CONTRETEMPS

SOUND VIDEO INSTALLATION / COLOUR / TWO-SCREEN MULTI-PROJECTION

Created during the summer of 2011, Contretemps emerged from a deeply transitional moment in my life: while my daughter had just been born, my mother was living her final days in hospital.

The work takes the form of a diptych projected onto two screens positioned at an angle. On one screen, a woman in a red dress runs through a forest. On the other, two adolescents slowly set in motion a massive swinging bell.

Between these two images, a silent tension unfolds between acceleration and suspension, urgency and restraint, birth and disappearance.

Sound plays a central role in the perception of time within the installation. The bell screen diffuses an extremely slowed-down recording of the bell’s metallic resonance, stretched until it becomes an almost abstract vibratory material. In counterpoint, the screen showing the running woman amplifies breath, footsteps and the friction of the body against the ground and the surrounding space.

As often in my work, Contretemps does not tell an explicit story. The piece functions instead as an interior state — a space of sensitive resonances where images, sounds and duration create a suspended emotional experience.

Concept and direction:
Denis Vedelago

Technical information:
Two looping sound films, each with a duration of one hour.