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«Sphere of turbulence» - 2008 -"Stratus Locus" Exhibition - The Cryptoporticus - Reims

Inflatable sphere, 3 m diameter, black and white digital print (unique piece) - private collection -

 

This monumental sculpture, reminiscent of the Earth, exposes the void that constitutes it. Silent and weightless, the turbulent images of meteors visible on the sphere's surface, though static, come to life when a visitor approaches and brushes against it. The slightest breeze makes it oscillate. Silence completes it; air shapes it. 14 m³ of breath, 14,000 liters of air, one day of life... This transparent sculpture is a floating bubble of air at the center of an enclosed space. Its lightness is proportional to its size.

On February 27, 2007, storms, typhoons, cyclones, thunderstorms, stratus/nimbus/cumulus clouds... encircled the Earth.

 

The sphere materializes these atmospheric conflicts. One image for 24 hours of meteorological fury. A time-image for a movement. This floating object presents itself as the synthesis of a day and a telluric cycle. This “sphere of turbulence” is the projection screen that seems to have absorbed and recorded the minute movement of a rotation of the celestial body of which we are the fleeting guests. The Earth is, here, empty. Only the conflict of fluids and the immaterial energy of the flows make it visible. The turbulent water vapors combine, in a single image, a spectral apparition and the representation of a physical phenomenon. The impressions of silver, gray, black, and white flows play with the sunlight that irradiates them, revealing, through superimposition, a mummified chaos. This "ocular" globe sways to the rhythm of presences, revealing the silence that surrounds it, like Foucault's pendulum; it discreetly reminds us that the earth rotates, and that we are but fleeting. "The sphere of turbulence" is a suspended parenthesis of silence; it vibrates and trembles only to the sounds of voices, to the mere breath of our movements.