1% out of 20

Permanent installation for Paul Duez de Leforest Secondary School in the Pas-de-Calais, northern France, 2010.

Dimensions: 55m x 4,5m
Materiel: Mirror polished stainless steel.

Artistic design: Magali Desbazeille
Project management: Biotopes architecture
Commission from the Conseil Général du Pas-de-Calais

The catalog was produced with the assistance of Juliette Zumbiehl as co-writer, Julie Edler for graphic design and Estelle Pagès for the theoretical text.

Of visibility dependent on solar light, of inventories, classifications, lists, nomenclatures… of how a few words or phrases can crystallize the needs and desires of an anonymous individual and become the stainless memory of a generation or an era...

Description

Reflective letters cover the walls of the courtyard. The letters are attached backwards. Reading them means deciphering them. The sun shines on the letters. The text is projected reversed on the ground and becomes legible.

The sun reveals the text: on the eastern wall, a dialogue written in textese; on the southern wall, an inventory of the preoccupations of teenagers. The projection on the ground moves and makes the sun’s daily and seasonal movement tangible.
Textese was created from new information and communication technologies. The faddish nature of this language is transformed by the enduring nature of the metal. The sun’s light turns a sunny day into an event at Leforest Secondary School.

SMS French text on the western wall:

Wesh B1 ? Tikl cimer
A 2m1
Kel H il é ? 9H –
Kwa 2 9 ? tt PK ? R1
Tfk 7 aprem ? C pa, ji Go é twa ? vé @ home

SMS french text on the southern wall:

75 SMS 28 fous rires MDR : )
2h devant le miroir 5h à mater
4h à se faire des films
3mn à être amoureux AESD

Producer: Conseil Général de Pas De Calais 62.

Thanks: The Sun, the teachers and especially Franck Dewitte, Gaelle Perez, Rita Bachary, le principal M. Couche, Marie-Laure Cazin, Gilles Daveine, Georges-Albert Kisfaludi, Joseph Sevilla…