Process / documents from Fluenter, Festival Atmosphères +, Notre-Dame de la Pitié, 2010.
The N-D de la Pitié chapel is bordered by the Nantes-Brest canal,
which widens at this point to form a lake. Protected from the wind, it makes
the entire site weightless with a mirror effect, in perfect silence, interrupted
by the white noise of the waterfalls at the level of the two successive locks
a little further on.
The water is overabundant, regularly flooding the chapel, testifying through
its red color to the iron wealth of the subsoil.
Developed along the central axis of the chapel and chanted in three movements like the beams, the sculpture suspended above the viewer is visually inscribed in the vault: it becomes an integral part of the building, like an ex-voto dedicated to the water. The use of the linseed oil + iron oxide mixture for the color, traditionally used to protect the wood from humidity and which we find here in the pulpit, completes its integration.
Evoking the organic forms observed on the site, the elements of the sculpture are inspired by the propagation of fatty fluids in water: experiences which transcribe fluid dynamics and reveal an intimate correspondence between shapes, forces and flows.
These elements seem to describe a sound spectrum, echoing the successive sound spaces of the site and its different hydrological flows.
Fluenter is an in situ synesthesia jointly evoking speeds, organic structures, a sound rhythm.