Negative horizon

“Horizon Negative” generates random landscapes whose compositions and colors are modulated by a camera according to the movements of the spectators. Like all generative programs, “Horizon Negative” constructs mathematical abstractions in real time. The piece does not show an image of the past to dialogue with the present of the spectator about his future, but evolves in the folded and cyclical time that is that of machines.

Negative Horizon, bearing the name of the eponymous book by Paul Virilio, evokes certain recurring themes of his thought such as war, speed, visionics... But even more, the device evokes the origins of this thought. Indeed, if we know Paul, we know that he deployed his conceptual creations on the basis of a striking image from his childhood: that of the horizon and the maritime and air attacks off the coast of Nantes during the Second World War.
Paul's recent death was the trigger for formalizing a project around these childhood images that formed the basis of a unique life journey, these moments of grace where a particular sensitivity is called upon to develop a very fine and pertinent appreciation of reality that fills the child, truly "impressed", with inspiration for the life to come.
Thus, one can build an entire life on a wonder or an intuition that he had as a child. There are memories that one must constantly "dig" because at the heart of these initial fascinations there are intuitions about a reality that is beyond us. Our role, for the whole of life, then becomes to give form to these intuitions to reveal, to oneself and to others, this hidden truth.

The device can therefore be understood as an attempt to represent Paul's childhood image that later set his thoughts in motion: the coastline illuminated by explosions, the roar of invisible planes, the spectacle of war. The child unknowingly considers the course of his life, following the infinite vanishing points of this landscape in which he stands alone since it is also the very personal picture of his awareness of the world. The sculpture's brutalist form reflects his determination.