Swimmingpool Pontoise, PARIS France
1st Nuit Blanche 2002, light installation
Deep Water is a light installation in the swimmingpool Pontoise in Paris offering the public the experience of a “sleepless space”. The pool invites visitors to swim, to immerse themselves in blood-red water, bathed in intense green light appearing and disappearing like a breath, creating an insomniac bath.
Light influences our biological behaviour. Red light increases the heart rate, stimulates life forces, and reinforces the skills of sportsmen. Red light is euphoric: the pool becomes a place of echoes and delighted cries uttered by the bathers and visitors when they enter this sleepless space. The bodies of the swimmers move around, immersed in this red water, experiencing their physical limits.
Usually dark at night, the glass roof covering the whole pool is lit up in green. The light gently intensifies, and when it reaches its peak, it appears to lose its materiality. Then it gently fades and intensifies once more. Like breathing: the breath of a living body. The space seems to expand and contract under the influence of the luminous intensity projected by the green glass roof.
This green light is calming; it slows the heart rate; it is insomniac. Green light creates a sleepless space for a Nuit Blanche.
Light projectors, gel filters, control panel
Art director: Jean Blaise. Producer: ATC International, Nuit Blanche, Mairie de Paris
Photographies : Jean-Luc Buro
