Cosmorama observes the world in a way that it doesn’t appear to us. Composed of a film and a series of cyanotypes, which, one after the other, render visible an inaccessible stratum of the light spectrum, it questions our perceptions and representations, and attempts to reintroduce notions of the unknown, of uncertainty and wonder into our relationship with the world. Shot in the vicinity of an observatory, in a lava desert (where NASA recently tested its vehicles for Mars), but also in a forest that shows the state of our continent fifty million years ago, the film uses an infrared imaging process, with which astronomers usually observe objects in “deep space,” such as planets, nebulas and black holes located outside our galaxy: the filmic space reconstructs a microcosm. In it we hear sounds that are equally imperceptible, whether they are the transposition of the radiance of celestial bodies in the audible field or the reception of vibrations that pass through some of the filmed elements. The aim is to bring together the conditions of a sensory and collective experience of disorientation, of the shattering of spatial and temporal scales.

As for the cyanotype, it is an early photographic technique, also invented by an astronomer, which reveals images thanks to ultraviolet light. The series exhibited here intends to give a materiality to the invisible and intangible territory explored by the film, by printing on the surface of reality a trace of these imperceptible radiances.

Remerciements

Olivier Anselot, Lucie Bercez, François Bonenfant, Aurélie Brouet, Wafa Chaabi, David Chantreau, Pascal Convert, Valérie Delhaye, Dominique et Gérard Deverchère, Elsa Di Venosa, Sarah Di Venosa, Daniel Dobbels, Mohamed et Nassira Echrick, Christophe Gregório, Catherine Gross, Sébastien Hillairet, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Hideyuki Ishibashi, Daniel Kunth, Laurent Lafolie, Jacky Lautem, Thibaud Le Maguer, François Lescieux, Eric Loret, Bruno Nuytten, Thomas Ozoux, Eric Prigent, Massimiliano Simbula, Blandine Tourneux, Madeleine Van Doren, Elodie Wattiaux.

Crédits