radotage meduse 9
RADOTAGE DE LA MÉDUSE
Full memorization of the painting The Raft of the Medusa without digital technology
First restitution in scale 1:1.
Date: 2018
Materials: charcoal, eraser
Tools: solar oven
Energy: solar, human
Size: 491 x 716 cm
Exhibition: École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy (ENSAPC)
In 1816, the french frigate the Medusa is wrecked off the coast of Mauritania causing the death of 160 people, of which 147 are abandoned on a makeshift raft. Two hundred years later, this story echoes the current events whether it be the pandemic crisis or the migrants losing their lives in the attempt to cross the Mediterranean.
Today there are probably several millions of reproductions of The Raft of the Medusa painted by Théodore Géricault in 1819. These reproductions are spread out all over the planet in the form of books, posters, postcards and other digital images archived on the web. Not to depend only on a physical or digital media of memorization, we wanted to explore an other way to keep works of art in memory. So we undertook to fully memorize The Raft of the Medusa. In an iterative way, each restitution of the painting allows us to increase the quantity of memorized informations. We would like to obtain, after several years of memorization and restitution work, a truly rich and reliable copy of this painting.
