Gregory Buchert

When I arrived at the Créac”h Semaphore, I had been entangled for over a year with the editing of a documentary film, which was supposed to address the resurgences of the labyrinth in the contemporary world. Although unfinished, the project was already planned to be shown in a collective exhibition in “Resonance” with the Lyon Biennial. But a month before the opening, none of the images found its place in the editing, and it was with this stone in my shoe that I settled on the island of Ushant. Thus, I had a month to save the day. In my bags, a hard drive filled with inextricable rushes, my computer and a couple paperbacks such as Theseus, André Gide’s last book. Under the beneficial influence of the semaphore, having found lucidity through the lights of the lighthouse, I finally abandoned this fleeting project to go back to the essential: the labyrinth as vertigo.

The solution to my problems was there, hidden on the island, in the middle of this strange equation: five paths in Ushant, a blue sweater and a yellow stick. I then made Geranos, a video-performance for which this is the exhibition text: Out of the Labyrinth, Theseus and his companions started a celebratory dance to celebrate their victory over the Minotaur. This frenetic round dance named “Geranos” replicated the sinuous path of Daedalus’’ work, the circumvolutions made to reach the monster. It is a choreography on one foot, plunging Theseus into dizziness mixed with inebriation. My performance was about producing a personal vision of this Antique dance, by disorienting the labyrinth of my internal ear. If, through a simple editing effect, the exact way in which I inflict these series of vertigo on myself stays off camera, a strange yellow stick stays on screen, a sign lost in space and the only hint of my performance protocol. Permanently unbalanced, I start a walk with a random choreography. Dissociated from the pilgrim, the stick becomes an obstacle in the shape of a minimal sculpture, man and object make a curious duo where each one plays its part.

Geranos

2013 / HD / Vidéo-performance / Installed projection /10 minutes / Color & sound
Production : Finis Terrae