TEMPS MORT, 1992

A text by S. Zagdanski is at the origin of  this experiment: “…to annihilate time, to settle in a time that is forever dead, to kill time in order to kill death…”. In a photograph, time is stopped but so is space. In a cinematographic shot, we can travel through space but we also travel through time; neither of these two mediums makes it possible at the same time to travel through space while stopping time. However, it would theoretically suffice to cross their two genes, the ability of one (photography) to fix the moment and the ability of the other (the cinematographic shot)    to discover space, to finally penetrate into this fourth dimension by tearing apart the siamese space-time couple. TEMPS MORT is this genetic manipulation, an attempt to  evolve in space without evolving in time.

Deadly dream of immortality; need to escape duration by taking refuge in the chimerical and powerful instant which nourishes our memory and our poetic, photographic and cinematographic universes. Dream of eternity; capturing time within its space, freezing   the fleeting moment in its three dimensions, not killing time, only freezing it. Turn around time as one beats around the bush, cool its momentum by giving it a sacrilegious duration, take the measure of the moment finally mummified in the  Augustan definition of time «moving image of immobile eternity».

The man with the glass of water (1992). I carried out my first experiment with 50 Lubitel cameras fixed on a circular wooden plate at equal distance from each other and oriented towards the center of the circle where the subject is; a young man holding a glass of water. The room is plunged into darkness and the devices go into long pause. The man throws the glass of water in his face and impresses the film at the opportune moment in a flash of flashes. Ubiquity disorder, we can see everything, take the time to look at the moment. The liquid became solid. The man, frozen in his grin, is transformed into a living sculpture escaped from the logic of time.

Homme au verre d’eau from Emmanuel Carlier on Vimeo.

Temps mort portraits from Emmanuel Carlier on Vimeo.

Temps mort Biennale Lyon 95 from Emmanuel Carlier on Vimeo.