Arc Expo 2009 - "Un autre regard sur la BMI ou l'envers du décor"

"Another look on the BMI or the other side of the scenery"
(projection on plexiglas in a loop of 2'26" without sound, 2009)

This is my finished work for the exposition project in the Musée de l'Image in Épinal.
vou can see the video here

some screenshots :

We worked on a recently constructed multimedia centre. The main source of inspiration and the starting point for every body.
The first thing I noticed was the variety of odors. On one hand freshly cut wood, plastic, synthetic fabrics and chemical cleaning agent and on the other hand old wood and aged books with their leather and the big deposit of dust in the heart of the library, the 'boiserie'. First, I got to know the place: every corner, every material with his distinguishing smell, I noticed every little change with every visit and every transformation of an odour.
Then I searched inspiration in Süskind's "The Perfume" and from Bodelaire, too to represent the best all these smell.
Finally I chose the videographism, which seemed to me the most real and adequate for my purpose.
But all these images I created were not strong enough to show the feeling I had when smelling each material so I continued to search other images in this place.
When revisiting all these videos, they stood for themselves... each recording was enough interesting alone, even without the background of the odors. All this was due to the fact that I approached each detail. Knowing the place by heart, I noticed tiny mouvemets a normal visitor woud never have noticed. The fact that I worked when the library wasn't open yet and with no one around me, I could completely concentrate on this environment.
Finally this is a sort of a documentary but of a passed time you would never see again this way. No one could do the same work on his place like this again. Not even me, seeing that I changed in the way I think, work and see the things, too.

All this leaded to a experiential and sentitive work. There is no sound since there was nothing to bring by ore than this so I concentrated completely on the image and the movement, not the sound. I didn't want to represent it on a solid ground like a tv but project it on a light surface like a kerchief or a floating transparent surface. Not on the normal way, on the wall with the spectator in front like in the theaters, but in the room as if the image was part of the air.
Since there were some security limits to respect in the museum, I couldn't hang up a surface moving and tripping the alarm. I chose a special semi-transparent plexiglas, lying on a white surface, reflecting the image more clearly.
In this position, the spectator isn't simply in front of it like in front of a tv, but he turns around it. He even steps on it since the projection is in some way part of the floor.
"-thèque" from the frech bibliothèque means "cube" in Greek. It became the leitmotif of our exhibition. Also in my work I used this idea of cube and resized my image on this form. Now I could play with the presentation of my projection : When finishing the assembly of it, I turned the image always through 90°. This provoces a movement among the spectators, trying to follow the image. He isn't fixed on one place but interacts with the video, perhaps stepping on it, cutting the image wit his shadow; he becomes sort of part of it.

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