This project began with a geographical survey of a park located in Gennevilliers, on the outskirts of Paris. The park intrigued me because in the middle there was a construction zone. Due to the environmental, urban planning and political issues present on the site, I decided to map it. With the help of a researcher from the University of Liège [1], I carried out a LiDAR survey, a remote measurement technique based on the analysis of the properties of a beam of light sent back to its transmitter. I could describe at length the reasons which guided this choice but the important thing to remember is that beyond my interest in these troubled territories is the relationship between the LiDAR capture device and the complex, semi-domestic, changing territory, a sort of “third nature” to borrow the concept of A. Tsing [2].
By manipulating the data, I sought to explore the limits of this technology to capture such “third nature” composed of waste, muddy puddles, gravel and earth, and plants. Since the floods of 2021 which destroyed my workshop in Belgium, I have been haunted by images (or the absence of images) predicting and/or representing these complex phenomena. In addition to the ecological questions that these phenomena imply, what particularly appeals to me are the places of change between figuration and abstraction. In the LiDAR survey of the Chanteraines’ park, I perceived an image generator whose content no longer had anything to do with my experience on the site or with the accuracy of the tool. Instead of trying to reproduce the images of the 3D visualization in painting, I was interested in capturing the gaps between my experience in the field and the data captured.
I thus produced around ten 2D projections from imprecise areas, blurs, often near the ground at the edge of objects or the site itself (fence, machinery, rubbish, tufts of grass). By referring to the watercolors of Albrecht Durer, to the engravings of Hercules Seaghers and to the drawings of Seurat, I realized that these artworks presented subjects of painting as much as invisible interactions. In the studio, I sought to retranslate each subject using both manual processes and laser numerical control tools knowing that the pairing of these processes would render hybrid artwork. I was therefore motivated as much by the errors of these tools as by the imprecision of painting itself. In the end, it was the dust, holes and burns that ended up superimposing themselves on the event, outlining something like a third nature.
[1] This LiDAR survey of the Chanteraines’ park was carried out by Pierre Hallot, professor and geomatician at the University of Liège, Belgium in June 2021.
[2] The third nature describes a nature capable of living despite the constant incursion of mankind. Organisms composing it are not content to survive the transformations imposed by humans. Rather, they grow, they bear fruit, they simply live.
