2023, Halle Maxwell, Athletes’ Village, Saint-Denis, France
Commissioned by Vinci Immobilier : 1 Building, 1 Artwork, part of the artistic approach ‘Courants Fertiles’ by SOLIDEO. Artwork labelled ‘Paris 2024’ as part of the Cultural Olympiad
In this artwork, the programme that creates the wavelengths (colours) undergoes modulations connected to modifications of parameters that affect their intensity and projects them onto the building.
This piece, which can be seen by day and by night, appears as a luminous strip. Five circular dynamic projections vary gently and their interaction creates a third colour. The continuous slow movement is a sign of life. Projected onto the porch ceiling, the circles of light of various pure, saturated colours slightly overlap and change colour individually, subtly and slowly. These discs vary in intensity and colour, appearing to grow, appear in 3D or disappear. The verying intensity of the light creates a sense of fluidity and continuous movement. Like a new constellation, the artwork involves colours constantly shifting and changing.
In the centre of these superimpositions, the colour appears lighter or as a white light in the Milky Way. It’s the result of additive synthesis. The artwork seems to move one way and then the other, to become denser, and then to return to its original state, like a celestial river.
Mole a starry halo, the artwork projects us into a world beyond; at night the galaxy and its stars appear: a boundary between the world of movement and the stillness of eternity.
For Plato, colour (pharmakon) had curative properties; for Barthes, it was something that submerges us. Vision, especially of colours, varies from species to species and also among humans, who see them in different ways. In this artwork, certain colours can be appreciated by all kinds of retinas, while carefully chosen colours can be seen by people with dichromatic or achromatic colourblindness.
The influence of light on our biological system is thought-provoking and occupies a central place in this sensitive, magnetic artwork.
After the 2024 Olympics, the Halle Maxwell will be home to the Ministry of the Interior.
Specially programmed RGBAL spotlights. Dimensions: 6 x 12 m Realization : AUDIONYSOS
- Photos Laurent Lecat