Bordeaux (AFP)
The former Bordeaux submarine base, a "concrete monster" which serves as a backdrop for the "Bassins de Lumières", constituted a "real challenge" for the designers of this vast digital art space which opens on June 10 , explained to AFP its director.
"When we saw the place for the first time, we had a flash. The gigantism did not scare us, the difficulty of the project motivated us: the concrete, the gigantism, the water, the reflections ... It's a magical place, "said Augustin de Cointet, director general of Culturespaces, during a visit reserved for the press last Wednesday.
The place offers 3,000 m² of walking and 12,000 m² of projection, thanks to 90 video projectors, 80 speakers and 100 km of optical fiber.
"All the technical problems due to humidity or gigantism really had to pass afterwards, we didn't want to do something technologically perfect but which no longer had a soul," explained Augustin de Cointet.
"It was necessary to remain confronted with this building, with its strong and hard history, and to manage to dress it with something which will project it towards a more laughing future", he added.
For art and architecture historian Mathieu Marsan, Bordeaux has "turned its back" on the submarine base and its 600,000 m2 of reinforced concrete, completed in 1943 by the Nazi occupier, for a long time. After World War II, it was "economically impossible and technically very dangerous" to destroy.
"It was not until the end of the 20th century that we were able to discover the base, with spaces linked to yachting and contemporary art," he explains.
"Basically, we are in the dark, confronted with the works. Whether we are sensitive to art or not, there is bound to be a sensation that will be created," said the historian.
Two months late due to the health crisis, the digital projections that the first visitors will be able to admire, in limited and masked numbers, will be devoted to the Austrian painters Gustav Klimt, author of the famous Kiss, and German Paul Klee, in a more short and to the tunes of the Magic Flute.
Culturespaces, which is already piloting the Atelier des lumière in Paris and the Carrières de lumière in Baux-de-Provence, has invested 14 million euros in the Bordeaux project, which becomes "the largest digital art center in the world" .
© 2020 AFP