Exoplanet

"Attraction to an indifferent nature"

SITE
"Exoplanet" is the outcome of a bodily dialogue with the Somme in France. The Somme is a slow meandering river that comes with a network of swamps and canals. Most of the river is artificially guided, a familiar landscape; nonetheless, its microcosmos reveal an exotic and strange site. As the water mass evolves slowly to the sea, radically indifferent like the desert, it creates a surprising diversity of cellular life. The upper Somme region is hillish, the remnants of a once-massive mountain range. Its fertility makes it the granary of France. Agricultural exploitation is present everywhere: endless waves of fields, machines harvesting, the naked earth.
POSTHUMAN TRANSFORMATION
Born -alone- and walking this nonhuman planet, humans may have constructed an algorithm to escape from one of the primal fears: the end of life. The algorithm pushes for endless growth, making humans claim and exploit humans and nonhumans. Today, this algorithm hesitates due to the appearance of global climate changes. The outcome of this personal encounter with the river points to the failing boundaries of concepts as "human," "nonhuman," "nature," and “landscape." The cellular life flows and lives on the indifferent river, easily permeating a seemingly strong and well-defined human sphere. My blood contains water, organic structures, cells. Are these cells part of me? Some of them seem alien to my body but coexist, some are dangerous invaders. Nature is not a place outside, it is inside. It is not a friend nor foe, it just is. The separation between humans and nonhumans appears to be an illusion. Once nature is revealed as a possible construct, a mirror of self-illusion, a posthuman transformation coexisting with nonhumans can come closer.
ON-SITE TRANSFORMATION
As an artist-explorer, the on-site specificity is essential to my creative process. Video, photographs, and sound fragments are captured during a short but intense, solitary backpacking hike. The intent to follow the GR-800 route from the source of the Somme to the North Sea is clear, however that destination was not reached. Regardless, the project opens itself to the site and unfolds: I act with heightened senses and the strong presence of the site. Eventually, I cannot but change.
TRANSVERSAL TRANSFORMATION
Poetry and music are composed editing images and sound, opening transversal media channels. The making of the short film is a performance, an event happening, a transformation. The intent is to keep sound and images unpolished and randomized, to emphasize today's audio-visual algorithms. Contradictory to the notion of film as moving images, a lot of images are photographs. In that, I was inspired by La Jetee from Chris Marker.