Tout ce qui couvrait une vie humaine déjà scintillait
A duo show by Dorine Aguerre + Rémi Dufay
Tout ce qui couvrait une vie humaine déjà scintillait
The two artists do not know each other, but have been sharing studios in the same building for four years. Although the form of their individual production is very different, their approach towards scenography, situation and video is extremely similar. Enough to provide the pretext for this fourth invitation in the form of a carte blanche.
The process of their collaboration could be summarized in three stages, immersed in and around the space: observe, intervene and restore.
Tirelessly observing through the north-facing windows of the Saules’ building, the close to stillness of the landscape for long hours. An occupation of the empty space on the part of the two interveners, scrutinizing day and night the events taking place there.
Then intervening, not in the space but in this same landscape, between the two banks of the Rhône. With a camera on their shoulder, helped by an assistant cameraman, but also filmed on a tripod from the windows of the space, they capture the subtle changes in the environment created by performative actions, the installation and activation of a few elements, often luminous. Visible in the videos, but also through the windows during the exhibition, these interventions then become perennial, traces of the artists in the public space.
Finally, in a work that is totally in situ and on the verge of obsession, a version of the exhibition space reduced to a tenth of its original size. In other words, a model imagined by the artists in collaboration with two architects. The artists have rethought its original function by creating it directly in the exhibition. They abolish it by removing the utilitarian objective of future projection or past reconstruction of a space.
Rather than a traditional video installation loop, the videos here reflect the five hours of filming in sequence shots and are shown synchronized with real time during the exhibition (from 17:00 to 22:00). Shot with less advanced planning, without any precise shooting stations, they become spontaneous recordings, witnesses of a human passing. We perceive ambient sounds coming from invisible sources, from more or less perceptible actions, the authors even forgetting that the cameras are rolling.
The result is not a model of an obsolete structure, an original making-off, a hypothetical simulation, a simple optical illusion or a trompe-l’oeil for the viewers. It is an illustration of the technicality of a video practice, where every flicker comes from a human activity, a camera or a screen. A melancholic contemplation of the planned destruction of a building.
From 18 November to 1 December 2021
With the collaboration of Maud Abbé-Decarroux, Elijah Graf-Quartier, Aloys Mützenberg
An Hichmoul Pilon Production coproduction
Poster: Thomas Perrodin
Photos: YAL
Translation: Yasemin Imre
Dorine Aguerre (*1990) is an artist from the Basque Country (FR) living in Geneva. She holds a Master’s degree in visual arts from the HEAD-Geneva and a Master’s degree in visual arts from the Glasgow School of Arts. Through different forms, sculpture, installation, video or sound, her practice is articulated around narrative construction. Her recent work has been shown in Rome (IT) (Swiss Institute), Glasgow (SCT) (The Pipe Factory, Crownpoint), Edinburgh (SCT) (Hidden Door Festival), Toulouse (FR) (L’Union des arts), Saint Jean de Luz (FR) (Baleapop), Neuchâtel (CAN).
Rémi Dufay (*1992) is an artist from Caen (FR) living in Geneva. He holds a Master’s degree in visual arts from the HEAD-Geneva. His work consists of producing situations. Under their aspects of struggle, learning, entertainment or reflection, these situations are above all designed to do two things. To rub and to gather. His recent work has been shown in Rivera (UY) (Campo Abierto), Warsaw (PL) (Center for Contemporary Art), Lausanne (Arsenic) and in Geneva (Halle Nord, Le Grütli, Live In Your Head, Festival Antigel, Comédie de Genève, La Bâtie Festival, L’Abri).
Soul2Soul/RU 