Before curating Hotel Room 508 at l’Hôtel Windsor, as part of OVNi Objectif Vidéo Festival in Niece, Juliette and Maria met for a 2- week work residency in a beautiful country house in Arles, preparing the collection of Active Screens to be exhibited at OVNi. All materials had to be unwrapped, and the fabric qualities carefully evaluated; especially, new materials, as for example the Japanese paper yarn. All fabrics were industrially knitted and woven by Juliette and Maria in Sweden. Colors and materials were combined to become individual Active Screens in different scales. New finishing methods were tested as some were chosen to be carried out. A few Active Screens were set in a new context for the first time; a greenhouse. A magic place, where orange,- lemon,- and grapefruit trees grow and a bright blue pool attracts the eyes and the soul. A collection of images were captured in this fresh surrounding; light, color and materiality provoke an interaction.
Presented during OVNi Objectif Vidéo Festival, Niece, France, Chambre 508, à l’Hôtel Windsor
Pulse is an installation combining the Digital Corps, video devices designed by Salomé Chatriot, and the Actives Screens, moving textile pieces designed by Maria Wolff Metternich and Juliette Berthonneau. The works explore the medium of the screen, both physical and digital. They offer an experience of reality in face of the virtual. Pulsing according to continuous beats, they invite to perceive the fluidity of the elements, the physics of forms, the dynamics of the screen. The compositions of the Active Screens act as floating paintings with kinetic effects, changing landscapes; constructed according to a vertical layering method. Similar to the capture of a fantasized reality, the Digital Corps plunge into the heart of organic matter whose hypnotic movements invite to a long contemplation. Together, the two works offer an immersive and absorbent stroll, whose physical boundaries are erased in contact with digital fragments, reversing classic values of scale. Adapting to the properties and the atmosphere of the Hotel room 508, the installation was build up; combining both of our works and mediums, in order to create one installation. One of the Active Screens was constructed on two motors, creating a mechanism and movement. Its determining sound functioned as a guidance and framework of the total installation. Visitors displayed a second Pulse, as in entering and leaving the room in smooth rhythms.