Mourners

Who has never contemplated drops of water seeking their path down a windowpane? Mourners uses that phenomenon, but controls both the route of the drops and their creation. Human-size plates of glass, positioned like stelae, release trickling drops of water. But they do not seem to move haphazardly toward the ground; they wander off, following invisible routes, accelerating and decelerating, forming sketches of human figures whose expressions are, in fact, conditioned by the process and the materiality. Subtly lit, the plates of glass rest on mirrors that encourage the play of reflections and glances: they let through glimpses of faces and bodies, the faces of mourners on the surface and of others through them or that are reflected there, those of the viewers. Such subjects have associated, since antiquity, deep feeling and simulacra, affect and representation. Pursuing that tension, sensibility here encounters the most advanced technology to impart feelings to us, through absence or through transparency.

This work have been created in collaboration with Pascal Viel (CEA)

More by Samuel Bianchini