Last year S13 had a prerogative to present a futuristic installation Omicron by the visual artist Romain Tardy, who is a part of ANTIVJ. This time ANTIVJ, with the co-founder Olivier Ratsi in front is presenting their new work Onion Skin.
ANTIVJ is a visual label initiated by a group of European artists who seek to emphasize the influence of projected light and sound on people's perception of reality. John Berger noted that "we never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. Our vision is continually active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present to us as we are." 1 Onion Skin is a mastered Olivier Ratsi's game that seeks to trigger one's present, "a precise position from which a new dimension is revealed to the audience by anamorphosis." 2
Onion Skin by Olivier Ratsi - TEASER from ANTIVJ is a visual label on Vimeo.
The installation is a part of the project Echolyse, which so far contains three separate works (Onion Skin, Delta, Pêle-Mêle) based on the same concept. And, although, the title Onion Skin is far from the literal meaning and what you can actually see in this installation, it still reveals the main feature of it – the multilayered composition of geometric elements ("peelings") shown on specific structure of two walls, positioned at the right angle that enables the effect of immersive and hypnotic sensation. The cherry on top is the powerful sound broadcast, which was composed by Thomas Vaquié.
Onion Skin is built on four parentheses: the black background at the outset of the installation gains the white graphical frames in a gradual phases of time, that submerge into the limitless, endless, and abyss-like space; the following two parts bolster the later visual graphics by red running tracks and tonal squares, dimensional doorways; finally, the mesmerizing, Hitchcock's Vertigo like, graphic elements lead to the culmination of the installation. Every part of the visualization is accompanied by a sound compilation simultaneously, complimenting the visual senses. Altogether, it is a curious amalgam of moving graphics, location and sound.
It would be fair enough to say that relatively young ANTIVJ label, albeit has earned a very good name in the field of visual arts worldwide. Label itself, however, is just a key word of what lies behind – in this case it is Olivier Ratsi and Thomas Vaquié.
French visual artist Olivier Ratsi exploits different medium (photography, digital painting, video, installation and performance) for presenting his ideas of creation. As it was mentioned before, the artist is a co-founder of ANTIVJ, therefore, it is kind of clear what interests him the most. It is the experience of space. Thomas Vaquié contributes to the materialized visual ideas of ANTIVJ with his sound arrangement skills "to project an image sonically" 3 and by elevating visual experience by subtly selected sounds. Both artists have presented a number of works, took part in other projects. This time it is the Echolyse, or to be more precise, the Onion Skin.
1. John Berger Ways of Seeing (Penguin Books: Great Britain 1972)
2. antivj.com/onionskin/
3. thomasvaquie.com/
