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Rochers à Fontainebleau

DAN SHIPSIDES - Rochers à Fontainebleau - video

 

Stick itPaul HuetAlien - click to enlarge

Rochers à Fontainebleau - video

There are several components or variation of video for this project.

The Duel (a short excerpt)
Rochers a Fontainbleau single channel
Rochers a Fontainebleau twin channel (Part A and B)

 

Rochers a Fontainebleau (short A+B single screen edit)
SD video 14.55min
Dan Shipsides
2003

 

 

The Duel
SD video 3.32min
Dan Shipsides
2003

 

Part A and Part B

The twin video element is flexible.

It can be exhibited as a projection and mini LCD screen or twin monitor. There is also a single screen version of these two elements - but the full version is in two parts.


Alien - click to enlarge Part A

Featuring several notable French climbers on their project routes including: Alien Christophe Laumône, Court-Métrage climbed by Catherine Miquet, Close Contact climbed by Jacky Godoffe and Duel climbed by Jo Montchaussé.

The footage documents climbs and attempted efforts on particluar boulder problems. I worked with the climbers and they took me to document their latest or favourite projects - or projects which they were hoping to finish.

It also features a qoute from Cézanne where he talks about a relationship with his motif in terms of an intimate tactile engagement - which transfers very much into the philosophy of bouldering:

Cezanne addressing Gasquet;

I have my motif…( he clasps his hands ). That's what a motif is, you see…
Ah yes… ( he makes the same gesture as before, separates his hands, all ten fingers spread, then very slowly brings them together again, then joins, clasps, clenches and intertwines them ). That's what has to be achieved…If I pass too high or too low, everything is ruined. There mustn't be a single stitch which is too loosely woven, not one gap through which emotion, light, truth might escape. All that we see dissipates, moves on. Nature is always the same, but nothing of her remains, nothing of what appears before us. What lies below her? Nothing, perhaps. Perhaps everything. Everything, do you see? And so I join her roaming hands… From right to left, here, there, everywhere, I capture her tones, colours nuances, I fix them, bring them together… They create lines.

But if the slightest thing distracts me, if I falter for a moment, especially if one day I interepret more than I should, if I think as I work, if I intervene – bang!

Everything's gone.

 

Paul Huet Part B

Part B present re-constructed animated landscape drawings of Paul Huet and Théodore Caruelle d’Aligny along with animation of the climbers’ drawings and notation. It also contains text and other animation references to the climbing culture and the art history of the forest. Examples of problem descriptions such as The Super Joker by Alain Michaud feature along side animations of art works such as

3 moves. Right hand on a side pull on which it is necessary to put all five digits; left hand on the edge, right foot smearing; then lower the pelvis as much as possible, so the body is curved. The toe of the left foot can then be placed above the left hand whilst at the same time putting as much pressure as possible on the right hand's pinch grip. Gradually move all the weight onto the left foot whilst at the same time continuing to maintain the pinch grip with the right hand. Stand up to reach the finishing pocket, but do so slowly in order to avoid slipping off.

The Super Joker
7c
Alain Michaud 1982

Paul Huet Rocks in the Forest of Fontainebleau Paul Huet c1830

 

Documentation of part A and B (left and right) exhibited on flat screen monitors.






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