FLIP FLOP – BILATERAL SYMMETRY: MIND TRICKS, VIRTUALITY AND THE ANNIHILATION OF THE IMAGE

Persian carpets, Rorschach tests and butterflies mounted on pins in natural history collections, these are symmetrical visual mantras that are only too familiar to us. Since the end of the nineties these static forms have had a notable audiovisual counterpart: video works based on reflection around a central vertical axis. The right half of the image reflects the left, so that the axis becomes a line of transformation, a zone of simultaneous creation and destruction of form. These feedback effects are pure mind tricks. Their bilateral symmetry is at odds with what the traditional notion of images assumes: a viewpoint, an articulated and readable object, a possible relationship with what is ‘between’ and ‘outside’ the images, viewing as a form of externalisation, etc. By contrast, these digital mirror effects, which constantly challenge the perception and cognition, are phantomatic. Their hypnotic nature is related to virtuality and the removal of images (in this regard, see Nicolas Provost’s appropriate title Suspension). The emptiness and upset that bilateral symmetry confronts us with (the viewer no longer has anything to hold onto, past and present are neutralised, etc.) results in an intriguing meta-commentary on the status of images at the present time.

Program:
Storyteller
Nicolas Provost, 2010, 7’40”, colour, silent.
Starship
Bernard Gigounon, 2002, 6’, video, colour, sound.
Déjà vu (Hallu)
Michel François, 2002, 12’30”, video, colour, silent.
Loop 5’
Jo Huybrechts, 2003, 5’19”, video, b&w, sound.
Suspension
Nicolas Provost, 2007, 4’27", colour and b&w, silent.
Dali, Mouche, Page One (extract from Origines-Courbet)
Bigas Luna, 2004, 8’10", video, colour and b&w, sound.
Papillon d’Amour
Nicolas Provost, 2003, 3’30", video, b&w, sound.

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