Photographic Mantra
2017
I intempt here to translate the concept of mantra into photography. A mantra, present in Indouhism and Buddhism, is a condensed formula; consisting of a single syllable or a series of syllables; repeated unceasingly with a certain rhythm, in an excercise of meditation or for religious purposes. Its origins are found in ancient Indian texts related to the practice of yoga (discipline that I practice). Here, I only kept a few seconds of videos taken during an immersion in the Black Forest in Germany. This very short lapse of time is then looped. The result seems to be a moving photograph, a blocking action in time. The poetry of small events occurring in the space of a forest is expressed. The time of these «videos» was chosen in a shelter with reference to the work of John Cage, «four-minute-thirty-three-of-silence». If the work was presented there would be no beginning or end. By its impossibility, tending towards infinity is a philosophy of the Imparfait. This philosophy can be found in the Japanese tea ceremony (which is itself the result of an ancient ceremony practiced by Chinese Buddhist monks). This ceremony, lived as an ideal of life, is a hymn to Beauty and Nature. These moments of infinity are here the wind playing with the clouds or the sun moving between the shadows of the trees.