Anna Katharina Scheidegger, Beat Gysin

Quelques gouttes d'éternité - Installation - 2020

presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 22

Quelques gouttes d'éternité Quelques gouttes d'éternité Quelques gouttes d'éternité

Installation

Photographs of the deceased are immersed in tanks full of water. The images dissolve, going through a succession of states showing ephemeral, fragile beauty.

The tanks are backlit and the light is projected onto the walls and ceiling.

Drops fall into the tanks, making low noises that sound like voices and mingle with the words of the deceased. The voices of the drops, together forming a murmur, is accompanied by a subtle and tender musical composition. The result is an ensemble which orchestrates images and sound in an installation. The atmosphere that is established in the room raises questions. After the dissolution of bodies, does something like the soul still remain, a moment of oating and pulsation?

Is it possible that an intermediary world, a world of transition may exist?

This project is not about mourning, but about memory.

A preliminary version of the work is being exhibited in Panorama 22 – Les Sentinelles; Écho de quelques gouttes d'éternité.

Beat Gysin

Beat Gysin (1968) studied piano, chemistry, composition and musical theory in Basel. Born into a family of musicians, he is the author of some fty prizewinning compositions for eve- rything from solo performers to orchestra. In particular, he has written for the Arditti Quartet, the Basler Madrigalisten, the Phoenix Ensemble, the Collegium Novum, the Contre- champs ensemble and the Recherche ensemble, and has composed numerous pieces for the Windspiel and ums’n jip formations. Working with Anna Katharina Scheidegger, he has made lms to accompany each of these projects. In 2011 he founded the studio-klangraum association in order to sys- tematically explore the interaction between certain kinds of space and music. He also founded the Biennale Zeiträume, a festival organised around the interaction of contemporary music and architecture.

Production

Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing

Acknowledgments

À toute l’équipe du Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, spécialement Éric Prigent et Pascale Pronnier ; à Louise Déry, Christophe Boulanger, Mariam Koné ; au CIPGP, Collège International de Photographie du Grand Paris ; à Radwina Seiler, Sagaprojects.