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Aurélien Froment
Pulmo Marina
The film features a Phacellophora
Camtschatica (egg-yolk jelly), as it drifts
in its tank home at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium. A voice-over informs the viewer
of its baroque but literally brainless
anatomy, its voracious cannibalism and
its classical forebears. It compiles an
extended description of the creature
according to various modes of knowledge,
perception and understanding,
from ancient mythologies to natural sciences
and exhibition design.
Shifting from a seemingly banal wildlife
TV programme about a sea creature
towards a description of the physical and
architectural conditions of its display in
the aquarium, the film looks at how the
image pre-exist its own recording,
approaching the window of the aquarium
as a display device that participates in the
construction of the notion of the viewer.
The work was commissioned by LUX, a
British film organisation, to be inserted
between ads and feature films within a
network of commercial cinemas in the UK
and Ireland.
It would take around 6 days and 11 hours
to watch a two hour film if each shot of
the programme where the work is inserted
was narrated in the same format as
Pulmo Marina.
Aurélien Froment, Pulmo Marina video stil, HD Cam and sound transferred to 35 mm, dolby SR, 5’ 10 ‘’.
Courtesy of the artist, Motive Gallery, Amsterdam and Marcelle Alix, Paris.
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