Colourful Skies, Burnt Land
Maxime Corbeil-Perron, 2026
Concept, direction, composition and fabrication: Maxime Corbeil-Perron
Advice and fabrication: Martin Châteauvert
Produced by Werktank (Leuven, Belgium) and Recto-Verso (Québec, Canada)
Photos: Michael Patten
With the support of the Flemish Government, Recto-Verso (Québec, Canada), and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (CALQ, Canada)
Audiovisual performance, 20 minutes
Harnessing angular real-time editing from a custom-made light control system, the modulated lights of three analog film projectors are interrupted with speed and precision, using hand-built obturators, electronics, and software.
The projected images have gone through an array of transformations: beginning on Super 8 film, then transferred into digital image, converted back into analog video, digitized once more, and finally printed onto 16mm film. This layered circulation between photochemical, analog and digital formats became an essential part of the work, allowing the image to carry ‘paleontological’ traces of each transformation.
An audiovisual composition, the movement of light in space is tightly connected to sampled and synthetic sonic component. Landscapes of blazing colours, oscillating between abstraction and analog artifacts, underpinned by mechanical, syncopated rhythms.
A work that seeks to create allegories regarding the accelerating race toward technological progress, its impact on the environment, and our relationship with technology and its inevitable obsolescence.