Le cycle des désastres: hystérie de l'éternité
Le Gallo, Boulogne-Billancourt, Fr
2022

"Hysteria of Eternity is the first opus in the Disaster Cycle. The Cycle of Disasters is a stream of exhibitions set in a world without humans. Each edition presents a panorama of a long-deserted planet Earth, on which cataclysms continue to occur. This world, convinced that it will defy our gaze by imagining us gone, will continue to experience what we today call "disasters", such as earthquakes, floods or radiation.

The extinction of humanity is more topical than ever. While the headlines alert us daily to the dangers that lie ahead, no one can guess which scenario will ultimately become the last ever written. The cycle of disasters focuses on terrible events that, for once, claim no victims. Perhaps we should take this opportunity to contemplate artificial entropy, meditate on the magic of chance and experiment with the dramaturgy of the sublime.

HYSTERIA OF ETERNITY

"The sun itself seems ephemeral to me in this hysteria of eternity."

E. Cioran

Within the scientific community, the process that demystifies earthquakes is, for the time being, a matter of consensus. The Earth's crust is divided into several plates, which are themselves subject to incredible pressure from the bowels of the Earth. These dozen tectonic plates are embedded in an impossible jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are constantly drifting, confronting and opposing. In this theater of eternity, every oscillation in the scenario sooner or later ends up being played out. In this way, the plates create a work of art that will never be finished, a sort of composition of continents in perpetual evolution. A permanent work of art, endlessly shaping the planet, its mountains and deserts. A succession of a billion human lives wouldn't be enough to enjoy the whole spectacle of this lithic mosaic, because the process is so slow that it's almost impossible for us to perceive it.

Yet sometimes a few seconds release a terrible shockwave. The duel between two plates will have designated no victor, and the unbearable pressure stored up is released in a landslide of randomness. With a clatter of dust, the inert is suddenly seized by rumbling spasms, a fatal waltz of blurred pixels. An unstable, unpredictable, implacable pulse, the pulse of a cataclysm that never seems to stop, lost in a time that pretends to dilate. This frenetic force generates an entropic explosion, a constellation whose stars fall randomly, in an amalgam of matter and time. When the Earth shudders, humanity shudders with it. In an instant, palaces mingle with space, cemeteries carry their remains, hopes waver as if to bounce back. From the clatter of sheet metal and asphalt, a surreal collage is born of a world that will never again be rebuilt. The surface of the globe is riddled with gaping wounds, offering those who wish to see it a shattered sedimentation of feelings.

Andy Rankin

Emile Cioran in Le Livre des leurres - Gallimard, 1992, translated from the Romanian by Grazyna Klewek & Thomas Bazin,

With: Irene de las Estrellas Abello, Mounir Ayache, Thomas Ballouhey, Marion Bocquet-Appel, Celia Boulesteix, Cloe Brochard, Alexia Chevrollier, Javier Carro Temboury, Boris Chouvellon, Alexandre Erre, Pierre Gaignard, Jules Galais, Julia Gault, Jules Goliath, Paul Gounon, Juan Gugger, Cesar Akli Kaci, Prosper Legault, Margaux Lelièvre, Vincent Lemaire, Miguel Miceli, Zoé Moineaud, Esteban Neveu Ponce, Celia Nkala, Nelson Pernisco, Manon Pretto, Olivier Sévère, Anna Tomaszewski, Capucine Vever, Romain Vicari, Vincent Voillat, Xolo Cuintle