Eclipse
Leila Zelli, Eclipse, 2015, animated video, color, text, 6 min 15 s
Tribute to the victims beheaded by the armed group Islamic State (2015)
This work contains kaleidoscopic images based on documents from the Internet. Taken from scenes showing victims awaiting decapitation, the images are transformed and distorted until only the heads are visible - heads that, in truth, were decapitated seconds after the photos were taken. Through the hypnotic movement of these images, a space was created to underline the fact that reality, belief and conception are simply illusions that each person creates for themselves, like images in a kaleidoscope.
Text accompanying the project:
"Man does not see his head, he sees his body, he sees what is most touchable in the dark. If men cut off his head, it's because the head is what man sees most of men, and what man sees least of himself. They cut off his head because they believe that his head in broad daylight overshadows their own. They cut off his head so that they can no longer be seen by his eyes.
The men cut off the man's head without the man seeing it, to make it disappear before their eyes. For without his head, man begins to spin in the void, without his head he is without the sun lost in infinity. If without his head man loses the earth beneath his feet, men have cut off his head to make him lose the sun on his shoulders." [Unofficial translation]
Jean-Luc Parant, Des têtes, 1989
Leila Zelli, Eclipse, 2015, animated video, color, text, 6 min 15 s
Tribute to the victims beheaded by the armed group Islamic State (2015)
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Presented
for the first time at the BAC graduates' exhibition Passage à découvert, April
24 to May 9, 2015, at Galerie de l'UQÀM, Montréal
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Jean Pitre and Claude Leclerc Awards
- Collection of the Musée d'art contemporain de Baie Saint-Paul
This work contains kaleidoscopic images based on documents from the Internet. Taken from scenes showing victims awaiting decapitation, the images are transformed and distorted until only the heads are visible - heads that, in truth, were decapitated seconds after the photos were taken. Through the hypnotic movement of these images, a space was created to underline the fact that reality, belief and conception are simply illusions that each person creates for themselves, like images in a kaleidoscope.
Text accompanying the project:
"Man does not see his head, he sees his body, he sees what is most touchable in the dark. If men cut off his head, it's because the head is what man sees most of men, and what man sees least of himself. They cut off his head because they believe that his head in broad daylight overshadows their own. They cut off his head so that they can no longer be seen by his eyes.
The men cut off the man's head without the man seeing it, to make it disappear before their eyes. For without his head, man begins to spin in the void, without his head he is without the sun lost in infinity. If without his head man loses the earth beneath his feet, men have cut off his head to make him lose the sun on his shoulders." [Unofficial translation]
Jean-Luc Parant, Des têtes, 1989
Photo : Galerie de l’UQÀM