Intangible light particles are dancing on a tissue of darkness, as a show of ionizing particles. Then, gradually, these restless spots reveal themselves as bits of skin moving through crossed rays of light. Out of the dark the outlines of two bodies appear, those of a man and a woman – or is it a single body? Just like the particles, the bodies keep changing configurations, until they seem to be merging into one another, giving birth to a mutant entity. “Light body Corpuscles” is the result of a cultural exchange between Antonin De Bemels and the Irish composer Gordon Delap at the initiative of the British Council. It was originally presented as a stereoscopic video installation.
Dance: Ugo Dehaes and Melanie Munt / Music: Gordon Delap / Light: Laurence Halloy / Supported by: The British Council, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Sonic Arts and Research Center and Nadine Art Center
First Prize in the Point de Repère competition, Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 2005
The stroboscopic trilogy
This triptych (2003 - 2005) continues De Bemels’ videographic exploration of movement, dance and the body with the aid of the stroboscope effect, which consists of alternating various video sequences frame by frame. This way a shattered perception of time, space and movement is created. The bodies on the screen seem to be made up of various layers, each enclosed in a time and space dimension of their own. This technique doesn’t merely generate an embodiment of the post-industrial body, which is more and more subjected to de- and re-construction as well as to infinite multiplication and alteration, but is also a metaphor of the post-modern identity: fragmented and ambiguous, schizophrenic and heterogeneous, in a constant state of flux. After all, in a society dominated by consumerism, cybernetics, mass culture and global media, the notion of identity seems to dissolve in an incessant mutation and replication of existent and combined identities. Here the human body is presented as the major source of self-exploration and expression of personality.
Courtesy of the artist