“Conversation chilienne” - 2001 - “Between Neighbors” exhibition, BF 15 Gallery, Lyon
This installation attempts to create a soundscape through multiple projections (projections of images and sounds that induce the construction of a mental space, and therefore a fictional space).
The film being projected is a long, continuous panoramic tracking shot of a mountain landscape (deserted and silent), seemingly outside of time and in which no specific event is perceptible. This continuous panoramic view, when projected, invites the viewer to experience a loss of bearings and a state close to weightlessness, through the image.
The installation of this space refers to the transformation of domestic space (private interior) into a projection room: a kind of small-scale interior rearrangement, or makeshift arrangement, to transform the private “living room” into a projection room for a few moments. A true scenography for setting up a system to monumentalize the image and render spectacular archetypal landscapes (mountains, sea, countryside). The images/landscapes, thus presented, are transformed into places or settings for possible fictions.
The conversation we hear is an endless dialogue about current events, which are not precisely localized. It is not about filling the soundscape (a conversation that merely fills the void), but rather a conversation of "furnishing": a verbal exchange about external, indeterminate, and not entirely predictable phenomena. These dialogues about the behavior of meteorological disturbances use a vocabulary similar to that used to describe physical behaviors and attitudes generated by real-life experience.
The choice of deck chairs and artificial turf refers to the archetype of an outdoor relaxation space: a garden, a terrace. The facing position of the chairs, while creating a crest-like silhouette, offers a space for close conversation (legs touch, but the overall body position prevents the two participants from seeing each other directly). The resulting posture is one of emptiness, conducive to intimacy.
Finally, the cutout in the floor, from which the chairs emerge, generates a series of folds reminiscent of the mountain folds visible on the screen. The garden furniture appears as active elements (sort of like shoots, part plant, part object) originating in a hollow space, invisible because it is underground.
Here, everything is delayed: the image, the sound. Only the spectator participates in the live fiction, multiplying the possibilities through their movements, filling the void left by the missing character in the narrative, creating memories.
CLT 2000