Rembrandt et les impressionnistes

Description

"From the series "TV-Perturbations"

The defective settings of a television set reveal the “underlying aesthetics” of the televisual language. In the first part of the video a “television drama” from Swiss-Italian television was recorded with the contrast set to maximum, and the luminosity to minimum. This operation results in a clair-obscur aesthetic; a rather shocking convention today, but perfectly normal in the pictorial representations of the 17th century. A few inserts of a self-portrait by Rembrandt in St. Paul punctuate the first part. The suppression of the soundtrack differently dramatizes the image, and infuses it with a different poetic as well, the message being completed by the spectator himself.
The second part of the video offers an ice hockey match recorded with the disturbances that techniciancs call “snow”. This electronic defect in the making of the image reveals a second example of the “underlying aesthetic” that one might call impressionist or pointilist. My attempt consists in undramatizing the match in order to keep only its visual dimension; the inserts reproducing a painting by Seura specify the reference being made."
(Source, artist's website)

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