Le bruissement des pensées dans l’espace inter-images
Envelope 21, images 11 & 18
Quentin is a friend of mine. I follow his work closely. We often chat about it, discuss
it, laugh and argue etc. So I entered this project with expectations in mind and biais. Nevertheless this one caught me off guard. Because it is more figurative than previously, because I was wrongly expecting different ways to connect photographs together and having mainly to work by affinities not oppositions.
It was actually an easy task to choose my diptych, it was a very intuitive choice, mostly based on how I did not want to couple the images and avoiding the ones where I was seeing figurative forms. I also don’t want to put words on that diptych, in order to save the plastic meaning it encompass for me and to allow that meaning to evolve through time.
But it wasn’t satisfying enough to choose these two photographs for a reason I couldn’t grasp at first, I was feeling unfulfilled, because i wanted to try to deeper understand the mechanics of that choice for both Quentin, myself, and to some degree you I share it with. So I left the diptych on my wall, decided not to care about the time it will take and board for an unexpected journey. I started trying to analyse my thought process, wandering in my mind, sometimes walking in circles, sometimes discovering new avenues, and getting very interested in ontological questions along the lines of :
Does a diptych has to be linked in space and time to be considered one or could it
claim more freedom ?
Where starts the artwork in this project ? Before or after the enveloppes had been
opened ? Due to its nature, would it be right to think it as a collective piece ?
As surrendering is a very important step for Quentin throughout this project, where
does it actually happen ? Will we, as recipients of an envelop, have to
surrender something too (not only the envelop) ?
… we get the idea, I will not elaborate more here, it is not the point to dissert (however I am truly open to chat about it with whoever would like). Despite it was a very interesting thinking moment, I needed to give up on these thoughts for a momment.
Meanwhile, diptych still on my wall, I was never stopping of intuitively changing the spacing in-between the two images day after day, unwillingly creating an attraction-repulsion phenomenon, a variable magnetism, and furthermore creating a very chatty space in-between pictures.
Therefore that inner space in movement and its constant changes are an interesting representation of that thought process. It also reminds me of the latent image in the analog which only exist after the shot has been taken and before processing starts - already there but not a photograph yet in its physico-chemical nature.
Reflecting on it now, I wish I would have shot a stop motion video to illustrate this questionning.
So I believe this project worked just as he imagined, offering me an unexpected journey towards an unknown destination (it is all about the journey no the destination, isn’t it). A journey I was already on without noticing it. A journey within and against myself, beyond biaises and cultures, beyond my own inner frontiers. A journey of learning how to surrender : Culture, beliefs, french language and style and even urgency to write for my friend. Surrender everything.
Parfois voyager consiste simplement à faire un pas de côté pour mieux voir en soi-même et au-delà.
