loin d’europe | virtual monument

Accompanying my research on virtual monuments, this short mapping project was created. Instead of telling the story of the memorial stone, we found an overarching theme and integrated it into a contemporary context. Of course, the significance of the memorial is the starting point for our thinking. We wanted to maintain the function of the memorial in our work, yet change the monolithic statement of the monument.

Instead of the tragic story of the German occupation of France in the First World War and the explosion of the fort „18 Ponts“ that happened in Lille, we look at Europe. At the beginning, the voice of Robert Schumann is heard. He was the French Foreign Minister and is considered the father of the European Union.
The lettering „loin d’europe“ can be interpreted as a geographical location or as a code of values. Values that we would have needed when the First World War broke out.
Our globalized world today is far more complicated and ambivalent than we could ever explain in a 3 minutes projection. So the work does not give simple answers but opens the space for interpretation. It’s also a research to find the difficult balance between conveying sensitive issues and entertaining. Questions arise like: „How much effect can it take before the story fades into the background?“

„loin d’europe“ has been commissioned by Rencontres Audiovisuelles as part of the Video Mapping Festival #4