record

Thesis Info

LABS ID
00642
Thesis Title
Las Barricadas Misteriosas
Author
Edouard Beau
2nd Author
3rd Author
Degree
Master's degree - Practise based doctorate
Year
2014
Number of Pages
1 or more - Physical artistic installation
University
Academy of France, Casa de Velazquez - Madrid
Thesis Supervisor
Supervisor e-mail
Other Supervisor(s)
Language(s) of Thesis
English, french
Department / Discipline
Fine Arts, History, Geography, Cognitive systems, immersive systems
Copyright Ownership
Edouard Beau
Languages Familiar to Author
French, English, Spanish, German, Kurdish (including dialects, Arabic (bases)
URL where full thesis can be found
edouardbeau.com/photovideo/2013-2014-mysterieuses-barricades-spain/
Keywords
immersive, autogenerative, responsive, binaural, brain, thinking system, layers, stochastic, chaotic, narratives, archives, contemporary, flash-back, mirror effect, schrödinger effect, rogue wave effect, wave, stimuli, detection, history, memory, field s
Abstract: 200-500 words
Las Barricadas Misteriosas is an immersive audiovisual installation project concerning the memory of the Spanish civil war. Starting from the impossibility of writing an objective history, this installation proposes to carry a particular view of the Spanish civil conflict through a notion that lies at the crossroads of cognitive sciences; of the study of dreams, of the unconscious and of the trauma (traum): the experience of recall, the flashback. An immersive environment is created that treats the memory of a conflict by constructing an atmosphere, using sound and photographs. The atmosphere generates an integration of related sound information from archives of the conflict. The gaze of the participant rests on the photographs, thus provoking a sensory experience: a resurgence of the memory beyond the visible wounds and closer to the psychic pains and amnesia engendered by this conflict. It is a question here of treating memory by proposing, without moving, to perform four displacements of different forms and different aspects: an historical displacement by a temporal compression between the past and the actual time; a Spanish journey through the photographs, and its poetics; a comparison of the contemporary Spanish world to historical events and finally a paradigm shift in the perceptions of a given event. I have tried to create an autonomous and complex structure of diffusion using sound documents. The structure works as a brain and contains a number of period documents as well as sound recordings made at the historic sites. A stochastic diffusion system as well as detection of stimuli has been integrated using PureData, and tries to get closer to the functioning of the brain by the formation of images or mental words. The voice or sounds emitted by the participant create an interaction, finding their echo in the system of diffusion, and engage in destructure of the narrative. This diffusion system recreates the 'mirror effect' which in clinical cases attenuates phantom pain due to trauma. Assuming that each of these sources is a potential memory of this period, the system of diffusion mimics the memory which can be permanently activated by an external stimulus which would modify the evolution of its content as well as the nature of the sounds produced and which resurfaces at the participants' consciousness. A mass of historical information collides here and is utilised by the technique of assembly in cut-up, resulting in a deconstruction of the narrative and the mode of narration. The encounter of the present and collective memories allows the participant an analysis of the facts passed through the causal links that they have with their present lives. The use of a random and chaotic system makes it possible to the affect that can be put by the creator in his work. Like some painters or writers, I wish to encourage involuntary gestures, without seeking to control the documentary material or favour direct interpretation by others. The deconstruction of the chronology leaves the participant free to interpret the different combinations of meaning, contradictions and anachronisms. The piece is intended to encourage the participant to feel emotions about the collective memory of an European trauma. Edouard Beau (Madrid, 2014)