BRIDGE OF LIGHT, 2005, visual music
Anne Blanchet, Geneva
University Pérolles II, Fribourg, Suisse
The new university campus on the
Pérolles plateau before the backdrop of the Zähringer city
Fribourg’s gates comprises three buildings by the architecture
and planning office B in Bern. The placement and volumes of the three
buildings have formed a rectangular piazza: a clear urban outdoor space
for pedestrians also intended as a central meeting point for students.
Building ornament was an issue long debated, a matter-of-fact question of decoration. The past
few decades have witnessed a gradual change in the relationship between
art and building. Art today is viewed in partnership with architecture
and is intended to set its mark in the conscious discourse with its
surroundings. One speaks of “Art & Building,”
“Art and the City,” or “Urban Art”
interventions in public or urban space. “Art &
Building” is understood as the force field which will open up a
further-reaching discussion.
The newly created public force field, nearly 200 meters long, is delineated by a row of young
trees and enlivened by a four-part installation by Geneva artist Anne
Blanchet entitled Pont de Lumière. A total of 18 red lacquered
barriers, each five meters in length, are affixed to square red
columns, 350 cm. in height, accentuating the long connecting path. This
straight horizontal ordering is playfully broken up at irregular
distances. Corresponding to their inherent character, the barriers are
in constant action. Each one plays its own “music” --
each barrier at a different time and in its own tempo swings up to
become vertical, falls back into horizontal place, and swings up again.
Thus a ballet of the 18 barriers following a predetermined choreography
is constantly moving to lend the space another life with its red linear
structures. Corresponding to the themes that have always characterized
Anne Blanchet’s work – light, space, and movement –
the artistic intervention, originally merely intended as public
lighting, is crowned by light. Logically, Pont de Lumière finds
its completion at dusk and at night: the white neon tubes affixed to
the barriers in constant movement, illuminate another aspect of their
environment, place accents, and allow for a multiplicity of light and
shadow images. As a totality, the work is a three-dimensionally mobile
light creation.
Different choreographies with different tempos – Anne Blanchet calls them musiques
visuelles – were created by the artist for this work. Each
movement of the barriers varies between 10 and 180 seconds, although
tempos for raising, lowering, and standing still are of a different
character in each piece and in each turnpike. Thus a slow, continuous,
sometimes barely perceptible work; a further dynamic one, with emphasis
on opening; and a third quite quick-paced, intended to dispense fresh
energies, all take place. Pauses – intervals of tranquillity
– are sometimes introduced; it can happen that the barriers are
“struck dumb” for 15 minutes in order, with no further ado,
to let things take their own course, to hypnotize vision, and to calm
the soul. Three times a day, at 8, 12 o’clock, and 16.30, the
different pieces, played one after the other, can be consciously
experienced.
Barriers refer to borders and offer consolidation. Barriers that open lead hopefully onward. The
space opens until a further barrier again closes it. One space after
the other is gradually made known. Borders are plumbed and borders can
be reinstalled to create new spaces or they can disappear completely.
Each moment is unique and each moment plays its own music until the
very last border of life has been reached, after which the space leads
to the unknown.
Specifically related to the life of the college, the dancing barriers - now wandering structures,
now moving light – can communicate to students the elementary
experience of their own activity. Each discovery opens new
perspectives, allowing new structures and, simultaneously, new limits
to be felt.
With this, at first glance, absurd, upon closer viewing –now disassociated from its original
function – symbol-laden game of opening and closing, entering and
departing, receiving and rejecting, Anne Blanchet has dedicated herself
to fundamental research on space. This is a theme already creatively
approached by the artist in earlier works, among them constantly moving
barriers equipped with spotlights, lines of transparent sliding doors,
a trio of automatic folding doors in which each according to its
character opens and again closes (Portes 97: Musique Visuelle, 1997,
Ouverture Pli 1999, Passages 99: Musique Visuelle, 1999).
The artist’s elementary and fundamental preoccupation with the natural environment
and the sensations of light and shadow can been seen not only in the
aforementioned installations. These are also components of a further
comprehensive work cycle entitled Light Drawings, continuously
developed by Blanchet since 1994. Matte plexiglass is marked with fine,
barely visible cuts. Light penetrates, light fills the enclosed white
space while subtle white tones and shadows draw, each depending on
location or light, a different flat or spatial image.
Contained within an abstract light-filled game of lines or as a challenge to take action, the
message is transmitted in immediate sensual experience.
Esther Maria Jungo, Art historian
Translation. Claire Bonney
