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Dédale: a film installation by Pierre Coulibeuf
The context
The cinematic works by the artist and filmmaker Pierre Coulibeuf (Elbeuf, France, 1949) strive to promote a critical discussion on the productive methods of cinema by locating the site of experimentation within the boundaries of film and the visual arts. He challenges the cultural conventions of cinematic grammar, questioning mechanisms of representation and pointing out new possibilities for probing the concept of reality. Coulibeuf’s subject matter is artistic creation itself and his works have plied the creative universe of Marina Abramovic, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Jan Fabre, Meg Stuart and Pierre Klossowski, among others. His films may be deemed experimental fiction but they insist on escaping categorization.
The installation
Dédale is a film installation inspired by the artistic and creative universe of Iberê Camargo (1914-1994). Camargo’s work appears here as a "nucleus in expansion," providing conceptual dimension to the film by means of a fluctuation between the light of Siza’s building and the darkness of Camargo’s paintings. The terminology, film installation, indicates in this case the origin of sources and investigation of cinematic means, even if technical resources for video projection are used to give material existence to the work. The installation is based on a 35mm film with the same title, both commissioned and produced by the Iberê Camargo Foundation. Dédale is a circular, off-center construction, in which the building represents a mise en abyme, an infinite reflection towards itself.
The images
The photographs in the installation are derived from two sources of the film negative, from the outtakes and short ends—which are not used in the final cut— thus enabling the construction of original sequences. The conjunction of moving images and photographs breaks up narrative continuity, transforming the initial matter of the work (the film as cinematic event) and our perception of the moving image within its spatial and temporal dimensions.
Labyrinths
Labyrinths are metaphors for pathways of learning. When going through a labyrinth in the process of searching for an exit, an individual must make multiple choices, requiring as much intuition and interpretation as careful judgment. These choices ultimately represent those that will define one’s own "destiny."
Museography, painting and cinema
The exhibition of Iberê Camargo’s works seen in the film is a fictional exhibition and it was conceived by the curator along with the artist, only for the shooting of Dédale. Built from a cinematic perspective, with works belonging to the Foundation and from several collections throughout the country, it situates itself between fact and fiction. Its existence in the film challenges the very belief in cinematic illusion.
The work
The fictional character of Dédale evokes the mythological figure of Daedalus and his labyrinth, built to imprison the Minotaur. Coulibeuf uses the unique, labyrinthine shape of Álvaro Siza’s building, to construct the cinematic structure of Dédale. Ariadne and Theseus, two of the characters from the Greek legend, are evoked by the two performers in the film. They can be thought as figures that put in motion the generating energy of the work. The feminine figure in the film, like Ariadne, guides us and loses us in the labyrinthine structure of the film. She is the double of the feminine character. Both find themselves slowly attracted by the paintings exhibited in the museum. There are two universes interconnected in the film: that of the couple lived in real life, and that of Ariadne, who belongs to the mental universe. This cinematic artifice is developed in separate temporal sequences that interfere with each other. The thread of Ariadne, the cinematic continuity, is a deception, which intensifies not only because of the labyrinthine aspects of cinema itself, but also due to the labyrinthine-film created by Coulibeuf. Dédale is a mobile structure, with a number of voids that allow the spectator to create mental projections that can fill them, generating different versions of the story.
To be continued...
Gaudêncio Fidelis
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