Leda and the Swan

Video of Leda projected in the installation at the Zou#19 Arts Festival, Sers, France. April 2023

Leda et le Cygne
L'installation parle d'une prise de conscience, d’un éveil de ce qui se passe autour de nous. En arrêtant le temps et en maintenant des fragments en animation suspendue, nous avons le temps de regarder et de voir ce qui se cache derrière la surface des choses. Ces fragments perturbent l'espace mais s'y entremêlent également. En regardant, de petites poches d'informations et de pensées se révèlent, vous avez accès à l'intérieur de l'espace.
Comme métaphore, j'ai donné vie au poème de Yeats, Léda et le cygne, qui raconte les actes violents de la puissance coloniale. Dans les derniers mots de son poème, Yeats pose la question de savoir si, au cours de cet acte suspendu, Leda a assumé le savoir et le pouvoir de son agresseur.
Leda and the Swan
The installation is about a coming to consciousness, an awakening and awareness of what is going on around us. By stopping time and holding fragments in suspended animation we have time to look and see what is behind the surface of things. These fragments disrupt the space but also interweave amongst it. As you look small pockets of information and thoughts reveal themselves, you have access to the inside of space.
As a metaphor, I have given life to Yeats poem Leda and the Swan which tells of the swooping violent acts of colonial power. In the final words of his poem Yeats asks the question whether, during this suspended act, Leda took on the knowledge and power of her aggressor.

Ceiling par Samuel Beckett.
Revenu à lui il voit d’abord du blanc.
Quelque temps après être revenu il voit d’abord du blanc terne.
Pendant quelque temps après être revenu les yeux demeurent clos.
Lorsqu’enfin ils s’rouvrent c’est face à ce blanc terne.
Conscience les yeux clos d’être revenu. Lorsqu’enfin ils s’souvrent c’est face à ce blanc terne.
Vague conscience les yeux a dessein clos d’être en partie revenu.
Lorsqu’enfin a dessein ils s’ouvrent c’est face a ce blanc terne.

On coming to the first sight is of white. Some time after coming to the first sight is of dull white. For some time after coming to the eyes continue to. When in the end they open they are met by this dull white. Consciousness eyes to of having come to. When in the end they open they are met by this dull white. Dim consciousness eyes unbidden to of having come partly to. When in the end unbidden they open they are met by this dull white.

Leda et le Cygne
PAR WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Un coup soudain : les grandes ailes battent encore
Au-dessus de la jeune fille chancelante, les cuisses caressées
Par les toiles sombres, sa nuque prise dans son bec,
Il tient son sein sans défense sur sa poitrine.
Comment ces doigts vagues et terrifiés peuvent-ils pousser
La gloire des plumes de ses cuisses qui se relâchent ?
Et comment le corps, étendu dans cette blancheur,
Sentir l'étrange cœur battre là où il gît ?
Un frisson dans les reins engendre là
Le mur brisé, le toit et la tour en feu
Et Agamemnon mort.
Être si pris, si maîtrisé par le sang brutal de l'air,
Elle a revêtu son savoir et son pouvoir
Avant que le bec indifférent ne la laisse tomber?

Leda and the Swan
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Music references and found sounds from: Wagner, The Ring
Tarkovsky quartet, Nuit Blanche Bergman’s Persona opening scene Wojciech Kila; Portrait of a lady.
Vasco Mendonca Monday at 14.53 and others...