Le Saut

« Le Saut »or The Jump is a light installation that deals with the relationship of humans to new technologies. Should we throw ourselves headlong into all these novelties or rather take a step back and think about technological sobriety? With the digitization of our world, the border between the real and the digital is becoming more and more diluted, meeting by zoom, online games, remote work, metaverse… We see a statue almost levitating above the water, as if it were throwing itself into the water, in this virtual world but with very real consequences. Maybe her blindness will make her fall by missing out on more essential things, like the environment. This frantic race for the latest technologies, without knowing their real impact on us, with the example of 5g, 6g soon 7G. But in another point of view, this leap forward also shows how technology brings to the viewer new sensations and no creative limits. We know that VR experiments in neuroscience, bring a lot to research and on different types of neurological symptoms. There are benefits in several areas, whether in terms of creation with all these new writings, but also in terms of health. At the sight of this installation each spectator will be brought to an awareness of his personal relationship to technology and its perspective vis-à-vis our contemporary society

The visitor will be intrigued by the pose of the statue, to wonder how she holds this person suspended in her jump above the water. The statue with realistic features will question him about himself in relation to the message of the project. But the work takes on its full meaning at night, when the lights come on, we discover a luminous grid on the surface of the water. This being flexible, the grid will follow the movements of the water giving continuous animation, which will add a new layer of reading to the project. He will make the parallel with the archetypal grid of the digital universe, which can be found in all 3D software, such as VR or we can go back to the film TRON (Steven Lisberger, 1982). He’ll also notice the illuminated VR headset on the statue’s head. This posture, which is reminiscent of « the leap into the void » by Yves Klein, 1960, can represent a visionary or an enlightened, the spectator will make his own choice. The material of the statue, very reflective, will bring an animation and vibration, whether it is the grid of Led, that the other sources of surrounding lights

Le Saut, 2023
Realisation: Arnaud Laffond
Production: Amsterdam Light Festival
Technical Director: Martial Marquet
Technical Support: Zebra 3
Led Director: One Eighty One company
credit photos : Copyright Janus van den Eijnden