The Initiate And The Mystics

2010 // 2 channels film-projection // 2′ loop

They don’t see; they feel. They don’t perceive; they exist. They are the chosen ones. You observe and recognize them. You have control. They are the initiate. You are the mystics.

Shot on Super-8 during a trip to Ethiopia on May 2009 both at religious places (such as ruins and temples) as well as at everyday spaces (such as market places and squares), this work analyses cinematographic gaze as a ritual of possession of the Other. The result is images that bring us to another time: the representation of an anachronical and almost undifferent view of a world made only for its contemplation. In front of a film camera, Ethiopia loses its human reality to become exotic.

In a double projection, a visual rhythm is carried out without a soundtrack. The absence of audio and the stage from which the images are shot (Africa) highlights the anachronical aspect of this piece in a way that seems to refer to the very beginnings of ethnographic cinema.