Memento mori, 2012

Video installation. Video, television, armchair, cabinet and carpet, dimensions variable

Memento mori is a video installation set within a reconstructed sitting room furnished for a solitary inhabitant. An old television shows an elderly woman listening to conversations around her without taking part. Across the image, a text scrolls horizontally, recounting another situation that remains independent from what is seen and heard.

The installation is structured through the coexistence of distinct elements rather than through a unified narrative. Image, speech, text, furniture and spectator occupy the same space while retaining separate temporalities and meanings. The reflective television screen also incorporates the viewer’s body into the work, placing the present spectator alongside the recorded figure. This early contrapuntal installation anticipates the later importance in my practice of parallel narratives, indirect representation and the physical implication of the viewer.

Installation view of Memento mori presented during the ONS–Patrima seminar, developed between ENSAPC, the electronics research laboratory of Université de Cergy-Pontoise and ENSEA as part of ENSAPC’s Art and Science programme, 2011.

Details of Memento mori, including the reconstructed sitting-room setting and a close view of the television screen showing the elderly woman and the horizontally scrolling text.