“3600 seconds of light / N43 C47 (3600 secondes de lumière / N43 C47)” by Thibault Brunet
Title:
- 3600 seconds of light / N43 C47 (3600 secondes de lumière / N43 C47)
Artist(s) and People Involved:
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Artist Statement:
Fusion of the Possible, Topographie de l’art, April 15 – June 15
Inkjet print on paper, 50 x 50 cm.
Courtesy of Binome gallery and Adagp, Paris.
With “3600 secondes de lumière” Thibault Brunet captures the ephemeral beauty of clouds by utilizing a virtual space created in a video game. He observes the effect of the passage of time on the colors of the skies by creating a cycle of virtual sunrise and sunset. He creates a series of 3D-modeled cloud portraits, illuminated by this virtual sun, taking on different hues depending on the time of day. Thibault Brunet thus compiles a catalog of clouds, a typology of their shapes and changing colors.
The images created by this project blur the distinction between painting and photography. The clouds appear to us as paintings. As we approach, we realize that these images are simulacra created by a video game engine.
The impermanence, or rather its fantasized disappearance by our contemporary world, which is sinking into materialism and the utopia of immortality, is at the heart of a new series by Brunet. It takes the form of a collection of clouds, or more precisely, virtual clouds designed for use by video game creators. Brunet has acquired around sixty of these fixed forms – a contradiction in terms, as cumulus clouds are inherently fleeting – which he has imported into a virtual space created for this purpose. Unlike our own ever-expanding world, «augmented» by the tools at our disposal, Brunet’s fictitious space is reduced to the extreme. It consists only of two elements, clouds and light, with the addition of one dimension, that of time. This opens up an immense field of possibilities from which Brunet makes selections.
The title «3600 seconds of light» refers to as many potential outcomes chosen from the infinite latency, comprising 60 states of light playing on 60 cloud models, within a span of 12 hours (12 minutes in the accelerated time of the game). The contemporary obsession with total(itarian) recording of the world, with omniscience, is transformed into a poetic gesture as trivial as it is magnificent.
Brunet’s clouds are both simulacra and artifacts. They are pure signs, with no other function than their own appearance – and perhaps their imminent disappearance. Because in the grip, emphasized by Brunet, of technology over these gentle billows of our childhood, one senses an unease, reinforced by the exhibition’s title: «Just a bit more») – of dream and mystery before they vanish, and us with them?
