Past recomposed and augmented: for(t) intérieur

Thierry Boucton is presenting three large-format photographs at the Maison de l'Architecture for the first time.

To understand their formal strategies, we need to go back to the origins of these very special images. The video work entitled "Architecture anatomique en mouvement" ("Anatomical architecture in movement") was the starting point for a large-scale spatial installation at Fort Beauregard in Besançon in 2014, "Extraits - de lieu(x) en lieu(x)" ("Extracts - from place(s) to place(s)"), which dealt with light, the movement of "bodies", architecture and landscape through a complex device, with the aim of showing how the body and its movements fit into a space...

We know that the body as a matrix that can be assimilated to architecture has been a preoccupation of many societies, as can be seen in the work of the architects Vitruvius, Le Corbusier and many others. Thierry Boucton is doing the same, proposing a special arrangement within this military building.

In the video "Anatomical Architecture in Movement", the artist focuses on a body in movement, through a form that is both martial and spiritual: tai chi chuan. Thierry Boucton captures the body movements of a tai chi chuan practitioner equipped with light beacons, movements repeated four times according to the four cardinal points and superimposed recordings. The points of light trace a certain cartography in space and time. The result is a setting in light, a setting in space of points of view, a setting in situation through the 108 linked movements that make up the practice of tai chi chuan. The practice of tai chi chuan is based on the perfection and efficiency of the placement of the bones as a whole, enabling the body to take root (foundations), to orientate itself (placing in space), to resist (playing with the body's structural forces in all directions), to save physical energy, and so on. For the author, all this grammar and vocabulary belong to the register of the built and of architecture.

For the installation "Extraits - de lieu(x) en lieu(x)", the Fort Beauregard is plunged into darkness by closing the windows, and illuminated by perforated tarpaulins (pinhole cameras) based on still images taken from "Architecture anatomique en mouvement". The Fort is thus transformed into a veritable astronomical observatory, revealing the light of time and space in motion.

At the end of this installation, a final experiment - the production of three large-format photographic light imprints - is carried out in this building - a room in the Fort used as a camera obscura - to reveal and fix the landscape "still from a certain point of view" using the pinhole technique(s).

It is through an entire mise-en-scène that a re-composed, re-activated past is played out once again at the Maison de l'Architecture, a past that, according to the author, plays a full part in the development and growth of his thinking.

Since 1996, Thierry Boucton's work has involved making places more sensitive through site-specific installations. For him, questioning and evocation are always the preferred state of being. His way of working could easily be likened to that of the landscape architect, who questions space by experimenting with it in every conceivable way to make it even more sensitive.