A R C H I E F1 9 9 6  
.14
  Marie-France Giraudon & Emmanuel Avenel
Mediterranée Atlantique
  Canada 1996
Videotape, 68:30, colour & black-and-white, stereo
Footsteps in the sand lose their contours when the tide comes gropingly in; an image once seen is quickly forgotten unless it is repeated time and again. Everybody knows what the sea looks like, how the ocean can whirl, how the indentations of the shore line are copied onto charts, how barren the bare rocks are or how sweetly cork-oak woods reach right to the borders between water and sky, how the wind lashes beach grass, how unapproachable capes swirl themselves in mists whence mermaids screech, how freely roaming sheep with their bells sometimes picturesquely fill up dune valleys. Sometimes there are signs of mankind to be found in these so very differing coastal areas, red and white paint stripes to simplify the route or weathered boundary markers. Happily there are never people to be seen; only when the camera looks landwards can cars be seen driving past on their way to an occasional village. The sounds too are familiar: watery bubbling, the chirping of dune birds, whispered melancholic texts about loneliness. Zooming out the sound becomes ever deeper, slower, as if whale song can be heard above the water too. These meditative nature moments form a perfect Landscape Art where video black and white breaks in to the faded colour of reality and the camera pans from N to W to S and E.

Erik Daams

Production Le Vidéographe


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