Remote Memories is a new project by Yannick Jacquet, in collaboration with composer Laurent Delforge (Before Tigers). Remote Memories is a polyptych in panoramic format, a large canvas of video and sound. This highly pictorial work resists immediate apprehension; rather it needs to be observed a moment, contemplated in order to grasp its minor details. Textures are superimposed and interlaced, creating atmospheres that vibrate with neither line nor contour – a sort of “sfumato video.” The image that seems fixed at first is criss-crossed by almost imperceptible waves, like a brownian movement that shakes a gas’s particles. Glimmers, colours, shapes unknown or anxious seem to emerge and disappear as if glimpsed through thick fog.

Remote Memories from ANTIVJ is a visual label on Vimeo.

The soundtrack broadcasted through a series of 11 vibration speakers makes use of the canvas’ wooden panels as a sound box. Just like its visual counterpart, it is composed of vibrant textures superimposed on one another and creating a “drone” that alternates between brooding moods and more luminous sounds.

There is no question of audio-reactivity here since the images and sounds evolve at their own rhythm, mixing, losing ground, drifting, letting chance and coincidence create new interactions endlessly.

The installation Remote Memories invites the gaze to pause and apprehend the impossibility of immobility in an age where data is overabundant.

Remote Memories & the Six Cycles Orchestra – performance view

Remote Memories & the Six Cycles Orchestra

Remote Memories & the Six Circles Orchestra is a performance work adapted from the installation Remote Memories.

Before Tigers (Laurent Delforge) uses 6 turntables to play a collection of custom-made handcut vinyls with locked grooves, conjuring up an abstract composition by adding in or stripping out harmonies and textures to paint a soundscape in conversation with the work’s visual element. Images and sounds develop at their own unique rhythm as the sound and visual loops form intricate layers, intertwine, shift, and fall out of sync, triggering in nite new interactions at random.

The musical composition is spatialised by means of a unique setup combining standard speakers and transducers, or vibrating speakers, creating an echo chamber that encompasses the screen polyptych and the surrounding space. The installation and the live performance explore the tensions engendered by a certain conception of slowness, inviting the viewer to engage in contemplation.

Over the last few years, Yannick Jacquet’s twofold research into colour and the notions of time and natural cycles has led him to flesh out a new paradigm: slowness. Slowness as one possible path to the urgently needed restoration of sensibility.

Remote Memories (installation + performance)
Scopitone festival, Nantes (Fr)
20-24 September

More dates to be announced soon.

The 3Destruct project started in 2007, inspired in part by the wide-open yet claustrophobic space of an underground car park that the Biennale of Contemporary Art of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium had offered. Since then, the project has been presented in other festivals: Mapping Festival in Geneva (2007); Image Radio, Eindhoven (2007), 100% Montpellier (2008); most recently Yota Space in Saint Petersburg (2010).

An installation that occupies its host space in a particular and demanding manner, staging it requires finding the right venue. Since seeing the original Biennale presentation, the curator of the French festival Scopitone, Cedric Huchet, has been looking for that venue. 2011 saw the festival partner with the large former biscuit factory Le Lieu Unique, and in that space Cedric finally knew he had the perfect opportunity to host 3Destruct.

Allocated in an old workshop with industrial architecture typical of the late 19th century, we worked over a week to adapt the installation to this new space. As well as the expected issues of scale and placement, we had to update the whole projected sequence to eliminate all horizontal lines which we found just weren’t looking right especially in the more minimal sequences with the particular material used for this staging. Its a piece with real dynamic range and we had to keep that, and then we found the new constraint turned from challenging to a liberating new visual direction.

For those who might be interested by the technical aspect of the project, here are some schematics of the setup.

3Desctruct / Le Lieu Unique
4 volumes laid with mesh; 4x 1024 30fps Video streams;
6.1 surround sound.
Visuals: YANNICK JACQUET, JEREMIE PEETERS
Music: THOMAS VAQUIE

Many thanks to Cedric Huchet for inviting us, the Lieu Unique team for helping with the construction, and everyone involved in the project.

/Yannick


Official page: http://antivj.com/3Destruct_v2/

Related posts:
- 3DESTRUCT
- 3DESTRUCT IN RUSSIA WITH ONEDOTZERO