Entomology is the branch of science concerned with the study of insects. Gerrets and Wellmer studied 'Souvenirs Entomologiques', a book that describes and illustrates insects. It was written by the renowned entomologist Pierre Fabre, father of the artist Jan Fabre. Some insects have great capacity to distinguish forms and colours. Others pick up only a few rays of light and so see only certain colours. This fact so fascinated Gerrets that he translated it into video image. In his fantasy he visualized what an insect would be able to see and what not. He took light to the point of vibration, and examined it. Unlike the makers of the nature film 'Microcosmos' (Claude Nuridsany and Marie P?rennou ° 1996), in which the life of insects in a French meadow was followed for an entire day, Gerrets carried out no scientific investigation at all for his work. He also left out all the stirring dramas. Gerrets takes the viewer to a higher plane. To a world where different colours, times and elements seem to exist. Composer and sound artist Anne Wellmer experimented with electronic music based on insect sounds, and improvised vocals. The images and sounds come together in a performance in which the audience participates in a personal investigation into the magnitude of the microworld.

Marieke van Hal: Your work is always very different, not only in form, but thematically as well. In your last videos, shot in Lebanon and Iraq, you manoeuvred as an artist in a political context. Why now a project about insects?

Boris Gerrets: Anne was studying insect sounds and came to me with the book 'Souvenirs Entomologiques'. How could I connect with it? I was working on an investigation into the energy value of the image. In my drawings I try to separate myself from 'the world of objects'. I look for a world without hierarchy, without balance of power, where gravity has been neutralized. I've tried to do this in my video work as well. It's very difficult because video is primarily related to reality. Visual reality, as you observe it, or think you observe it. I want to get away from that. I want to discover the energy value of the image, the light and movement aspects. Anne was doing something similar with sound. She wasn't very interested in the melodic aspects of music; she was working on vibrations and organic rhythms.

MvH: The pictures you used have been so filtered and altered as to be hardly recognizable. Where are they from?

BG: I first started filming parts of the book, just because I though it was such a lovely book. Then Anne and I went to Bonn. A biology institute there was giving an exhibition on insects. We took audio and visual footage there that we use in the performance. And I have an archive full of footage. There are some shots of water and mountains in it. They're from Lebanon, but that's not relevant for the viewer.

MvH: They're no longer politically loaded. They're stripped of their original context. But perhaps that's not unimportant to the line through your oeuvre.

BG: I've always had the idea that I have to navigate between two forms of observation. On the one hand I'm a politically aware person, on the other I'm someone who looks only for beauty. Even in Beirut, in its state of total destruction, I went in search of beauty. But with completely different parameters from, for instance, a journalist. What interests me here is that the images give off a certain visual intensity. If the viewer experiences it, he/she will be closest to what I felt when I was filming.

MvH: There's also some spoken French text. Are the citations from the book?

BG: Yes, Anne extracted a number of sentences, and they're repeated. The text is about death. Certain insects simulate death when they're in danger. They can sometimes even go for six hours without moving. That's their weapon. A paradox of course. We use those particular sentences not so much because of their content, but because of their musicality.

MvH: During the performance Anne Wellmer stands between two enormous projection screens which are positioned in such a way that she seems to be looking at a huge open book. She fills the space with her voice and creates an environment of sound. Every individual space reacts differently to sound. How do you get round that?

BG: Sound doesn't work the same as image. It's much more intangible. Placing a beam projector in some different dark spaces gives more or less the same image. That's not so with speakers and sound. It's Anne's task, as sound specialist, to make sure that resonance plays a role in the composition. That takes an awful lot of time.

MvH: Although you've given many performances, often together with dancer and choreographer D?sir? Delaunay who is also your partner, you no longer perform on the boards. Why not?

BG: In the eighties I did a lot of predominately dance-oriented performances. Then I started becoming more and more interested in the visual arts, especially video. And at a certain point I found it difficult to combine the two because they demand such totally different working rhythms. In theatre you rehearse a lot and you use a wholly different kind of energy than when you only work in your studio.

MvH: Aren't you working on a new project already?

BG: Yes, an installation titled 'Mindfields'. In 'Mindfields' I elaborate on the idea of non-hierarchical structures, and in this case I work with texts. For only one twenty-fifth of a second the texts are projected onto silver screens that reflect the light from the beam projector. The speed gives the words their own lives. They want to say something but have been stripped of all grammatical and syntactic context. They are 'word objects' that force their way into your mind as flashes and set off your power of association.

– Marieke van Hal