Aquatique

  • J.F. CANTIN
from January 14th to February 11th, 2012

INFUSION and CANAL, video installation: video projection, coloured basins, water.

Infusion and Canal look at the connections between the unconscious and the conscious. What is submerged, immersed, the unconscious and what surfaces, appears, the conscious, are examined in an image making structure acting as a metaphor for their relations.

Infusion and Canal are part of a new series, a new period in my practice which makes use of water in interaction with video projections to produce structures investigating various inflections of the self. Water in its various aspects — transparency, reflection, fluidity, immersion — establishes with the video projection diverse processes, dynamics which examine the modulations of the mind.

In these works, the water’s surface is used as a retinal element. Much like a cornea or a lens, this element reflects, makes images. A surface image which is modulated by containers and objects which are immersed or resurfacing; a process analogous to perception.

J.F. Cantin, visual artist


From the onset of my practice, I was interested in time-space related image making processes — related to the process of photography, cinema, video — and the way they condition our perception of reality. From this foundation, I produce apparatus-structures, installations, which act as metaphor of the perceptual phenomena and its psychological mechanism. Hence, in my research, perception is at the core of a global ontological questioning: perception as the mediator of Being.