Crossing the Line – Amelie Chabannes
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“Intimate immensity and Lagerstätten”
In Contributions to Analytical Psychology C. G. Jung asks his readers to consider the following comparison
“We have to describe and to explain a building the upper story of which was erected in the nineteenth century; the ground-floor dates from the sixteenth century, and a careful examination of the masonry discloses the fact that it was reconstructed from a dwelling-tower of the eleventh century. In the cellar we discover Roman foundation walls, and under the cellar a filled-in cave, in the floor of which stone tools are found and remnants of glacial fauna in the layers below. That would be a sort of picture of our mental structure”
“Intimate immensity and Lagerstätten ” is a mixed media installation, which investigates the difficult and enduring task of capturing the depth of the human soul.
The project portrays the complexity of the being and its representations in specific philosophical and psychoanalytical analysis. It will also builds its conceptual and formal existence on the archeological and topographical rhetoric used by C.G. Jung in Contributions to Analytical Psychology and Philosopher Gaston Bachelard in Poetics of Space.
The installation and performance will also evoke the conflict between the two psychic forces, the conscious and its fragile rationality opposed to the archaic and more intuitive unconscious.
In “Intimate immensity and Lagerstätten” the being is portrayed as a physical place, a site, a geo-archeological landscape.
Looking in, the viewer enters a large gridded ground, which follows the tradition of archeological research. In the center stands a massive rectangular block made of dozen of strata (H70xL65xD32”) alluding compact and multilayered monoliths. Each Layer has a different thickness, color and medium (Plaster, Wood, Wax, Foam and Resin).
Through a 2-3 days performance, I will thoroughly without any esthetical goals dig and break the central piece, unleashing hundreds of raw fragments, features and artifacts retained in the stratified central piece.
Now, viewers look at a large gridded space randomly covered with hundreds of fragments of resin, plaster, wood and wax. Among the debris, the viewer will also be able to identify objects unleashed by the performance, as they recall a specific aspect of Identity. In the center still stands the dramatically eroded layered block
All the debris will remain at its drop point, on the grid and its position will be precisely located and archived in an “archeological” record. A camera will be set up above the installation and will frequently shoot and film aerial pictures of the evolving site allowing the viewer to witness and experience the Performance in real time through live streaming and social technology integration.