Video installation in an archaeological museum: Camera Locus Lattara, 2014
The installation.
Each visitor is immersed in lights and sounds. As one walks around, one discovers something new. The architecture feels immaterial. Some artifacts start talking while others seem moving. Past and present are collapsing. The outside excavation site is inviting itself inside the museum.
The method.
Camera Locus is a display that transforms the experience of a space through the use of a single video projector. Setting up a Camera Locus takes precision and time within the space where it applies. It starts as a drawing practice, drawing each plan accurately. As it comes from a single point of projection it acts as a reversed perspective. The time of observing is also a time for learning. Looking and drawing engages the mind and the body. Researches bring associations that encourage experimentation and manipulation. Day after day a collection of sequences and animations accumulates. The video projection then articulates past and present, outside and inside, images and objects. As the visitor walks around, he creates links which stimulate new ideas.
The history.
The museum collections are ranging from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages. Lattara was the name of an antic port city built by Etruscan. In 1963, Henri Prades discovered the site for the first time. Then, the museum finally opened its door in 1986. The museum takes place in what was once the house of Frederic Bazille. He was a painter, friend of the impressionists. The architect Joseph Massota extended the house into its actual form.
Archaeology and contemporary art.
Under the impulsion of Isabelle Grasset, the museum has been inviting artists since 2007. Each year, the museum become the theater of a new dialogue.
