Mouth(s)' lecture(s)
Fontana/Fave/Aelters

Video-performance and poetic recital


THE DIOPTRIC STUDIO AND THE INKS TABLE

The video-performance, inspired of the Cubomanies by Ghérasim Luca, is composed of a DIOPTRIC STUDIO and a INKS TABLE, autonomous artistic objects.
These are at the same time antiquated and technological, and order the beam of questionings and experiments around the statute and the production of images.

The Cubomanies of Ghérasim Luca, seen by Nicole Manucu :

Cubomanie is a kind of collage which largely uses the cubist and dadaïst heritage ; but while this one is satisfied with the occasional lucky find by the use of any material and any detail, its Cubomanies always come from some cultural reference : for example, a table or a painting, photographic «reproductions» of pictorial works devoted by our «mass culture»… It cuts out fragments of images, details truncated and decontextualized - as many interior and external facets in a cube. (...) Jose Corti editions.

  

1. The DIOPTRIC STUDIO

The DIOPTRIC STUDIO deconstructs the images which pass through it, echoing the language of Luca. They are parcelled out, unstructured, they disappear to make place to with another comprehension, their initial direction is bended.
The DIOPTRIC STUDIO questions our way of looking at.

The hand's gesture dialogues with the digital image.

 

After having a time looking for the fragmentation of the video image with optical deformations which create diffractions, refractions which deform and filter the image (PROTOTYPE 01) and (PROTOTYPE 02) our research moved on to digital solutions around free software, PureData, Gem and Reactivision.

The video image breaks up into fragments recognized by artefacts which can be handled manually.
The deformations of the image are handled by the computer, but it is the hand which controls, which handles objects their position orders or disorganizes a flow of images.

DIOPTRIC STUDIO 1.0

PROTOTYPE 01 OF THE DIOPTRIC STUDIO (march 2006)


The DIOPTRIC STUDIO (prototype 01) is made of a small sized LCD screen which is reflected at 45° by a mirrored surface. Optical objects can be placed and removed between the screen and the DIOPTRIC STUDIO. These could be in various forms and would ideally create diffractions and refractions deforming and filtering the images. The images are thus split by moveable objects, manually or mechanically.
A camera films the fragmented images and projects them on large screen through a powerful video-projector.
PROTOTYPE 02 OF THE DIOPTRIC STUDIO (april 2007)

The prototype n°2 of the DIOPTRIC STUDIO will be more simple to handle.
Involving mostly elements that bend or refract the ray of light : flexible lenses, glasses, liquid pouches and more objects to build and experiment with. Then, it will include electronic elements (captors, LCD, conductive coatings...) and some software tools to drive these.
We plan to use open source software mostly puredata with video extensions, midi interfaces.

2.INKS TABLE SET-UP

Inks, paints, solvents, water are all mixed together into the INKS TABLE's liquid images.
Handling is done by hand on a glaze.
Below, a mirror reflects the flowing images and a camera shoots them.
These images are then transmitted to the DIOPTRIC STUDIO.

Initially, the questions raised with this INKS TABLE are of a temporal and rhythmic nature, of a visual nature more than of an aesthetic nature (colors). It is especially the editing, therefore time and even the moment which is questioned : how to create and capture coloured rhythms, how to mix them into the performance, how to play with the device set up, how to develop a vocabulary of coloured forms.
Experimentation and reiteration of the gesture becomes paramount.

All the images flow through a video mixing unit, which reinjects the output signal in an input and produces the wind (kind of video Larsen).

 

 

PATRICK FONTANA - PIERRE-YVES FAVE - EMERIC AELTERS

FONTANA - FAVE - AELTERS work together since the video-performance GRENZE.
GRENZE is a series of visual lectures based on Capital by Karl Marx.
Internet site : www.grenze.org.

Grenze formerly had support from Nordic Institut for Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland in 2006, and created a finnish version of GRENZE which was presented at Kiasma Museum in Helsinki,for Pixelache Festival 2006.
GRENZE received the support of the french ministry for culture and communication, DICREAM 2004, SCAM funding, Bourse Art Numérique 2002, CTC(Corsica), AERI, and of the CG93, in Seine-Saint-Denis.

 

TECHNICAL RIDER

The video sources are projected on 2 big screens and mixed live by our team.
NEEDS :
a white wall (for projection minimum) 3x2 meters
1 monitor or tv with peritel pal input or composite input
2 video projectors (minimum1500 Lumens) with y/c (svhs) input
1 dv camcorder
2 hifi speakers
cables for sound and video (Svideo)
2 handheld microphone.