perfume
20 x 1 cm
1998 / 2000
This candle smells like a wick that has just been blown out.
___
Wax and perfume: Cir Trudon, Paris
INTERLUDE
Neon, sequencer
6 x 45 x 4 cm
1997 / 1999
INTERLUDE is a neon sign of the word interlude which were inserts between programs on
French television in the mid-50s to mid-60s. This word recalls specific interim moments and
unproductive times.
___
Neon and sequencer: Neon Circus, London
LEADER (OUKAIMEDEN, MAROCCO)
Lambda print mounted on aluminium
300 x 180 cm
1999/2004
LEADER is one frame of a Super 16mm film shot at night in the mountains of Oukaimeden,
Morocco.
___
Shoot: Oukaimeden, High Atlas, Morocco, February 1996
Camera: ARRIflex ST converted to Super 16mm
Stock: 7245 Kodak
Lenses: 25mm, 50mm Zeiss
Aspect ratio : 1:85
Process: Cinedia, Paris
Print: Greiger, Dusseldorf
Aluminium mount and frame: Bliss, London/ Darbyshire, London
Producted by: Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland
IMPACT (21.05.99, 5:40)
DVD installation with surround sound
1’55’’
1999
IMPACT is a short film about a staged car crash. Passers-by who were unaware of the set-up subsequently
believed it was a real accident. The crash and people’s reactions were filmed in real time. ___
Shoot: Orléans, France, May 1999
Camera: Sony PD150
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Camera operator 1: Director of photography: Valérie Le Gurun
Camera operator 2: Etienne Mespreuves
Camera operator 3: Benoit Labourdette
Camera operator 4: Franz Robert Cibis
Camera operator 5: Lieutenant Rouchet
Camera operator 6: Eric Castanet
Stuntman 1, 2, 3: Pascal Garnier, Christophe Rollin, Sandy Quirichon
Coordination for stuntmen: Pascal Lopez, International Stuntmen
Stills photographer: Fernando Etulain
Machinery: Franz Robert Cibis
Sound engineer: Marianne Schoendorff, Didier Leclercq, Fabrice Guerardi
Machinist: Arnaud Desbuquois
Coordination: Eric Castanet
Technical adviser: Alain Jeanne
Editor: Jérome Bétrancourt
Communication adviser: Olivier Buslot, Iréne Chomiki
Mayor’s adviser and deputy Mayor: Guy Civil, Henri Benozio
This event was produced by: La Mairie d’Orléans, France
With the participation of: la Police Nationale, la Police Municipale, les Pompiers de la ville d’Orléans,
les Mutuelles Régionnales d’Assurances, les compagnies du 13 mars
Produced by: Frac Languedoc-Roussillon Montpellier, France, Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts
Contemporains, France, Orléans City Hall, France and DRAC Nord Pas-de-Calais, France.
COLOR OF A MEMORY (PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, 1972)
Orange offset print and photograph
59,5 x 65,8 x 4,8 cm
1996 / 2003
A picture of the city of Pittsburgh where the artist grew up is printed on the front of the poster.
The back is printed in orange. A small space is left between the orange back and the wall so the
orange colour glows around the paper. The text hereafter is printed at the bottom of the poster.
«Since World War II, we have all used the same mass-produced color film to photograph the
cherished moments of our lives. When we look at pictures taken in the 1970s, we can clearly
see that they have a peculiar orange tinge, the result of a specific color balance. Later in the
1980’s one can see a redder tinge, and in the 1990s, a shift to more of a blue. In fact, the orange
haze effect in the 1970s photographs is not only due to the process used, the development
paper and the fact that they are now ageing, but also is the result of a marketing decision taken
to match the aspirations of the moment, to represent that time frame.»
___
Print: Atelier Seydoux, Paris
LE SOLEIL CONTINUAIT DE DOMINER
LARGEMENT LE CIEL APRES DISSIPATION DE
QUELQUES GRISAILLES EN DEBUT DE JOURNEE.
TEMPERAMENTAL CLIMAT (FOR PIERRE HUYGHE)
Weather forecast program for Pierre Huyghe’s MOBIL TV project
1995
A short weather program was inserted into Pierre Huyghe’s Mobil TV channel
at the Consortium, Dijon.
DES PASSAGES NUAGEUX PROVENANT DE
L’ALLEMAGNE VENAIENT PERTURBER LE CIEL
EN MILIEU DE JOURNEE.
TEMPERATURES ETAIENT FRAICHES POUR LA SAISON.
LES TEMPER
ANNA HANUSOVA (27.06.01, 5:40)
Live radio broadcast and video projection with sound
10’0’’
2001
Camera Austria, the Austrian art magazine, asked the artist to contribute to an issue they were
publishing in response to the October 1999 election and the rise of the extreme right political
party. In June 2001, the artist invited Anna Hanusova, a 70-year-old Czech lady who made it
out of Teresin concentration camp in 1943 where she was part of a music trio called Trio Room
28. She was invited to play a piece of piano that would be broadcast on the Austrian national
radio, the radio ö1. The broadcast was live and nationwide. It took place at 5:40pm on the June
27th 2001. Anna Hanusova performed a piano piece of her choice : Für Alina by Arvo Part. As
the live broadcast happened, a short film was made at the radio station.
___
Shoot: Vienna, Austria June 2001
Camera: Sony PD150
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Director of photography: Marine Hugonnier
Editor and sound: Marine Hugonnier
Produced by: Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Vienna, Austria and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, France
NO SHOW
Plexiglass, neons, heat sensors
Dimension variable
1997 / 2002
The shape of the chandelier mirrors the institution’s floor plan. Heat sensors are installed in
the room, detecting visitors moving about thus charging the batteries of the chandelier which
would then be lit when the museum is closed.
___
Design: FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, France
Produced by: FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, France
THE TOURIST
THE SOLDIER
THE WORKER
THE PILGRIM
TOWARDS TOMORROW (INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE, ALASKA)
Lambda prints mounted on aluminium
300 x 180 cm
2001
TOWARDS TOMORROW is the result of a trip to the Bering Strait in Alaska, USA, to photograph
across the International Date Line into Siberia. Due to its geographical position, Siberia is
always 24 hours ahead of Alaska. The photographs are, therefore, in effect, pictures of a future
moment.
___
Shoot: Whales, Bering Strait, Alaska, September 2001
Camera: Linhof 8 x 10 Kardan GT
Stock: 160NC Portra Kodak
Lens: 360mm Schneider
Assistant: Steve Schauer
Executive producer: Julie Gonssard
Process: Color Edge, New York / Metro, London
Print: Greiger, Dusseldorf or Metro Pictures London
Aluminium mount and frame: Bliss, London / Darbyshire, London
ARIANA
Super 16mm film transferred onto DVD with sound
18’36’’
2003
ARIANA tells the story of a film crew that sets out to visit the Pandjsher Valley in Northern Afghanistan.
Described in classic Persian poetry as a “paradise garden,” the impenetrable nature of the valley and
its lush, fertile landscape have set it apart from the rest of the country and encouraged a history of
independence and resistance. The film considers how the specificities of a landscape help to determine
its history. As the crew is unable to film the valley from a vantage point in the surrounding Hindu Kush
mountains, the film becomes the story of a failed project that prompts a process of reflection on the
“panorama” as a form of military strategic overview, as a cinematic camera movement, and its origins
as a pre-cinematic mass entertainment.
___
Shoot: Pandjsher Valley and Kabul, Afghanistan, August and October 2002
Camera: ARRI SR3
Stock: 7245, 7246, 7289 Kodak
Lenses: 9 mm, 12 mm, 16 mm, 25mm & 50mm Zeiss Primes, 10 -100mm Canon Zoom
Aspect ratio: 1:85
Director of photography: Tom Townend
Editor: Ida Bregninge
Sound: Aurélien Bras
Executive producers: Julie Gonssard
Process: Éclair, Joinville, France
Grade: One Post, London, UK
Post Production: Frontline Television, London, UK
Produced by: Max Wigram Gallery and Film and Video Umbrella in association with Chisenhale Gallery, London
Supported by: the National Touring Programme of Arts Council, UK, Marion and Guy Naggar, Alan Djanogly
English transcription of Ariana’s French voice-over
It’s about a country, Ariana, in which landscape has allowed its history to happen.
This landscape is never to be seen simply as decor or background.
In this country mountains have no name.
You cannot tell them apart, unless you group them together.
During the war, battles were fought to secure vantage points offering panoramas.
This was the way to control the country.
Planes had to be destroyed.
We have been in the country for three weeks now.
Our journey has not achieved its goal.
The way we looked at how the landscape let its history happen, has made us question our point of view.
We have had some problems, as often happens in faraway countries.
Our car broke down a couple of times and the crew is smaller than planned.
Those remaining are the anthropologist, the geographer, the cameraman, the sound engineer, and the local guide.
It is the end of summer.
It is hot and dry.
We traveled up north to a valley that was the stronghold of resistance during 23 years of war.
Neither of the two revolutionary utopias that had ruined the country had ever entered this place.
Even today, it remains a state within a state.
It is still difficult to reach, protected by its mountains and those who fought for it.
We wanted to get to the best viewpoint, to see at a glance how this landscape made the history of the valley possible.
As we were about to go, we were told that a landslide had made it inaccessible.
We wouldn’t be able to shoot the panorama.
An image would be missing.
The one we would make of the valley would remain incomplete.
We felt low.
Aimless.
And for a couple of days we became nothing more than tourists.
(Distant explosions)
In spite of this calm, we sensed there was still the possibility of an uprising.
In the light of coming battles, the landscape took on a strategic aspect.
Every contour of the land, pass and gorge, every shadow of a rock, lookout, and footpath was seen as a potential
shelter, a hiding place, or a line of approach to be hidden from enemy eyes.
Each specific feature, hollow, mound, and viewpoint was thought of as a zone to control, a forward position
to hold, a place to fall back to.
And if the best point of view was not accessible to us, was it because it was also a strategic point?
As our camera was panning 360 degrees, we realized that this panoramic shot was itself a means of control.
We decided to leave the next day.
The night before we left, we were invited to a film screening.
All throughout our trip back to the city, our guide told us about his country, his hopes, while promises of past
ideologies filled the landscape.
We grew up insulated by liberalism. We have no political ideology anymore.
No project.
Utopias are only a legacy.
We have nothing left to hope for from them.
In town we felt lost, disoriented.
The ideologies that shook the 20th century, even the one that recently “liberated” the country, could be read
here simultaneously.
The city was an assembly of those traces, all of them scattered in fragments.
The continuity of this shot, this panorama, seemed to erase those fragments.
It made the cityscape homogeneous as opposed to this urban reality, as if the idea of discontinuity, or of a
revolution, was impossible.
This panoramic shot, which appeared to us in the valley as a means of control, couldn’t it also become a tool
of propaganda?
We still felt the need to get to a high viewpoint.
We obtained authorization from the Ministry of Culture to go to the “télévision hill” which overlooked the city.
This point of view would finally allow us to see at a glance the paths we had taken, and the ones we would
take next, full of hopes and desires.
After all, doesn’t a high point of view allow the possibility of projecting a future into space? Wasn’t it also the
sweet memory of the tourist attraction that wasn’t to be missed on holidays when we were children?
We were accompanied by a soldier.
At last, from the top of the “television hill,”we caught sight of all the surrounding landscape.
We could see, with surprising clarity, the tangle of trees and thousands of houses with their gardens, so tiny.
We saw the beginning of the desert, and the mountain range that seemed to protect the city. The soldier showed
us the battlefields; the strategic places that had allowed it to be controlled. The entire landscape was like a still
image, a painting.
This spectacle made us euphoric and gave a feeling of totality.
The Afghan soldier smiled and stood proudly in front of the view.
We gave up filming.
MOUNTAIN WITH NO NAME (PANDJSHER VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN)
58 x 74 cm
2003
MOUNTAIN WITH NO NAME is a group of portraits of the mountains that surround the
Pandjsher Valley in the North East of Afghanistan. These mountains have never been named:
they remain blank areas on the map where only the paths are given names by local inhabitants.
Their anonymity runs counter to the Western tradition by which every mountain is named,
a practice that coincided with European imperialism and the expansion of the colonies. The
mountains surrounding the Pandjsher Valley exist outside this history.
___
Shoot: Pandjsher Valley and Kabul, Afghanistan, August 2002
Camera: 6 x 7 Mamiya RZ
Stock: 160 NC Portra Kodak
Lens: 110 mm Mamiya
Process: Metro Pictures, London
Aluminium mount: Bliss, London
Frame: Darbyshire, London
THE LAST TOUR
14’17’’
2004
THE LAST TOUR’s fictional action is set at the end of the Age of Spectacle, at a time when
tourist attractions are about to be completely closed off to the public. The viewer embarks on a
“last tour”; a hot-air balloon flight over the famous, iconic Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. The
film suggests the possibility of a blank space reappearing on the map, a reference to the world
before the Era of Discovery.
___
Shoot: Zermatt and its surroundings, Switzerland, February 2004 Disneyland, Los Angeles, November 2003
Camera: Aaton A-minima
Stock: 7218, 7274 Kodak
Lenses: 9.5mm, 12mm, 16mm, 25mm & 50mm Zeiss Primes, 10 -100mm Canon Zoom, 5.7mm Kinoptic
Aspect ratio: 1:85
Director of photography: Tom Townend
Editor: Ida Bregninge
Sound: Cristian Manzutto
Music: Sébastien Roux
Executive producers: Renaud Sabari / APC, Paris, France
Process: Cinedia, Paris, France
Grade: Transat, Paris, France
Post production: Transatlantic Vidéo, Paris, France
Produced by: Galerie Judin, Zurich, Switzerland, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland,
Villa Medicis Hors les Murs, Paris, France
Transcription of the insert titles in The Last Tour
This is about a time where natural sites are so regulated by protective laws, with limited visitor access and
restricted views points, that they are becoming almost invisible.
The action of this film is set in the near future where these tourist sites are about to come to a complete closure.
THE LAST TOUR
You are sleeping in the back of a car.
You have a ticket for the Last Tour around the Matterhorn and it’s National Park.
Your mind is drifting.
You are wondering about what the park will be like when it closes.
What you foresee is what you know from the past, but your approach is to follow the foot prints of the near
future without nostalgia.
Can you relate to the closure of the park at all,
when everything is accessible in the world you live in?
The closure of the park is putting a ‘blank space back’ on the map.
Could this be the return of THE NEW WORLD?
As you gaze at the panorama and the Matterhorn you cannot help but map postcard images that you remember
onto what you see.
And you would like the experience to be even more synthetic.
You feel like an explorer on a ready made expedition.
You proudly pretend to be the last where once you were led to believe you were the first.
EPILOGUE
(The film crew, Zermatt, Switzerland, Feb.19th 2004, 23:05)
By the end of the 20th century fireflies had disappeared in Europe.
Ideologies as a form of commitment, as well.
Lately, fireflies have been seen around the park again.
LUCIOLES
Phosphorescent print on London Alpine Club letterhead
21 x 29.7 cm
2004
LUCIOLES are images printed with phosphorescent ink onto The London Alpine Club letterhead.
The phosphorescent images only glow at night.
___
Prints: Atelier Seydoux, Paris
TRAVELLING AMAZONIA
23’52’’
2006
TRAVELLING AMAZONIA was shot on the Transamazonia road, a 6,000-mile-long highway
cutting through Amazonia’s vast forest. The construction of the Transamazonia generated an
industry around the extraction of natural resources like metal, wood, and rubber. In this film,
these materials are used to build a dolly and tracks to realize a “travelling shot” upon the
very same road. Through the making of this “travelling shot” that recalls the illusions behind
the idealism embedded in the Transamazonia’s project, the film addresses the processes and
the pioneering ideas, that prevailed in this ultimate colonialist project realized during the
“heyday” of Brazil’s aspiration to become “the country of the future.”
___
Shoot: In Itaituba on the Transamazonian Highway, Amazonas, Brazil, August 2005
Camera: Aaton XTR +
Lense: 12-120mm Canon Zoom
Aspect ratio: 1:85
Director of photography: Roberto Thome De Oliviera Filho
Editor: Helle Le Fèvre
First Assistant: Diana Baldon
Executive Producers: Amanda Rodrigues Alves and Thomas Mulcaire
Process: Casablanca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Grade: Diamond, London, UK
Post production: Frontline Television, London, UK
With: Anonymous teenagers, Antonio Jose de Perez, Marcio Mello, Orlando Portela
Pereira, Jose Rigonato Pereira da Silva, Jose Francisco Marcelino, Antonio Gonçalves Lima, Francisco
Clesio, Jose Matias Souza, Adeilton Vieira da Conceiçao, Paulo Roberto Agra
Produced by: Arts Council England, Max Wigram Gallery London, UK,
Martha Hummer Bradley and Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona, Spain
Transcription of the voice-over in Travelling Amazonia
A road… a federal road that would connect east to west, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The purpose of this road was to unite men without land to a land without men.
Its construction offered work in abundance and people came for the adventure.
The Transamazonia was the greatest project of the military dictatorship.
The road was the means by which to conquer an uncharted territory:Amazonia, also known as
“The Land with No End”.
In the 1970s the construction of the Transamazonia generated industries along the way: the extraction
of rubber, wood and metal.
These materials are used here to make a dolly for the travelling shot in this film.
I am the guy who washes the plane.
The plane is used to service the mines.
It takes people to work out there and brings them supplies…because they are very isolated.
What does the Transamazonia look like from a plane?
A broken line… it appears and disappears.
I don’t know where it ends!
What is your name?
Jose Rigonato Pereira da Silva, but people call me Gordo.
I am known as Gordo from the Zezao farm.
Do you travel on the Transamazonia?
Yes, I do.
We are only missing a government that will make it.
It exists on the map but not in reality.
On the map it’s been made more than five times!
The road is only a project… really.
For the people who live here, the Transamazonia doesn’t exist.
It’s just a lot of holes.
Everybody knows about the Forest.
It’s so vast and famous throughout the world… but reality is a beast.
The Transamazonia doesn’t exist, it is just a lot of holes.
Only holes?
Yes, holes.
This is kilometer 1665.
Transamazonia… funny word!
Transamazonia.
The Forest is most lively at six in the morning.
It’s very noisy. The daybreak makes the birds happy.
The silence fades away, and the Forest becomes much more agitated.
Everything is synchronised.
When I am in the Forest I see… lots of animals like wild boar, deer, monkeys, tortoises, pumas and all
sorts.
One night I was waiting for… I was hunting a paca, a kind of deer.
When I heard breathing… coming from behind a tree.
I shone the torch at it but there was nothing there… just leaves shaking.
I think it was something… beyond imagination.
My father says he has seen it many times, so I believe something lies in the Forest.
People say…it is our spirit.
In a clearing I saw a woman with long white hair.
She was floating in the air…
I didn’t see her face, only her hair.
The Transamazonia takes the colonial project that was Brazil, deeper inland.
It draws a straight line across a territory like the first thread of a grid.
This line projects an illusion of pioneering.
This is the feeling that brought people here.
WEDNESDAY (MONTE PASCOAL, BRAZIL)
54 x 74 cm
2006
WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY were shot at the exact point where the Portuguese navigator
Pedro Alvares Cabral first saw main land on Wednesday April 22, 1500. Following the new
route to the Indies, Cabral was driven by a hurricane to the coast where he spotted Monte Pascoal,
thus discovering Brazil by chance. He first sighted the shore at dusk (Wednesday evening) but
had to wait for the early hours of the next morning (Thursday morning) to confirm what he
had seen.
___
Shot: Off the coast of Monte Pascoal National Park, Bahia, Brazil, 2006
Camera: Walken Tinten 4 x 5
Lens: 150 mm Zeiss
Assistant: Cristian Manzutto, Diana Baldon
Executive producers: Amanda Rodrigues Alves, Thomas Mulcaire
Process: Metro, London
Aluminium mount and frame: Bliss, London, Darbyshire, London
THURSDAY (MONTE PASCOAL, BRAZIL)
54 x 74 cm
2006
BEACH OF THE NEW WORLD (MONTE PASCOAL, BRAZIL)
58 x 74 cm
2006
BEACH OF THE NEW WORLD (Monte Pascoal, Brazil) was shot on the beach where Pedro
Cabral accosted on Thursday April 23, 1500. These two works allude to those few hours when
the ideals, beliefs and made-up imagery of "The New World" made their lasting entry into the
Western psyche.
___
Shoot: Off the coast of Monte Pascoal National Park, Bahia, Brazil
Camera: Walken Tinten 4 x 5
Lens: 150 mm Zeiss
Assistant: Cristian Manzutto, Diana Baldon
Executive producers: Amanda Rodrigues Alves, Thomas Mulcaire
Aluminium mount and frame: Bliss, London, Darbyshire, London
TERRITORY I, II, III
16mm color with sound
3 part film
23’50’’
2004
A group show called “Territories” organised by Anselm Frankle, Eyal Weizman, Rafi Segal
and Stefano Boeri travelled to Sweden (Malmo, Kunsthalle/ May 2004), to Germany (Berlin,
Kunstwerke/ July 2004) and to Israel (Tel Aviv Bezalel Fondation/Nov 2004). The third
venue in Tel Aviv included a week long series of events; lectures by local and international
practitioners, debates and screening in various locations across both side of the frontier of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This series of events attempted to narrate political and strategic
issues through the physical relics of the occupation. Architecture was described as the physical
embodiment of the conflict where landscape and its mapping are used to serve ideological
purposes. A bus tour was also organised around the West Bank and in Palestine. This “journey
through a physical reality” was the true core of the exhibition. MH decided to take a camera
and follow what was going to happen. Territory I, II, III is a three-part film. This film is the
result of this exhibition.
Next page:
TERRITORY I
TERRITORY I (WHITE LIES) is named after a text by Sharon Rotbard. This film looks at
the way Tel Aviv wants to see itself, a modernist heritage city in the Bauhaus style, the socalled “White city”. In 2003, UNESCO’s acceptance of this image reveals the way an urban
myth can enter a collective belief system and how a city changes with the rewriting of its
historiography.
___
Shoot: Tel Aviv Israel, West Bank Jerusalem, Ramallah Palestine, November 2004
Stock: 7231- 7222 Kodak
Camera: Éclair ACL
Aspect ratio: 1:66
Lenses: 12.120mm zoom, 17.85mm zoom
Director of photography: Nadav Arowitz, Marine Hugonnier, Cristian Manzutto
Executive production: Alec Steadman, Del Ruby Winter
Editing: Helle Le Fèvre
TERRITORY II (THE KISSING POINT)’s text is a collaboration with Eyal Weizman. The
film was made during a bus tour organised around the west bank. Its focus is the situation
between Har Homa (which means “mountain of the wall” in Hebrew) and Sur Baher, which
is a Palestinian town. The film observes the complexity of the geography of the conflict,
reflected through the settler’s and Palestinian town’s architecture. It reveals how the landscape
is constructed to embrace political ends. How a logic of appropriation manifests itself when
traditional Arab architecture inspires settler’s builders and Palestinian towns in turn mimic
modernist architecture.
___
Camera: Éclair ACL
Aspect ratio: 1:66
Produced by: Max Wigram Gallery, London, UK
TERRITORY III (ALKDEREH HOUSE, RAMALLAH) was filmed during a walk through
the Alkdereh district of Ramallah in Palestine. This house built in 1865 is one of the oldest
in town. It was a community centre for many years before it closed two years ago. The flat
roof, high ceilings, thick walls, and horseshoe-arched windows are the main characteristics of
traditional Arab style.
___
Camera: Éclair ACL
Aspect ratio: 1:66
Produced by: Max Wigram Gallery, London, UK
ABSTRACT
(DEAD SEA, ISRAEL / THE SPIRAL JETTY, UTAH)
2 Polaroids
10.8 x 8.5 cm
2005
ABSTRACT is a set of two or more images that works like a collage. Their aim is to merge
spaces to create new ones.
ABSTRACT
(DEAD SEA, ISRAEL / BLACK SEA, TURKEY / AEGEAN SEA, GREECE
/ CASPIAN SEA, RUSSIA)
4 Polaroids
10.8 x 8,5 cm
2005
ITCZ (21°17’51.78”N / 89°35’28.18”O / 26-04-08 / 09:00 am)
54 x 74 cm
2008
ITCZ is a series of photographs of the International Tropical Convergence Zone. The ITCZ is
an area of convergence between the tropical winds of the Northern and Southern hemispheres,
circling the Earth around the equator. The annual rhythm of this band of intense heat and
humidity gives rise to cumulous cloud formations and perpetual thunderstorms. This region
has historically been associated with sensual evocations of geography.
___
Shot: Yucatan, Mexico, April 2008
Camera: Walken Tinten 4 x 5“
Lens: 150 mm Zeiss
Print: Greiger, Düsseldorf
Aluminium mont and frame: Bliss London, Darbyshire London
ITCZ (21°17’51.78”N / 89°35’28.18”O / 28-04-08 / 04:23 am)
54 x 74 cm
2008
ITCZ (21°17’51.78”N / 89°35’28.18”O / 28-04-08 / 04:48 am)
54 x 74 cm
2008
FOUNTAIN (WITH PIERRE HUYGHE)
1996-2014
Work in progress
Two lovers and a light show would accompany this temperamental fountain.
THE FLANEUR
THE JOURNALIST
THE ANTHROPOLOGIST
THE MADMAN
DEATH OF AN ICON
Colour 16mm with sound
7’49’’
2005
DEATH OF AN ICON was filmed just before Yasser Arafat’s death. It’s a quiet gaze of that
moment in Ramallah, Palestine. The film covers the situation minutes before the official announcement
of this political event.
___
Shoot: Ramallah Palestine November 10th and 11th 2004
Camera: Éclair ACL
Lenses: 25mm, 50mm, 75mm primes, 12.120 mm zoom
Aspect ratio: 1:66
Director of photography: Marine Hugonnier, Cristian Manzutto
Editor: Helle Le Fèvre
Executive producers: Alec Steadman, Del Ruby Winters
Process and print: Soho Images London
Grade: Soho Images, London
Projector: Elf
ART FOR MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Die Welt: Building the Berlin Wall (August 14 15 17 25 1961) /
Fall of the Berlin Wall (November 10 12 Nov 1989)
Paper clips onto vintage newspapers front pages
2009
Art for Modern Architecture is a series of collages on vintage newspapers featuring silkscreened
colour blocks covering all the images of the front page. The colours are from the standard
Kodak color chart: blue, cyan, green, yellow, red, magenta and black. They are the reference
colours used in photomechanical reproduction. Thus a potential image is formalized, calling
upon the viewer’s memory and a collective consciousness. This principal of “coverage” therefore
investigates the reality of the spectator’s memory, whether it is a cultural ground or an imaginary
landscape.
___
Paper restorers: Valéria Duplat, Ségolène Walle, Marion Chamoral
The New York Times: Men walk on moon (July 21 1969)
2010
The Guardian: Munich Olympics hostages (September 6 1972)
London and Manchester editions
2010
New York Times: The Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis
(January 1 1979,
February 11, 13 1979,
November 6, 7, 13, 14, 16, 18, 23, 26, 29, 30 1979,
December 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 16 1979,
April 8 1980,
July 28 1980,
January 19, 20, 21 1981)
Kayhan: The Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis
(February 1, 5, 8, 10, 12 1979,
March 27 1979,
April 1 1979,
November 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 19, 20 1979,
December 3, 31 1979,
February 10 1980,
October 26 1980,
December 27 1980,
January 20, 21 1981)
Paper clips onto 48 vintage newspapers front pages
2010
___
Next page:
New York Times (November 6, 13, 1979)
Kayhan (November 6, 13, 1979)
Mundo Diario: Death of Franco (November 20 1975)
2011
The New York Times : U.S. Attacked (September 12 2001)
2010
LES ACTUALITES (Week of March 31 to April 6 2008)
Newspaper cut-outs and collages
60 x 50 cm
2008
News images spreading over the course of a week are assembled in a diaristic record. Each image
is combined with a collage. The work’s title means ‘newsreels’ and is paradoxical seeing that in
some cases the images refer to past events such as the student demonstrations in Paris in May
1968. The title of this work is in remembrance of the pre- and post-war 16mm French news
films. This work is a part of a longer series spreading over twelve weeks.
___
Paper restorer: Valéria Duplat
THE SECRETARY OF THE INVISIBLE
Super16mm film transferred onto DVD with sound
21’49’’
2007
THE SECRETARY OF THE INVISIBLE was shot on the river Niger, close to the city of
Niamey. This film features Damoure Zika and Moussa Hamidou, who were Jean Rouch's
principle actor and sound engineer, respectively. The film is set during 'Cinema day', a day
during which people in Niamey could see as much films as they want with only one ticket. This
day also coincides with an unofficial "Holley" ceremony, an animist Songhay ritual. Damoure
and Moussa embark on a pirogue and head upstream to the place where the ceremony is due
to take place. As they go along, they recount stories and talk about cinema. During the trip a
small radio is swapped for a mask from South West Africa which soon is to be understood
as the key event in the film. This mask is a vehicle enabling man to embrace the spirit of an
animal. During the ritual of the "Holley" ceremony, the camera is bewitched and reveals the
figure of a chameleon. The reptile's change of colour, his invisibility and ability of camouflage
are placed in parallel with the ability of the film stock to become the "invisible eye" and to
remain at the service of this condition. The title 'Secretary of the Invisible' is an expression
used by the character, Elisabeth Costello in J.M. Coetzee's book entitled "Elisabeth Costello".
It’s expression that Coetzee himself borrowed from the famous Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz.
___
Shoot: River Niger, Niger, May 2007
Camera: Aaton XTR +
Lense: 12-120mm, 50mm lens Canon Zoom
Aspect ratio: 1:77
Director of Photography: Jessica Servieres
Editor: Helle le Fevre
Sound: Matthias Fayos, Moussa Hamidou, Damien Perrollaz
With: Damoure Zika and his family, Moussa Hamidou, Sani, Hamidou Yaye
Producers: Karen Katz, Lydia Martin, Corinne Castel
Producers: Pinky Ghundhalle, Maggie Ellis
Process and grade: GTC, Joinville-Le-Pont
Produced by: Arts Council, London, England with the support of Film London Artists’ Moving Image
Network, Mamco, Geneva, Switzerland, Max Wigram Gallery, London, UK, Alan Djanogly
Transcription of the dialogues in Secretary of the Invisible
I had travelled a few times to the Songhay territory in Niger to meet up with Damoure Zika and Moussa Hamidou.
We decided to make a film in one day.
“Cinema Day"allows you to see two films for the price of one from 6 to 10 pm at the Jean Gorzo Cinema in Niamey.
You can also participate in celebrations all day along the river Niger.
Have a nice Sunday!
That day coincided with an unofficial "Holley" ceremony we wanted to see.
Back in the day there was no cinema in Niamey.
Only the Petroco Kino cinema.
There you could see a movie for only 15 CFA!
It was the best place in town.
My favorite films were "The Invisible Man", "Tarzan" and "The Lone Ranger", a cowboy film.
You know... a western with the music...
But our cinema was born here on the river.
Yes, modern cinema was born here.
Cinema was... born with crocodile hunting!
Yes, crocodile hunting!
And hippopotamus hunting!
Cinema is a sweet lie, a "Zamba".
It is a trick.
Take a bit of fantasy, stir it with a bit of reality... all of a sudden it appears like the truth!
Cinema fabricates lies to trick people around.
But lies only make beautiful flowers... never any fruits.
During our trip the pirogue man wanted to swap my small radio for another transmitter... a mask which did
not belong to the Songhay tradition.
It was a "transformation mask" from South West Africa; a vehicle to enable man to embody the spirit of an animal.
The "Holley" is a ceremony during which the Songhays make offerings to the Gods of the river.
I brought my mask along...
The Zimma priest had set the mask close to the musicians.
Soon the girls started mocking the intruder...
Tell me who is there...?
Who are you?
Cough it out!
Come and help her.
Cough it out… and the spirit will go away.
Stop the music...
I saw the tail of a reptile!
The mask had brought the spirit of a chameleon.
Later that night it spoke out...
"I am an Other, I am multiplied and several…as well as one.
I am an invisible eye.
You and I are transmitters.
We are secretaries of the invisible."
CHAMELEON (A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR)
Photogram and gold leaf collage
Unique
Dimensions 45 x 54 cm
2008
The Chameleon is a photogram from the film «The Secretary of the Invisible» in which the figure of this
animal represents the Author. The theme of mimesis, metonymically represented by the chameleon, runs
throughout the film. The reptile’s change of color, its camouflage and subsequent invisibility are placed
in parallel with the ability of the author to become an «invisible eye» and to remain in the service of
this condition. The gold on his back is to hide his awkwardness, it reflects the shimmering colors of the
world and helps him to hide. In western Africa the chameleon’s presence is said to be benefic in one’s
surrounding, it protects from darkness, as the darkness perceives him as a point of convergence of all
spectrums.
THE IMAGINARY REALITIES (A REPORTAGE)
The three brothers' cave fighting ibex (Provenance: Ariège, France – Era: Magdalenian)
Catalogue: Chefs d’Oeuvre du Musée de l’Homme, Paris 1965. pp. 36-37
Image Mr Jose Oster
Charcoal print
2009
THE IMAGINARY REALITIES (A REPORTAGE) is a project to insert photographs
inside the display of the collection of the Museum of Mankind, Paris. These photographs
are reproductions of images from the catalogue Chefs d’Oeuvres du Musée de l’Homme.
Published in 1965, this catalogue remains until now the only reference for the museum’s
collection. The project is to install each photograph in the room where the original work is.
___
Prints: Picto Paris
Assistant: Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine
THE IMAGINARY REALITIES (A REPORTAGE)
Venus from Lespugue (Provenance: Haute-Garonne, France – Era: Upper Palaeolithic)
Catalogue: Chefs d’Oeuvre du Musée de l’Homme, Paris 1965, pp. 90-91
Image Mr Jose Oster
Charcoal print
2009
CRYSTAL PALACE
Black and white 35mm film with sound
About 20’
Work in progress
2008
This film is a quiet promenade at night inside the Museum of Mankind, Place du Trocadéro in
Paris. All of the Museum is visited: the famous cinema and the areas reserved for the staff
including restaurant, offices and coffeebreak areas. Most of the rooms are lit by the Eiffel
Tower and its hourly flickering lights. This creates the effect of highlighting and of throwing
into shadow pieces of the collection as if a flash of lightning was illuminating the rooms.
Other masterpieces of the museum have been displayed for the film among the rooms thereby
creating a path not only through space but also through time.
___
Shoot: Museum of Mankind, Paris, France, October 2008
Camera: Aaton Penelope 35mm
Stock: 5231 Kodak
Lense 12-120 mm zoom lense
Aspect ratio: 1:85
Director of Photography: Caroline Champetier
Editor: Helle le Fèvre
Sound: Matthias Fayos
Producers: Julie Gonssard, Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine
Produced by: Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, France; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art
Contemporary Fondation, Austria
UNION POUR LA CINEGENIE
This conversation took place via email in February 2009
The publication of this text marks the official launch of L’Union Pour La Cinégénie.
This interview will also be published in Newspaper Jan Mot N.66, March 2009
Manon de Boer: Before we actually met, our works had been shown together in
several exhibitions
Each
time
saw
your
work
I had
a feeling
of
Manon de Boer:and
Beforefestivals.
we actually met,
our works
had Ibeen
shown
together
in several
exhibitions
and festivals.
recognition,
if Iwe
shared
Somehow
our
neverSomehow
crossedouruntil
Eachas
time
saw your
workthe
I hadsame
a feelinguniverse.
of recognition,
as if we shared
thepaths
same universe.
paths
never
crossed until
Venice where
Biennial inboth
2007, our
where work
both ourwas
work shown.
was shown.That
That was
when
we properly
the Venice
Biennial
inthe2007,
was
when
we
met and
started
talking…and
it turned out that
this interest
was that
mutual.this
One interest
thing I recognize
your workOne
is that
properly met
and
started
talking…and
it turned
out
was inmutual.
the subjects of your films circle around a set of questions about formal art and cinematographic language, as well
thing I recognize
in your work is that the subjects of your films circle around a set of
as life and humanity. For instance, your film Ariana (shot in and above the Panjshêr Valley in Afghanistan), which
questions examines
about different
formalinterpretations
art and cinematographic
language, as well as life and humanity.
of the panorama: as a cinematographic movement, a strategic place in military
For instance,
your
film
Ariana
(shot
in
and
above
the kept
Panjshêr
Valley
terms, and a 180-degree painting. It seems that these questions
haunting you
duringin
theAfghanistan),
process of filming
which examines
different
of the
panorama:
cinematographic
and editing Ariana
and as ainterpretations
result the different questions
and possible
answers as
(botha formal
and existential) are
constantly
reflectedplace
in one another
in the final
film. For
meathis
creates an existential
space inIt
which
both that
doubt
movement,
a strategic
in military
terms,
and
180-degree
painting.
seems
and
hope
are
present.
When
I
last
saw
you
in
Paris,
in
November
2008,
you
came
up
with
the
idea
to
start
L’Union
these questions kept haunting you during the process of filming and editing Ariana and
Cinégénie. Could you tell me how this idea came about?
as a resultPour
theLadifferent
questions and possible answers (both formal and existential) are
constantlyMarine
reflected
in
one
another in the final film. For me this creates an existential
Hugonnier: The idea of the Union came about as a way to fulfil a desire to bring together people who have
space in which
and hope
are present.
When I last
youthisinreality
Paris,
in
understoodboth
image doubt
making (cinema
for example)
as a way of investigating
reality,saw
whether
is a true
November
2008,
youor an
came
up with
the idea to start L’Union Pour La Cinégénie. Could
cultural
ground
imaginary
landscape.
you tell me how this idea came about?
MDB: Do you already have an idea of how you would like the Union to manifest itself?
This conversation took place via email in February 2009
The publication of this text marks the official launch of L’Union Pour La Cinégénie.
This interview will also be published in Newspaper Jan Mot N.66, March 2009
Manon de Boer: Before we actually met, our works had been shown together in
several exhibitions and festivals. Each time I saw your work I had a feeling of
recognition, as if we shared the same universe. Somehow our paths never crossed until
the Venice Biennial in 2007, where both our work was shown. That was when we
properly met and started talking…and it turned out that this interest was mutual. One
thing I recognize in your work is that the subjects of your films circle around a set of
questions about formal art and cinematographic language, as well as life and humanity.
MH: I would like us to speak mostly about art, but to understand that term as something beyond installation, painting,
sculpture, cinema, design, architecture, exhibitions, museums, galleries etc. I would like our conversations to
bring the idea of art to a point where either it begins to pale and vanish, or to shine so brightly; to seem so intensely
alive, that reality starts to retreat like a faraway shore. In essence I would like us to position art in such a fragile
and dangerous state that it will necessarily call for a critical phase of re-evaluation of our work. I would like
our talks to invent a rarefied space where our work could only be defined as being between cinema and a travel
agency, anthropology and a real estate agency, or geography and architecture.
A space that defines cinema as a method of investigation of imaginary realites. The Union could then form
an arborescence of references, where the tools are elaborated articulations which help our thinking processes. It
would be great if the Union could become a real support system where ideas could be described, discussed, tested
or destroyed if needs be. Maybe our work could consist of the elaboration of ideas and their transmission, making
sure that our toolbox is always available to others…We could discuss the biology of love, wicked ways to cook
pumpkin, fictional rituals and the topologies of snowflakes! Our journey could take us to the terra sin fin (the
another name for the Amazonian forest) and reach Outopia, the nowhere land! I would like the Union to be an
excuse to contact people we admire and say «Hi! Do you want to have a drink?». In any case, the Union should
keep redefining itself. It’s for this reason that I use the expression “I would like it to be…” instead of “It is…”
What the Union is should be defined by the fantasies and desires of the people who join it at different points.
MDB: Who would you like to be part of the Union?
MH: Anyone we would like to talk to, whom are directly involved with image making in general.
MDB: I like very much that you say, “I would like it to be”. It’s the opposite of the dogmatic manifesto,
which one might expect from the name L’Union Pour La Cinégénie. It expresses openness and the
desire that the Union will be something in motion, questioning the world and creating different
worlds, over and over again. “I would like it to be” expresses a desire that is set in the (near) future.
Nevertheless, what I see from the way you approach life and your work now, is that that what “you
would like it to be” is already very much present. I recognize this in some talks we have had and in
looking at your work. I also recognise it in the work of other artists that I like, and the feeling that
these works are in dialogue with my own questions and doubts. It’s a dialogue that gives a context
to those questions and simultaneously turns them around. For me these direct and indirect dialogues
enable me to keep questioning my ideas and work, and to think about art in the way you describe
above. You sent me a definition of Cinégénie: (nom féminin singulier): le fait d’être mis en valeur par
le cinéma (voir Photogénique). When I read this, I first thought of how we both use cinematographic
language to develop a set of more existential questions about life or what it is to be human. And that
the physical and intellectual experience of watching a film, if the work is good, gives value to those
questions. I also associated it with how filming itself gives an enormous feeling of pleasure, energy
and fully living in the moment. What do you understand by le fait d’être mis en valeur par le cinéma?
MH: I am not so sure about une mise en valeur. I am not interested in the idea that cinema adds
aesthetic value to reality. The word photogénique is interesting to put in parallel to the word Cinégénie.
Photogenic is used to describe someone who brings something to the image. I would like to propose a
new definition of Cinégénie: it is a quality that a particular set of circumstances can bring to a reality
and that is recorded on image. Something along the lines of an “revelation” that makes the objectness
of the image fade away, that reveals another reality and that could like science fiction. In fact I guess
this Cinégénie is a what makes magic realism. Something that makes me catch my breath when I
am filming and forget that I am holding a camera. Something that absorbs and condenses the entire
world in less than 1/10 of a second. That incredible coincidence that makes things look harmonious
and unbalanced at the same time… But also that very special quality of an image that allows you
to become other then who you are, that makes you transgress social categories… this quality that
makes cinema part of a project of social emancipation which has been central to Modern Art. I
would then say that Cinégénie is a way of articulating different realities and creating new worlds; this
is the kind of addition that could be of interest. The word Cinégénie reminded me of synergie which I
really like since it means “the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect
is greater than the sum of their individual”!
MDB: The word ‘union’ can also denote a syndicate. This suggests that L’Union de Pour La Cinégénie
is a political group. Is this your intention?
MH: The Union is an informal group of art amateurs... it is informal but still has the structure of an
assembly. It is an amateurs’ group because we are all true art lovers who know that our professionalism
is just a way to protect our amateurism. We should take very seriously the unseriousness of our task!
I’d like the Union to be like a workers club where our guns are left at the door. We could think about
building a community centre, a house of spirit per se, where we could spend time and wonder
around. I guess that in that way it is a political group. But I would remain unsure about fixing the
terms of the Union’s ideology. It should eschew all categories and become what it can be, more than
what it should be. We should improvise our journey, keep zigzagging without a destination, not be
afraid of inconsistency and “keep for ourselves the prerogatives of a child or a madman”!
MDB: I read in your desire that “it should escape all categories and become what it can be” a wish to
create a free public space in which subjects can be critically explored in a personal way. In the context
of an artwork this is for me the space in which the viewer is able to think for him/herself. Maybe in
that sense ‘critical’ is a better word to use then than ‘political’, but it’s probably better not to label it
at all. What could the Union do? Would you like to make shows together? Or organize talks?
MH: The kinds of actions I would like the Union to plan would correspond with the kinds of people
we meet. It is difficult to come up with a big plan, but suggestions will start with meeting up for
dinners and going to movies, walk in the snow in the summer time and publishing travel guides…
What would you like the Union to be?
MDB: For me the Union, as you describe it, is a desire for true ‘rencontres’. It already is what I
would like it to be. When I use this word I actually think of what Suely Rolnik once wrote to me about
the ‘rencontre’ in the Spinozian/Deleuzian sense of the word. She spoke about the art of provoking les
bonnes rencontres, which means a meeting of people or things that lifts both of them up and makes
both of them stronger (this is my memory of what she said since I can’t find her exact words). The
trick, of course, is also to avoid les mauvaises rencontres. Speaking about rencontres in relation to
the Union, you say that you would like to invite Caroline Champetier. I remember that you spoke to
me about meeting her and from what you said this felt like a real rencontre or ‘synergy’ in relation to
your work. I know it is difficult to describe this particular energy, but could you say something about
this rencontre with her?
MH: It was a very particular moment. I knew her work and had sent her an email with a film in mind.
She answered straight away and invited me for coffee at her house. I remember walking up the stairs
to her apartment feeling truly nervous. Once there she never asked any personal questions. All she
wanted to hear about was this film project. Full stop. And probably because all personal things were
aside we entered a very productive working ground. There was something very special to this moment;
I knew I had found someone whom I would want to work with for a long time. If anything, I am
actively working on new ideas only to be able to work with her again. I hope that the Union would
provide opportunities for other rencontre like this one.
MDB: I’m curious how this particular cinematographic approach, this way to “investigate reality
whether this reality is a true cultural ground or an imaginary landscape” is manifested in Caroline
Champetier’s work, in the way she deals with cinema and/or in the dialogue you have with her?
MH: Sometimes making images is a clear way to control reality; sometimes it is a way to create a
distance between yourself and the world so that you can feel more comfortable. Caroline has a very
particular way of looking at things; she is almost inside what she is looking at. And there is no fear
in her look. She looks at everything in detail. Maybe one of the Union’s goals would be to build a
catalogue of possible experiences of image making… meeting people who are involved in making
images and listening to their methodologies… Seeing how far their subjects need to be for them to
feel involved, how cinema is a way to learn where the other starts, as Serge Daney said...
MDB: It’s true that for me making films, especially the film portraits, is a way to learn where the
other one starts. I often ask myself why it takes so long to begin a film when I have already known
for a long time that I want to portray a certain person. I guess I need that time to absorb the other, her
personality, ideas, stories. But it’s not a process of becoming one with the other, or being inside the
other. I do feel that there always remains a distance between the person I’m portraying and myself.
For example, during the two years that I was working on Resonating Surfaces, I only saw Suely Rolnik
four times. In the period of time in between those meetings I connected bits and pieces of what she
said about the voice to more abstract ideas and concepts and daily observations. It’s a process of
absorbing and trying to understand the other and at the same time holding the other at a distance
to be able to draw multiple lines between that person, the world, and myself.
MH: And how does this work with your other films, like Two Times 4’33”, which are more based
on a concept than a person?
MDB: With those films it is actually a similar process. For example for Two Times 4’33”, I was
interested in what Cage wrote about silence and the awareness of the body. It made me question
silence and sound in cinema in relation to space and the body of the spectator — the cinematic
space of the image and the actual space the spectator finds him/herself in. These questions arise
from more abstract thinking and from daily experience, like becoming aware of how the presence
or sudden absence of the traffic noise outside affects my concentration and body. But coming
back to the Union and you. How do you see the “investigation of cultural grounds” within your
own work?
MH: I guess that “an investigation of cultural grounds” could be considered a fair definition of my
work, since it is infused with the anthropology of images, but I used that just to give the Union a
starting point. If anything I would like the Union to become foreign to my concerns. I may not be
so interested in the Union if it tends to confirm my choices and legitimate my fields of research.
The more independent the Union is from my concerns the better. I would like the Union to transport
me to places I haven’t been… like an image.
Next pages: Letterhead paper for the Union
MODELE (A REVISION)
Silk printed Rives paper, collages
118 x 150
2009
MODELE (A REVISION) is a series of three dimensional collages using the five colours
(black, green, yellow, red and blue) of which Le Corbusier set the tones for his architecture.
This revision of a form takes the modernist worldview apart in order to reveal its constituent
parts which once were vehicles of progressive thoughts. This reinterpretation’s purpose is to
reevaluate, confront and reactualise the premises and traditional concepts of postmodernist times.
By doing so, these Revisions aim to highlight Modernism’s motives and values — liberty, equality,
rights and the pursuit of happiness — in order to challenge the logic of the postmodernist state.
___
Material: silk printed 300g BFK Rives paper, neutral adhesive Photo Mount 3M and filmoplast adhesive
cotton strips
Silk Printer: Atelier Arcay, Paris
Paper restorer: Valéria Duplat, Ségolène Walle
UNTITLED (MUSEUM ON FIRE)
Anonymous / Marine Hugonnier
18th century
Oil on canvas
25 x 30cm (painting)
37.4 x 46.6cm (each condition report)
This project is an ongoing work that started in June 2006 for which readymade paintings are
restored by Rosalind Whitehouse under Marine Hugonnier’s direction. Each work is composed
of a painting and of a pre- and post- condition report. It examines the process of restoration as
an endeavor spanning two moments in time: the production of the artwork (A) and its reception
(C). By focusing on the time in-between (B), the restoration itself highlights the temporality of an
artwork, subtly altering its effects, changing its state and its conditions of visibility, changing the
climate of an image. The first time this project was exhibited, a restorer was resident in the gallery
over a five-week period, working on a number of paintings carefully chosen on subjects that run
through Marine Hugonnier’s practice. The exhibition featured a working laboratory including an
easel, chair, cabinet. Viewers were invited back to the gallery to witness the project’s fruition. There
are currently 19 paintings that form part of this project.
___
Restorer: Rosalind Whitehouse
Next page:
18th century
Oil on Canvas
15 x 20 cm (unframed)
UNTITLED
Anonymous
18th century
Oil on Canvas
Pre-Restoration Condition Report - 12.06.06
The canvas is plain weave.
A stamp on the reserve suggests that this painting dates
from the 18th century.
There are three holes on the painting.
There are no areas of previous retouching on the image.
The ground does not need any consolidation.
The palette is red, brown and blacks.
There is a thin layer of surface dirt all over the image.
The detail and colour are well retained.
There is no varnish.
18th century
Oil on Canvas
Post-Restoration Condition Report - 07.07.06
A thick layer of dirt was removed from the painting.
This made the image below much clearer.
It was then possible to see parts of the building,
different tones of colour in the sky and details in the figures’ clothing.
The figures seem to be wearing French military uniforms.
This suggests that the building on fire is an important structure.
The tears have been repaired by the insertion of small pieces of canvas
into the image.
The repairs were filled and retouched and are now invisible.
The painting has been given a matte varnish.
STUDY (THE WOLF’S BELLY)
Dutch School late 17th century
Oil on copper
22.2 x 28.8cm (painting)
37.4 x 46.6cm (each condition report)
Next pages: Pre- and post- condition reports for the Museum on Fire
STUDY OF TREE
Anonymous
Dutch School, late 17th century
Oil on Copper
22.2 x 28.8 cm (unframed)
STUDY OF TREE (THE WOLF’S BELLY)
Dutch School, late 17th century
Oil on Copper
22.2 x 28.8 cm (unframed)
Post-Restoration Condition Report - 07.07.06
Pre-Restoration Condition Report - 06.06.06
The panel has a slight curve.
This does not affect viewing of the image.
Three figures appear in the foliage of the tree.
There are extensive areas of retouching in the centre of the image.
Below this retouching, the filling also appears to be un-level.
The varnish layer appears to be discoloured in the area of the sky.
There is a thin layer of surface dirt.
The detail and colour are well retained.
There is a slight thinning to some of the foliage along the perimeter of the tree.
There is a thin layer of surface dirt on the reserve.
Mounted in a Dutch style dark wood frame with chips and scuffs.
The painting is attached with four hooks onto the frame.
The frame has on area of loss (right hand corner) and scratches on the front.
The felt inside the inner edge of the frame is worn out.
The curve of the panel has not been flattened.
The felt inside the inner edge of the frame has been replaced and is now
supporting the copper panel more securely.
A close inspection of the edge of the panel has been conducted.
The panel has not been cut-down; it has always been this size.
The painting had sustained extensive damage in the past, which had been
covered with poor retouching.
The damaged area (the middle of the painting) has now been filled,
retouched and re-varnished.
The dark Dutch wood frame has been cleaned, and areas of loss in
the wood have been filled.
It has been matte varnished.
The discoloured varnish in the sky has not been retouched leaving
the stormy atmosphere in place.
The removal of dirt around these figures has made the second
figure more visible, but still ghostly.
The two figures in the foliage have brought to mind the story of
the Little Red Riding Hood.
SUPERSTUDIO’S MISURA FURNITURE AGAIN (A MODEL FOR A REVOLT)
Plywood and original Superstudio’s laminated plastic
Table (104,9 x 104,9 x 76 x 6)
Desk (183,3 x 84 x 78 x 6)
Bench (165 x 45 x 41.2 x 6)
Bed (258,2 x 201,4 x 24)
Mirror (27x 27 x 18 x 3)
Stool (48 x 45 x 45 x 3)
2009
The show involved the Florence-based former architects group named “Superstudio” (19661978) which radically criticised architecture and design in the 60’s and 70’s. Here Superstudio’s
furniture was cloned. The notion of “cloning” as a contemporary reproduction technique is
used here. To clone means “to fabricate a modified copy that will be used for development
or testing purposes” and as such, some of Superstudio’s domestic furniture was refabricated
with the original black and white grid. The dimensions and therefore the original proportions
of these have been modified. Altogether this leads to a state where architecture, design and art
begin to collapse. In fact, cloning provides the opportunity of initiating a new critical phase of
re-evaluation of the main concerns of Superstudio. All of this furniture is a permanent installation
as a guests room inside the Villa Romana in Florence in which residents may sojourn. This
bedroom is an invitation for further thoughts on this subject.
___
Design: Superstudio, Misura Series, Firenze, Italy
Produced by: Villa Romana, Firenze, Italy
JULY 20 – MARINE HUGONNIER
ONE DAY CELEBRATION (FOR PIERRE HUYGHE)
One day celebration poster made for Pierre Huyghe’s One Year Celebration project.
2003-2006
Celebrate
the day we have
walked on the
moon
To celebrate the first man who has walked on the moon, we should be able to buy
in any shops a reproduction of Neil Armstrong’s rubber sole that we could glue
on our shoes.
LABYRINTH
Blue, red, green, yellow sheets of ply wood, photograph, saw
Performance
2003
___
Produced by: Kurimanzutto Gallery, Mexico DF on the occasion of Damian Ortega’s group show entitled
“Elephant Juice (Sexo entre amigos)“, December 2003, Mexico DF
As I came to Mexico to take part in the show I was held up by a man with a gun who threatened me until he finally robbed me. It happened as I was coming back from the gallery
Kurimanzutto to the flat I was staying at, in a building with a doorman in the residential area
of La Condesa. A pretty banal scene in Mexico megalopolis. What stroke me was that during
that very short duration I haven’t felt at any moment that the man could have shot me. I felt
strangely removed from the scene even when I saw very closely the black hole of the gun
pointed at me. It is only later that fear invaded me and I felt pretty runned down. Most people
who have experienced a trauma knows that it acquires full significance only post factually.
Trauma only exist in a deferred way. Freud used to call it a “deferred action”. This temporal
syncopation cuts right through the very core of consciousness. The consciousness of what is
present is never only what we perceive in the present, all kind of delayed images are forming
that very present. It means that present is never past nor it is a future, it also implies that
present is past as well as is the future too. The mind in that way has no direct line to itself
but must pass through complex systems of mediation, it ignores a sequential time line as we
know it. Nowadays it seems that those effects of temporal displacements of the subject in
time are natural consequence of the digitalized world we inhabit. During the show, which will
be displayed only one day, a performance sequenced in 4 phases will take place. It will start
at the opening and will be completed by the end of the day. Next to the entry of the “Labyrinth“ a cut through a wall will reveal a second wall (phase A). A few hours later another cut
through will be made through the second wall (phase B). And again another one (phase C) and
the very last one (phase D). The last cut will reveal a picture which would have been taken
when the first cut was made. This piece makes a very questionable assumption. If the brain
ignores time sequences and in fact a point in time also infers later times then in this processal
sculptural work, moving forward doesn’t necessarily mean moving towards a future moment
and memory becomes anticipation in reverse. One more thing: strangely enough the guy who
robbed me took only on thing: my watch.
Mexico DF, December 14th 2003.
PROJECT FOR A FAMILY CAR
2004-2014
Work in progress
This research for this project started in May 2004 for which a regular family car would be painted
with a shifting color. That car would be then sent on an endless trip around the world.
In 2011, I came accross the «Cameleon Project» developed by the french «Direction General
de L’Armement (DGA)» at the Eurosatory Fair. They are curently working on a fabric which
copies patterns around an object and feature them on the fabric itself, making that object
virtually invisible.
UN COUP DE DES JAMAIS N’ABOLIRA LE HASARD
(LA FORME DU MYSTERE)
Folds made in Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Un Coup De Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard”,
Gallimard Editions, 2006
Open window, spider, man in a tuxedo
11 frames
50 x 32.4 cm
2007
Odillon Redon’s bedside book has been stolen and its pages have been folded to extend the
space and time of the poem’s interstices bringing his dreams to a deeper sleep. The exhibition
of this work should be composed of a space with an open window, a spider and a man dressed
in a tuxedo who changes each of the eleven frames on the hour, leaving the room empty on the
12th hour. This work forms part of the “Bedside Book Project”.
___
Paper restorer: Valéria Duplat
UN COUP DE DES JAMAIS N’ABOLIRA LE HASARD
(L’ESPACE SOCIAL)
Image clips onto Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Un Coup De Dés Jamais N’Abolira
Le Hasard”, Gallimard Editions, 2006
11 frames
50 x 32.4 cm
2007
Richard Hamilton’s bedside book has been stolen and its interstices have been fill up with images
changing its reading for one night. This work forms part of the “Bedside Book Project”.
OUVRAGE GEOGRAPHIQUE 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Accordion books
13.2 × 19 cm
2004 / 2007
Each of these books is a companion to the following projects: Ariana (the blue book), The Last
Tour (the white book), Travelling Amazonia (the green book), Towards Tomorrow (the yellow
book), The Secretary of the Invisible (the black book), The Crystal Palace (the grey book).
They are made of images collected before, during, and after these projects were made. Their
accordion shape allows one to edit the book’s content in 1000 different ways.
Next page:
OUVRAGE GEOGRAPHIQUE 1
Accordion book
13.2 × 19 cm
2004 / 2007
Accordion book
13.2 × 19 cm
2004 / 2007
PROJECT FOR INHOTIM (BRAZIL)
This permanent pavilion is a project to be built on a high vantage point inside the Inhotim
park. The mirrored front surface of the pavilion reflects everything around it. The trails that
lead to the pavilion have been carefully designed so that only the reflection of the mirror can
be seen. The sides of the pavilion are always out of sight. The pavilion is a cinema that shows
a 24-hour film projection. The film sequence shown is a view of the sea across the International
Date Line in Alaska. This film is projected onto the real view of the park seen from the pavilion.
This film sequence will be shot on the Bering straight looking towards Siberia. Due to the
International Date Line, Siberia is always 24 hours ahead of Alaska. This film sequence is
therefore, in effect, a picture of the future. Inside the pavilion the glass window is covered
with a perforated plastic sheet which can support a film projection. The tiny punctures in the
plastic sheet also allow the real view of the park to be seen through the glass window. Outside
of the perforated plastic sheet is a mirror. The video projector has a built-in light censor that
increases the strength of the light projected when ever the space goes dark. This means that
the projection of the view across the International Date Line can be seen at dawn, at dusk, at
night or whenever the light drops in the park (for example when a storm comes in or as a cloud
goes by). Whenever the film projection cannot be seen, the pavilion remains a promise of a
glimpse into the future.
SCHISME
35mm film
25 minutes
2012
Work in progress
One of the major issues raised by Western Modern Art is the relationship between critical thought
and mystical thought. In the 20th century, freed from its link with mythologies, Modern Art in the
West formalised a promise of social emancipation. In doing so, it stigmatised the possibility of
endangering the hegemony of mystical thought. In its most radical forms, 20th century art in the
West fed on the ambiguity between these two schools of thought and experience. This crisis gave
rise to modernism. This film shows the famous Jackson Pollock painting (Mural on Indian Red
Ground, 1950) which belongs to the Tehran’s Museum of Modern art, being very slowly taken out
of storage, carried through the Museum and its garden and being put back into storage. The film
will be like a quiet parade. Shot in colour, the sound track will be recorded during this event. No
voice over or commentary will be added to the film.
LES ACTUALITES (Building the new World Trade Center)
C-print and powder coated aluminium sculptures
Sculpture: 18 x 31 x 23 cm
Frame: 76,8 x 69,8 cm
2012
News images are combined with scupltures as a diaristic record.
Patchwork of news images and sculptures.
PORTRAIT OF A REPORTER (AS A YOUNG ARTIST) - M.HUGONNIER
Black and White
40 minutes
PAGE 13
PORTRAIT OF A REPORTER (THE MASK OF ANARCHY)
16mm and DCP
40 minutes
2014
Work in progress
Laurent Van der Stock is a French national, born in Belgium in 1964. He is a war photographer. He has concentrated on areas of conflict including the defeat of the Ceausescu’s regime,
the civil war in Yugoslavia, Chechnya, the Gulf war and Afghanistan in 2001. He has been
covering the Syrian conflict for the past two years and whilst there he documented the use of
Nerve gas in the Syrian city of Damascus. His images and testimony where the first proofs
which helped the growing body of evidence forcing Governments and the UN into action.
This film will take place out of a conflict zone, when Laurent is back on a safe ground which
is a usually a cheap hotel room. The film will show his unproductive time, non-eventful time,
time at which he is also preparing himself to embark on a new story. The film will show the
way he frugally survives the aftermath, passes time, and heals himself from what he has witnessed. It will show how he lives close to his pre-packed bag which has a few t-shirts, under
garments and socks, a tooth brush and some shots of morphine in case. How he keeps a secret
plastic sleeve on him at all time with his passport and the contact details of key people in the
closest embassies. How he cares for his lenses and camera, his satellite phone and it’s charger
more then any of his belongings. How he maintains order and repeats his gestures to make sure
he never loses control of his materials.
Gradually during the film his psychological reality will transform the real environment of the
hotel bedroom. An internal monologue will start and some part of his favorite poem The Mask
of Anarchy of Percy Shelley, which is the first modern statement of the principles of civil
disobedience, will be heard. He will fall asleep the film will show his dream. That dream will
depict the recent story of the life-size bronze Apollo sculpture found at sea near Gaza, which
is now in the hands of Hamas. His dream will playfully imagine how the Greek God of the
Arts could interfere in the conflict.
The purpose of the project is to give physicality to a figure that is usually absent from the
images we know of conflicts. It aims to show the reality of a war reporter and wants to raise a
question: could that role - when the conventions of impartiality are crossed - merge with the
one of an activist and an artist, and play a different role in shaping history?
CS: NIGHT FALLS SLOWLY
Laurent is in the shower. The room is empty. The
radio is on. The news in arabic can be heared
(subtitles appear). The latest situations in different conflict zones are described as the story of a
discovered bronze Apollo:
«...Discovered by a fisherman in shallow water near the Egyp-
tian-Gaza border, the 2,500-year-old, life-size statue has dropped
off the radar since its initial appearance. Ahmed al-Borsh, director
of Gaza’s Antiquities Department, was recently quoted by American National Public Radio as saying that the Hamas government
had the statue in storage and was hoping to leverage it to forge ties
with Western institutions.»We want to establish direct connections with official institutions who share our aim of protecting the
statue,» he said.»Direct connections» is the key phrase for Hamas.
Considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the
European Union, Hamas hopes that international interest in preserving the statue could crack open the door of isolation...»
The light on the desk flickers as if tuned to the
words.
CUT TO:
Laurent comes out of the shower..and lies down
on the bed. The doors of the mirrored cupboards
are opened and they reflect his body as broken
parts.
CS:
Close up of the reflection of his body as broken
parts in the mirror.
Colour
40 minutes
PAGE 19
CUT TO / EXTERIOR DAY / COLOUR
The man who was in Laurent’s bedroom is
hiding behind a wall. HE holds his rifle through
a hole in the wall. He shoots once and notices
Laurent ..
-Laurent... Head down... I have to show you
something... Come this way...
whispers the man.
CS:
The man walks through a hole in a wall and
Laurent follows.
CS / INT DAY
A group of men are standing around what looks
like a body covered by a white sheet... Laurent
comes closer.
PORTRAIT OF A REPORTER (AS A YOUNG ARTIST)- M.HUGONNIER
Colour
40 minutes
PAGE 20
CUT TO:
A hand lifts the sheet... a bronze sculpture is
revealed.
-Laurent here is the Apollo I told you about...
CUT TO:
The men lift the sculpture so it stands on its feet.
CS:
Long shots of parts of the sculpture which shines
like gold..
-Laurent this is our Trojan horse...
Colour
40 minutes
PAGE 21
CUT TO / EXTERIOR DAWN
A fluorescent green outline of the sculpture
stands in an open landscape. It is a giant.
-We could all fit in it.. all the rebels...all of us
Laurent....all of us!
CS / EXT DAWN
A military tank comes up to it.
CUT TO / INTERIOR NIGHT / HOTEL
ROOM
Laurent opens his eyes suddenly.
He looks straight at the camera.
STORYBOARD PAGE 3
LETTER TO MY FRIEND CM
35mm and DCP
25 minutes
2014
INT VOITURE/ DE NUIT
-Je fais un clap?
(clap)
-Non celui là il était pas bien…Encore?
(clap)
-Voilà.
Work in progress
This project is a film of the famous tapestry of the Apocalypse (Château D’ Angers, France). There is a
formal link between the tapestry of the Apocalypse and cinema: the latter consists of a series of panels
that are spread over 104 meters as a storyboard or as a strip of analogue film would be. In an interview
dating from 1961 between Jacques Rivette and Jean Renoir, the latter said of Angers’s tapestry that is the
first film ever made.
There is also a link between the subject of the apocalypse and cinema. An apocalypse is a revelation
(this is its Greek etymology). Common sense it that an apocalypse is the story of the end of the world
but this is a misinterpretation. An apocalypse is a genre apart, it is a narrative framework that always
tells the same story: the story of a divine vision -a revelation transmitted to a man through supernatural
beings in a representation of the world characterized by two co-existing levels of reality: the sensitive
-Pourquoi c’est si cher les laboratoires?
-Parce le cinéma est un instrument de classe!
-Ou ca l'était et maintenant le cinéma est entre les
mains de tous.
-Le cinéma c’est une arme terrible. Et maintenant
que tout le monde a des armes, on peut tous fomenter des révolutions!
-Ouais nous on fait la guérilla.
-Ou plutôt de l’underground.
-C’est ca du souterrain...
human experience and another one invisible and spiritual but crucial for human’s destiny. The revelation
announces the imminence of a new and better world. This revelation is a prophecy and shows us the
divine sense of an era and how the people will soon be liberated. The Angers Apocalypse is therefore
akin to cinema through its form but also through its subject, as cinema in general also unveils the world:
it reveals it.
The film will replay the scenes of the famous film from the Medvekine group: “Lettre à mon ami Pol
Céde” during which two people are driving their film stock to a lab and talk about cinema. Apocalypse
films as a genre usually discuss the idea of the end of the world but also want to exhaust the idea of
cinema. Here the purpose is to do so but also to invent a positive policy of images; to re-activate the
political message of the tapestry. The film will convey the message of the Apocalypse by transforming its
symbolic significance into a tool, an idea to serve a social project and be at the service of the promise held
by the tapestry which is nothing less than a project of social renewal.
(A l’opérateur)
-Donne moi la camera c’est toujours les opérateurs
qui ont les caméras…Ha ha … On entend le moteur
qui tourne c’est beau!
Souriez mon de Diou!
-Vous etes sure qu’on va arriver au laboratoire ?…
qu’on aura pas assez de pellicule ?
-On y est la ... Le panneau dit 30 klms donc avec 10
minutes de pellicule on y sera.
STORYBOARD PAGE 6
CLOSE UP SUR DES DETAILS DE LA TAPISSERIE
Et tu te dis Non de Dieu que la nature est belle…
En fait c’est la pellicule qui dévoile la nature.
La pellicule dévoile la réalité.
Quand elle dévoile la réalité on dit que la pellicule
est voilée.
C’est tout.
La pellicule est sensible.
Mon dieu que la nature est belle.
Alors si celui qui tient la caméra est sensible.
Si celui qui tient le micro est sensible.
Si tout le monde est sensible et que la pellicule est
sensible.
Alors…
Bruissement de voix dans une salle d’exposition, la
voix de la guide s’entend au loin…
«Et voici la scène numero 3:
Et St Jean nous dit« Je vis dans le ciel sept chandeliers
d’or, et au milieu de ces chandeliers d’or, le fils de
l’homme. A cette vue je tombai comme mort à ses pieds
et l à effectivement on peut voir st Jean aux pieds du
fils de l’Homme.
Cet homme, St Jean nous le décrit ainsi : « Il était vêtu
d’une robe blanche, signe de son sacerdoce ; sur la
poitrine une ceinture d’or, signe de sa royauté, il avait
une chevelure blanche comme la neige ou la laine,
signe de son éternité divine, un regard comme deux
flammes de feu, sondant les reins et les cœurs, et il
portait dans la bouche une épée double tranchant.
Le christ dit à St Jean « Ne crains point, je suis celui qui
est mort et qui est ressuscité. Ecris dans le livre ce que
tu vois, Voici le secret des 7 étoiles que je tiens dans
ma main droite et des sept chandeliers d’or sont les
sept églises. La parole divine est lumière. Pour porter la
lumière, il faut des chandeliers, pour transmette la
parole. »
STORYBOARD PAGE 30
INT VOITURE / LE JOUR SE LEVE
Un petit cigare?
Petit cigares cubains! Comme je vous aime...
Petit cigares cubains...
LA PLAGE ARRIERE DE LA VOITURE.
LES PELLICULES DU FILM AVEC LE MOT
APOCA
APOCALYPSE DESSUS.
STORYBOARD PAGE 36
EXT / LEVER DE SOLEIL
-Mon histoire est sans fin.
Et de toute façon ce sera toujours la même histoire,
Une histoire d’homme qui cherche le soleil,
Rouge bien sûr.
Une histoire d’un soleil a égale distance de tout le
monde.
Et si les récits de lutte m’intéressent c’est toujours
pour me raconter le soleil,
Les étés finissent et les automnes pourrissent…
L’histoire est sans fin…
CREDIT ROLL…..
L’EQUIPE DU FILM S’EMPARE LE CHATEAU
D’ANGERS
L’AVENIR
Project for the MAMO, Marseille
In association with Emmanuelle Luciani, Charlotte Cosson and Ora Ito
2014
« L’AVENIR» is a small traditional fishing boat from Marseille, a “pointu”. This boat is made
available to the association of the same name and will invite people during promenades and
swims in the coves of Marseille. The boat is a pretext to hear how our projections shape the
world, to discern how we dream our future.
This small popular boat will receive people from all economic sectors. Its purpose is to hear
the fantasies of writers, farmers, historians, doctors, poets, politicians, industrialists, anthropologists, artists, filmmakers, unions, architects, fishermen, journalists, web programmers, or
anyone else in our postmodern era. These boat trips will be an opportunity to define utopias,
ideals, aesthetic, progress, economies, policies, techniques, manners which are all ingredients
that affect the way we travel, work, build, go to war, seduce, distract ourselves, which in turn
shape the core of our vision for the future.
These invitations are testimonies that will help us to foresee the upcoming battles, their economy and politic and future aesthetics. These promenades on the boat will be a moment away
from the shore in which to engage in conversations around a lunch.
The “pointu” is a prospective and discursive platform.
It can also be a simple invitation to laziness.
The «AVENIR» project was launched on January 18th 2014. That day the newspaper
«La Provence» inserted 4 monochromes which are the colors of the association.
APICULA ENIGMA
35mm film or Blue Ray
26 minutes
2013
This film was shot in Austria in the Koshuta mountains of southern Carinthia. This region is
also know as the «Carnica country». The Apis Millifera Carnica (or the carnica honey bee in
English) is the most popular bee in the area which has a long tradition of beekeeping.
This film is an animal documentary of another kind. The thread that unifies it is the metaphor
of the beehive as a camera obscura. The beehive is a black box which content is never revealed
in the film. What it mirrors is the world as a whole.
The film recorded the factual truth of what happened on set. Staying close to the factual truth
included filming the crew and the process of making images of the bees. The aim was to film
the space in between the crew and the bees, the «being in the presence» with the bees. This
film is a way to find the distance at which the animal world keeps its enigma. Apicula Enigma
literally means: the bee’s riddle.
___
Director of photography Attila Boa
Camera Red transferred to 35mm and to Blue Ray
Lenses 11/165 mm Canon Zoom f 2.8
100 mm Arri Macro f 3
9.5 mm Zeiss f 1.2
Endoscopic lense
First assistant Eva Mittermüller
Beekeeper Peter Hopfgartner
Sound recording Peter Roesner
Sound editing Henning Knoepfel
Image editing Martina Moor
ANIMA
Series of 3 powder coated aluminium sculptures on mirrored pedestals
2014
Anima is part of a series of abstract sculptures which are moveable objects. The title refers
to the words: soul or spirit or psyche (Greek translation). This work is installed on mirrored
pedestals which reflection brings together the viewer, his surrounding and the sculpture to
form one new body, incorparating the visitor into its inverted image.
A new prototype is currently been worked on where these aluminium or steel powder coated
sculptures will be able to move on their own at random moments, ideally when no one looks
at them.
___
Next page:
ANIMA
4 Yellow sculptures
Powder coated steel
Triangle: 20cm W x 15cm H x 7cm D
Asymmetric: 16cm W x 10cm H x 13.5cm D
Semi Circle: 17.5cm W x 12cm H x 5.5cm D
Square: 16cm W x 16 cm H x 9cm D
Pedestal with mirror size: 50cm x 50cm x 100cm
ANIMA
Blue Sculpture and vintage Jaguar Advertising – Union Pour La Cinegenie
Powder coated aluminium
Size of the print 20 x 28
Size of the sculpture: 21cm x 20cm x 6cm
Pedestal with mirror size: 86 x 60 x 100cm H
2014
ANIMA
DETAIL: vintage Jaguar Advertising – Union Pour La Cinegenie
ANIMA
5 Green sculptures and fruits
Powder coated steel
Art work dimension : 20cms / 15 cms / 12.5 cms/ 11.5 cms/ 10 cms
Pedestal with mirror size: 100 x 100 x 35 cm H / Mirror 100 x 100 x 0.4cm Thick
2014
ASSEMBLY OF ANIMALS / UNION POUR LA CINEGENIE
Etching by J.B. Huet, 1792
Red Stamp
62.8 x 49.8 x 4.5cm
2013
Assembly of Animals, is a 18th century etching stamped with the words «Union Pour La
Cinegenie» (Union for Cinegenie). This union is an informal group created by Hugonnier and
Manon De Boer with the purpose to define the made up word «cinegenie».
The print came with the following text : « It seems fair to assume that this apparently
innocuous collection of animals by French painter, designer and etcher Jean Baptiste Huet
(1745 - 1811) has a much deeper historical and political significance. The print was created
in the first year of the French Republican Calendar, a calendar proposed during the French
Revolution and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805.
The French First Republic was founded on 22 September 1792, subsequently designated Year
I of the French Republic, by the newly established National Convention. Perhaps this image
of a wide variety of animal species, including the horse, lion, goat, dog and humble rabbit,
converging apparently for some sort of conference, commemorates the first session of the
National Convention on 20 September 1792. The delegates to the Convention came from all
classes of society. Perhaps it is significant that instead of most days having an associated saint
as in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints, under the Republican Calendar each day has an
animal.”
ANIMA(L)
Series of 4 photographs and corresponding powder coated steel sculptures
2014
The Anima(l) series are Anima sculptures “extended” as they are accompanied by
a corresponding image of an animal.
Next page:
ANIMA(L)
Toucan Bird in the Iguassu park and yellow sculpture
C-print and powder coated steel
Image © CHRIS SCHMID / AURORA OPEN - CORBIS
Frame dimension 53.8 x 40.4 x 4.5 cm
Sculpture dimension: 26 cm x 19 cm x 24 cm
Pedestal with mirror: 50 cm x 50 cm x 100 cm / Mirror 50 x 50 x 0.4 cm
2014
ANIMA(L)
Panthara Onca in the Pantanal and green sculpture
C-print and powder coated steel
Image © JOHN GIUSTINA-CORBIS
Frame dimension 223 x 167 x 7.2 cm
Sculpture dimension: 29cm W x 31 cm H x 27cm D
Pedestal with mirror size: 80 x 98 x 35cm H / Mirror size 80 x 98 x 0.4 cm Thick
2014
WERE JAGUAR
Sculpture, gold leaf and gold beads
11cms x 20 cms high
Plexiglass cube 23 x 23 x 10 cms
Pedestal with mirror size: 70 x 65 x 65cm H
2014
This ready made Were Jaguar is a representation of a shaman becoming a jaguar - a common
subject in high lands of South America. The sculpture has been enhanced with gold leaf and
gold beads.
FOREST
Collage book
25 cms x 31,5 cms x 2 cms
2014
This book is an assemble of ready made images of forests, jungles and animals. All pages
are sliced in different ways allowing multiple combinations. The viewer is invited to turn
pages to create their own collage from the imagery. A book mark is stamped «Union Pour La
Cinegenie» (Union for Cinegenie). This union is an informal group created by Hugonnier and
Manon De Boer with the purpose of defining the made up word «cinegenie».
___
Book biding: Book Works, London
VASE (OBJECT - IMAGE)
3D modelling from a photograph from the Victoria and Albert
Museum’s catalogue, London
Vase from Jindezher, China (1662-1722) from an unknown artist
Dimensions 32 cm
2014
A vase has been modeled in 3D from the photograph of an original vase from the Victoria
and Albert Museum’s catalogue, in order to make an “Object –Image”. This new vase is an
interpretation of the photograph.
To a Victorian audience in search of the exotic, this style of decoration would have appealed
as the epitome of the East. Commonly known as ‘Chinese blue and white’, vases like this were
used to decorate the interiors of many British homes in the 19th century.
ARROWSTONE (OBJECT - IMAGE)
3D modelling from a photograph from the catalogue of the Museo
National de Anthropologica, Mexico DF
Punta Musteriense - Paleotico Medio (25,000-30,000 a.p)
2014
Punta de Proyectil tipo Lermoide - Arqueolitico (30,000-14,000 a.p)
2014
Fragmento Distal de Navaja Prismatica - Arqueolitico (30,000-14,000 a.p)
2014
Work in progress
Three arrowstones have been modeled in 3D from original photographs of arrowstones from
the Museo National de Anthropologica (Mexico DF)’s catalogue in order to make three
“Object – Image”. These new arrowstones are an interpretation of these photographs.
FABLE
HD Film and DCP
55 minutes
2013
Work in progress
This filmed road trip from London to Chauvet’s cave in Ardeche is a quest to find and to get to its
door. This film takes place over a night until sun rise. A Poet, a priest, a young girl, a doctor, an
archeologist will be pick up on the way and their conversations with the driver will be recorded.
THE ANGEL’S KISS
HD and DCP
Duration : 11 minutes
2013
Work in progress
The Angel’s Kiss is a film which takes place in Karl’s Cathedrale in Vienna. The film starts
with entering the cathedral and through to the elevator which brings people to the very top of
the Dôme. Once there the film will show Rottmayr’s fresco (1730). A famous tale says that
if you can find the angel that looks at you, you will find grace. The dome has been painted in
such a way that there is only one position to catch the angel’s eyes. The film will try to find it.
This film will shot be in one take with a small digital camera. Once on the top of the dôme the
camera will be attached to a drone so it will be floating in space.
SONIC MIRAGE III
Images and paper clips onto the second reproduction of John Cage’s
lost original score of the 4’33’ silent piano piece
Published in Sounds Like Silence, John Cage 4’33’’ Silence today, Dieter Daniels / Inke Arns
(Eds),
Ed: Spector books (2012)
2013
David Tudor’s second reconstruction of John Cage’s 4’33» silent piano piece, was written for
a performance on the occasion of the video production «I have nothing to say, and I am saying
it»by Allan Miller and Vivian Perlis, made for PBS. Images and paper clips have been inserted
onto the score, as visual notes for future works.
LE ROYAUME
35mm and DCP
Duration 55 minutes
2008-2014
Work in Progress
The film will follow the road between St Jean Pied de Port, in France to La Punta Reina in
Spain (a distance of 100 km), and record the views this road offers to a pilgrim on his way to
Santiago de Compostela. This non-narrative film in nature will eschew any formal or ‘fictional’ devices, in favour of following the path of the road and capturing whatever arises over the
course of the 10 day walk.
Within the phenomenon of the pilgrimage itself is the idea that what the pilgrim is ultimately
looking for at the other end of the road is the re-affirmation of a belief. But this re-affirmation,
or reassurance, could be located as much in the images; these image being both a proof of
existence of what is foreign and a way to believe in the possibility of an Other.
This film is a quiet quest for this Otherness. Its images will reflect a desire for, and affirmation
of, this belief and its disbelief. The film will consider the phenomenon of pilgrimage - a
precursor and early form of tourism (Godard said: « Tourism is cinema’s original sin ») - as
a critical tool to question the very idea of cinema. The film will attempt to represent « an
experience of the image through the world » as opposed to « an experience of the world
through images ».
FOREST (Amazonia-/ -4° 49.248’, -56° 47.455’)
Series of 2 Luminograms
2014
These two photographs are a recording of a place and time made with the help of an old
photography process : luminogram. Photosensitive paper has been exposed to the same place
at different times. These images, which are not quite monochromes, are an emanation of the
heat, the light and the elements whether apparent or not in the mist of the Terra Sin Fin - The
Land With No End - the Amazonia Forest.
Next page:
FOREST (Amazonia / -4° 49.248’, -56° 47.455’ / 6.30 am / 19°)
C-print mounted on aluminium
Photosensitive paper and coloured filters - Luminogram
227 x 171 x 7.2 cm
2014
FOREST (Amazonia / -4° 49.248’, -56° 47.455’ / 6.30 pm / 28°)
C-Print mounted on aluminium
Photosensitive paper and coloured filters - Luminogram
182.1 x 145.6 x 7.2 cm
2014
INSTANTANES
Series of 6 works
20 x 24 inches Polaroids
150 x 120
2012
INSTANTANES is part of a series of 6 works that explores the medium of instant polaroid
film and photography in general. These works are a critical investigation of the process of
producing these particular instant analogue images and of the necessary conditions to make
them. As such this series features a model (Instantanés (Le modéle)), the studio where the
picture were taken (Instantanés (Le Studio)), the climat condition during the day of the shoot
(Instantanés (Les conditions atmosphériques)), the standard Kodak color chart (Instantanés
(La charte de couleur)), Instantanés (La révélation)) and a fictional geographical place
(Instantanés (Le bord de mer)).
These photographs are large format polaroids (50 x 60 cm). They were taken with one of only
3 large format polaroid cameras that exist in the world. The 26 black and white peel part film
sheets used have been manufactured by Polaroid in the 80’s and kept in climate controled
environment by Studio 20x24 in New York. The ones used here where the last ones available
wordwide.
___
Shoot: Studio 20x24 New York
Director of Photography: John Reuter and Nafis Azad, New York
Camera: Polaroid Land 20x24 (Built 1978)
Stock: Polacolor P7 and Polapan 400
Lens: 600mm Fujinon and 300mm Fujinon
Next page:
INSTANTANES (LA CHARTE DE COULEUR)
6 - 20 x 24 inches Polaroids
Each 150 x 120
Art work size: 50 x 60
2012
INSTANTANES (LE STUDIO)
Each 150 x 120
2012
INSTANTANES (LE STUDIO)
Each 150 x 120
2012
DESIR IS NOT MUCH BUT NONETHELESS...
16mm film on a loop
5 minutes - In collaboration avec Michael Newman
2015
The film is a study of the Sleeping Hermaphrodite (second century AD) which blongs to the
Louvre. This film makes two revolutions around the sculpture. The first round offers to see one
body that becomes two; it thus refers to the myth of Narcissus, while the second round offers
to see two bodies that become one, revealing the monstrous aspect of the sculpture.
The sculpture is animated. These animations are key in near editing points thus creating an
illusion. The constant movement of the camera around the sculpture adds to this ambiguity;
the sculpture seems animated where it is still.
The film includes the insertion of three images lasting 18 frames (1 second = 24 frames).
These three images are perceived much more they seen. They are an answer to the question
that has haunted the making of this film: what may the Hermaphrodite be dreaming of?
The first two inserted images are an underwater view of a myriad of fish making a star dispersal movement and a horde of hyenas devouring an inert animal.
These two images are complemented by a last one of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This image is
the most important of the three as it finally pulls the Hermaphrodite towards contemporaneity.
This image embodies popular uprisings: the dismemberment of the body of the state and the
institution as well as the illusory and dangerous redesign of the people to form one body,
which in a joyful and violent movement projects in space its desire to belong to the myth. This
image sums up the first two: it is a symbolic syncretism of all the conflicting forces of desire,
of all its paradoxes.
These three images thus function as an acupuncture point in the tissues of the film. They are a
fragile attempt to answer the question of the nature of desire and an interpretation of the dream
of Hermaphrodite.
_____
Shoot : Grand Palais, Paris, Mai 2015
Camera : Red Monochrome transfered to 16mm
Lense : 55mm Zeiss
Dop : Tim Sidell
Assistant : Joseph Mastrangelo
Assistant 2 : Kim Pearce
Editing : Martina Moor
Grade : Jason R Moffat
Animation : Hoxtonredsox, London
Post-Production : Dejonghe Film, Corutrai
Copyright: Ponds5 / LoveNature
Collections
ARCO Collection, Madrid, Spain
Arts Council of England, UK
British Council, UK
BSI Collection, Lugano, Switzerland
Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
COFF - Fundación Centro Ordóñez-Falcón de Fotografía, San Sebastian, Spain
Collection La Gaia, Busca, Italy
David Roberts Collection, London, UK
Le Louvre, Paris
Fondation pour la MAN, Luxembourg
Fondation Serralves, Porto, Portugal
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (FNAC), Paris, France
Fonds Régional d’art Contemporain, (FRAC) Lorraine, Metz, France
IFEMA Collection
Inhotim, Brumadinho, MG, Brazil
Jumex Collection, Mexico City, Mexico
Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland
MACBA, Barcelona, Spain
Mamco, Geneva, Switzerland
MUDAM, Luxembourg
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (ARC), Paris, France
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Neuberger Berman Collection, New York, USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA
Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation, Vienna, Austria
UBS Collection, London/Zürich, UK/CH
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway
Galleries
Galeria Fortes Vilaça, rua Fradique Coutinho, 1500 - Pinheiros, Sao Paulo, Brasil ([email protected])
Nogueras Blanchard Gallery, Xucla, 7, 08001 Barcelona, Spain ([email protected])

The Ever Changing Book This catalogue

Transcription

Similar documents

tierney gearon - Zeitgeist Films

CARPRO 1 DAY. ENTRY LEVEL

Bandyke Moving Pictures

ergophobia - Student Cuts

Join us for a free screening of First Generation —

Film quiz 12 May 2011

40 dias

Page 19 - Films - Magazine for the Arts

Naqsh Short Films