We know the figure of the “still life” in painting. I propose the figure of the “silent nature” in digital cinema. These are contemplative paintings of nature, for exactly five minutes, like the inaugural “Lumière minutes” of the cinematograph in 1895. They are perspectives, like so many windows open on Life. They are created in an organic way: the camera, always present on me, only comes out and is placed if it is as if “called” by the landscape. I put myself in a state of perception of this intuition so that the shared look is right, never forced, always listening to this form of original mystery with which nature can put us in connection.
What is the purpose of contemplating nature through the eyes of the person who shares his or her vision, or rather his or her aim? It serves to perceive nature, through the eyes of the other, another richness, what we would not have seen alone, since each glance is singular. And for all that, the framing is perfectly fixed, letting natural life unfold without artifice. It is the dialectic of contemplation: singular framing and natural freedom.
- What to do with it? Each one feeds for himself from the contemplation of the represented landscape. There is no rule.
- Why say “digital cinema” and not “video”? Because the first object of these images is to be projected, in this case in the waiting room of the hospital of Flers (Normandy), within the framework of my perennial installation « On the beach of my imagination » (2022). The cinema is projected and we see it reflected by a surface, whereas the video consists of light rays sent directly to our retinas via an electronic screen. Thus, you see this cinema in video, unless you choose to project these images on a wall or a screen, which I can only advise you.
