After the Scrub Solos Series, which received international acclaim, both in the dance scene and in filmfestivals, De Bemels produced Peau Pierre (2002), which represents a profound transition in his body of work: from solo to duo, from black and white to colour, from the security of the studio to the whims of the public space (here the “Palais des Papes” in Avignon), and most of all, the definitive conversion to video. With this new working method he also introduces some new, unconventional techniques, allowing him to penetrate further into the core of the image: examples of which include the so-called “virtual camera” (digital effect used to simulate a zoom inside a given video sequence or still image), the use of the rendering process of digital effects instead of the result, and the first experiments with stroboscopic editing, which will have a major influence on his later work.
Peau Pierre shows two naked bodies entangled in a dance, surrounded by cold, pale walls and floors. Their movements and attitudes are dissected, frozen, sped up and stretched out into abstract figures. The image frame turns into a laboratory, a virtual space in which the subjects comply with purely cinematographic physical rules, looking for the hidden possibilities of the human body and motion. The two bodies involved, formatted by the frame and compressed by the stone background, eventually merge with the substance of the video image itself.
Dance: Bud Bumenthal and Melanie Munt / Sound: Antonin De Bemels
Courtesy of the artist