At the Franciscaines to work. I see there's an immersive installation starting in 5 minutes. Since I have a friend in there and she has never been able to convince me it's worth it, I drop off my bag at the cloakroom and go in. We'll see.
The installation is called "Dernière Minute" (Last Minute), but it could have easily been called "Particle Generator" because that's all it is. For half an hour.
It starts with thirty seconds of voiceover where a woman talks about scattering her father's ashes in the sea - probably to make the committees and Arte believe there's some depth to it. Then, it's never mentioned again.
At first, it's nice. The first minute. (That should have been the title!) Particles on the floor and walls that resemble water or smoke. Then... it stays the same. For 29 minutes. Moving dots. Then lines. Then dots and lines. Then more water... even though the actual sea is literally a hundred meters away.
(You can imagine the dystopian future where we'll be dragging children into these kinds of installations to give them an idea of what it's like to "walk in water." I assure you, it's nothing like it.)
After ten minutes, very unpleasant flashes. Everyone closes their eyes. We look at the walls. What's the point? ("But of course! It's the pain of mourning! The rupture of... blah blah blah!")
So yes, it's beautiful to look at in photos. That's why I went. But when you're there, it's hollow. Artificial. It doesn't tell anything. It feels like they came up with every possible geometric combination to make it last half an hour. For the illustration of a concert or live performance: sure, why not. But on its own...
The usher encouraged us at the beginning to "move, interact." We quickly realized it's quite gimmicky, and towards the end, almost everyone was sitting down.
The only thing I gained from it? Ten euros.
Oh no, I lost those too.
What a load of crap.
