From the Reading list:
- Perec, G. (1974) ‘Species of Spaces’ Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin pp. 46-56.
“You must set about it more slowly, almost stupidly. Force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common, most colourless.”
In this chapter, George Perec forces us to observe the street down to the smallest detail. He presents observation as a real effort that seems almost unnatural: “force yourself”. He invites us to turn our gaze on the most ordinary, anodyne things, and proposes to break down the hierarchy that would value certain objects of study more than others. To really be able to see, we need to lead an inner battle against our prejudices, deconstructing our thinking to make any subject worth of special attention. My project is part of a similar process, which aims to put holes at the center of our gaze. The hole, the absence of material, is by its very nature invisible, and present on many of our most mundane objects. It’s a detail on our shoes, our sieves, our notebooks. In my video, I take on the role of designer to restore a functional and indispensable object to its rightful place in our lives.
- Queneau, R. [1947] 1998 Exercises in Style. London: John Calder pp. 9-16
“I have analyzed the 99 variations into roughly 7 different groups. The first-different types of speech. Next, different types of written prose. These include the style of a publisher’s blurb, of an official letter, the “philosophic” style, and so on. Then there are 5 different poetry styles. and 8 exercises which are character sketches through language-reactionary. Biased, abusive. etc. Fifthly there is a large group which experiments with different grammatical and rhetorical forms; sixthly, those which come more or less under the heading of jargon. And lastly, all sorts of odds and ends whose classification I’m still arguing about. This group includes the one quoted above, which is called: permutations by groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 letters. Under jargon you get, for instance, one variation which tells the story in mathematical terms, one using as many botanical terms as possible, one using greek roots to make new words, and one in dog latin.”
In this excerpt from the book’s preface, John Colder lists the many types of styles Raymond Queneau uses to tell the same story, 99 times. Queneau uses literary genres (poetry, theater, fiction), but also draws inspiration from linguistic registers (formal language or “jargon”) as social markers. Colder struggles to classify the author’s overflowing imagination that once even tells the anecdotal journey in mathematical values. This non-exhaustive list shows that language can be malleable and varied. This seems very inspiring to me in my current storytelling exercise, aimed at addressing the concept of the hole. Naturally, I initially opted for a historical approach to the hole. But too boring for an object of study that already lacks stimulation in the collective consciousness, I ended up looking at other narrative forms. Like Queneau, I like to create contrast between the content and the form of my message: I ended up telling about the uses of the hole through the poetic genre. Usually focused on the exaltation of feelings in front of a landscape or a love story, here poetry makes a simple hole becomes a moving topic.
Topic of study:
- Cheng, F. (1979) Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting. Paris: Points Editions.
“Taken as a whole, these elements form a coherent network that can only function owing to a factor that is always implicit: emptiness. In painting, as in the universe, the breaths would not circulate and yin-yang would not operate without emptiness. Without emptiness, the brush-stroke, which implies volume and light, rhythm and color, would be unable to manifest all its potentialities. In the execution of a painting, emptiness comes into play at every level, from the basic strokes to the composition of the whole. It is a sign among the signs, providing the pictorial system with its effectiveness and unity.” p.62
François Cheng offers a poetic interpretation of emptiness, to be seen not as an absence but as an active, structuring presence. The occidental vision is often binary, giving a negative connotation to emptiness and a positive one to fullness. Cheng brings a more nuanced perspective and values emptiness as a condition to shape: emptiness helps to delimit plain space, to reveal shapes and thus prominently contributes to meaning. In my project, I attempt to use emptiness as a form maker. I would like to play with the duality of presence/absence of material to create legible shapes and poetic narratives.
Medium:
- Ferry, Helen. (2025) Interludes. Paris: Hermès. Accessible on: https://www.helenferry.co.uk/herm%C3%A8s
Hermès commissioned Helen Ferry to attract people’s attention. For me, she accomplishes this mission perfectly, using a technique that detonates with her distribution method. Indeed, the stop motion of perforated paper contrasts with its immaterial digital distribution channel. Magic happens when the tangible and the animated are confronted, and it’s this tension that guides most of my projects. Furthermore, the hole here plays a harmonizing role: it’s the constant that unites the different symbols, enabling their fluid metamorphosis. This animation demonstrates the power of the hole, versatile in form-making despite its simplicity. In my project, I place the concept of the hole at the center of my exploration: using such a pared-down style would allow for a focused attention on this often overlooked element.
Critical position:
- Marks, Laura U. (2002) Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. University of Minnesota Press. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=310595&query=laura%2520marks%2520
“In my emphasis on haptic visuality and haptic criticism, I intend to restore a flow between the haptic and the optical that our culture is currently lacking. That vision should have ceased to be understood as a form of contact and instead become disembodied and adequated with knowledge itself is a function of European post-Enlightenment rationality. But an ancient and intercultural undercurrent of haptic visuality continues to inform an understanding of vision as embodied and material. It is timely to explore how a haptic approach might rematerialize our objects of perception, especially now that optical visuality is being refitted as a virtual epistemology for the digital age.”
Laura Marks emphasizes that in the digital age, our relationship with visual media is dominated by an essentially optical, disembodied visuality. Rather than directly opposing it, she proposes to place it in dialogue with an other, more sensory way of perceiving images: “haptic visuality”. According to this approach, the eyes should not only be able to look at a visual work, but also to touch and feel it, to better grasp its richness. I find this materialist lecture particularly relevant in the context of animated media, which, by nature, circulate on immaterial supports. How, then, can we create embodied videos and for what purpose? Marks’s work can help me identify the effects of a sensual and tactile relationship with the moving image and understand how these effects can reintroduce presence and the body into digital formats often perceived as abstract or distant.
Extra
- Gainsbourg, Serge. (1958) The ticket puncher of Lilas. Paris: Studio Blanqui.
“I punch holes, little holes, then more little holes
Little holes, little holes, always little holes
I make second-class holes
And punch first-class holes”
As soon as I told them about my hole-punching project, my French relatives couldn’t help but sing me this catchy tune, which, I must say, annoyed me a little. But their allusion was actually quite relevant. It is through his profession as a “hole puncher” that the protagonist of the song introduces himself in the first verse. The lyrics of the chorus intrigue me for two reasons: the first by the suggestion that there would be a class hierarchy among holes: “second-class holes, first-class holes,” that some of them would have more noble functions than others. Then, how can we not notice the repetition that characterizes the music “I make holes, little holes, more little holes,” which refers to the iterative nature of the hole-puncher’s profession, which consists of punching again and again. The gradation that looms up to the final refrain reveals a kind of madness in the weary protagonist, who uses the metaphor of the bullet hole to express his dismay. I identify with the irritation emanating from the repetitive gesture of the puncher who created blisters on my fingers, aches in my arm for an invisible impact.
Leave a Reply