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Interview with Michel SÉMÉNIAKO Photographer |
- How do you feel about discovering your pictures in the multimediatic context of CARTON ? - The first thing is the fiction that brings together pictures which are already in a fiction process. So it's not antinomic with their origin. Secondly is discovering that you can play with them. It becomes a game. Preparing an exhibition or a book I'm used to playing a little but not that much. Thirdly the lighting. The quality of the photographs, their transparency reflect their process of creation. I think that's beautiful. The last thing is the sound. When I make pictures at night I've an exacerbated perception of sound. But here the sounds do really work with the images, something that had never appeared before. - You also made the front cover picture of the digipack. What is a "negotiated image" ? - A "negotiated image" builds its aesthetics on the dialogue between the photographer and the model. It's typically photographic but erased by most photographers who see themselves as creators of the world. For me it's a way to say that world exists and that we have to work with it, it is a shared creation. They are pictures on the edge of reality and fiction. - Birgé-Vitet have done a portrait of you in L'ectoplasme. How do you see them ? - Like me they are explorers of atypical territories. It's not exploration in order to get lost but to look for meaning. You need to escape from institutional codes. So Birgé-Vitet are night-watchmen, they are there when others sleep. - In Radio Silence some colour photographs give the impression they've been made with a kind of astonishing program such as KPT Bryce 5. Can you tell us the secret ? - These programs try to imitate these photographs. I work on reality, I'm not trying to rebuild algorithms. If the wave transforms itself into mist it's just because the pause is long and the tide is coming in. Several minutes. That's the memory of water. - How do you choose your subjects, these places you haunt at night ? - I'm looking for my origins. When I feel well that means I found the place. My origins are universal, I'm looking for universality. In China Chinese writing speaks to us. I would not like you to mistake universality for mondialisation which is a political and economical process. Universality is the culture of men. You could say to me that greediness is universal ! Man is identitaire, bizarre and also solider. These things are paradoxical and that way I recognise myself and also Birgé and Vitet.
Michel SÉMÉNIAKO When night falls Michel Séméniako
runs his electric torch over landscapes and architecture. He practises
this white magic ritual travelling through the world and looking for places
full of memories, such as Carnac, Casamance, China, Napoli, Alps, India,
Japan or Lorraine. |
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