Deep are the woods

Eric Arnal Burtschy followed studies at the Sorbonne in history, philosophy and geopolitics before moving towards the living and visual arts. His work addresses both a questioning of the human and more abstract perspectives related to research on space and movement. He thus creates a game art exploring the relationship between collective action and individual choice. In 2012, eager to explore a new relationship with the world and always interested in diplomatic and political issues, he simultaneously became a reserve staff officer, a position for which he was trained at the Special Military School of Saint- Cyr and at the Ecole de guerre in Paris. He also became a laureate of the Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation and artist in residence at L’L – Place of research and support for young creation in Brussels. In 2013, he completed Bouncing Universe in a Bulk, a diptych on the Universe and the notions of infinity created with Lyllie Rouvière then presented Ciguë, a solo created with Clara Furey on the relationship to freedom and loneliness. He produced Deep are the Woods, a form of light writing, as well as We are the Wind, a questioning of being together through research on the Universe. He also organizes Sweet and Wild, evenings of short forms combining performance and visual arts in Paris and Berlin.

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Deep are the Woods offers a connection to nature and to the universe through the experience of a physical relationship with light. The movement of its rays gives substance to the emptiness and inhabits it with intangible presence. It is a cathedral without walls of which only the inner vibes would have been kept, an invitation to extend by the immaterial our perception of the world.

Writing light

At the crossroads of live performance, digital and visual arts

Deep Are The Woods is an immersive show from which the interpreter is the light. Made tangible by a fine mist , it lives in the space with a sense of breathing and vibration. The viewer is placed in the center of the device and moves freely. It calls as much his imagination than his body perception: the light has a materiality, it surrounds and caresses , giving the impression to be able to grab it and creating a space to project which is as so a physical as mental.
The show begins with a relation with the nature, like an horizon grazing the ground or beams coming through leaves but what interests me is what is behind the nature, what happens when we go in the forest during the night, what is behind the sky. There is I think the idea to be with ourselves and of a link with the Universe.
Concerning the technical principle, it is the kind of sensation that can be found among artists Anthony McCall , James Thurell or Etienne Rey but special attention is here given to the writing of the movement, the sensation of living and dramatic writing.
This play has the distinction of having all the attributes of a live performance (body in movement, duration, playwriting, writing of the space and movement) despite the fact that it is based on a writing of intangible. It mixes the choreographic field of digital and visual arts while remaining close to writing the living.

Light as performer

Light is as much a matter for the intangible as for the tangible, it helps to see but is invisible itself and appears only in its interactions with another element, in this case fog. In this interaction, it takes body, the quickest body we know, immortal and infinite. Writing light, choreographing light, it is the possibility to write space and to put in movement a body immensely vaster than one’s own but whose problematics remain a body in movement: what movement, with what intention, what dynamics, to generate what overall composition?
There is indeed a proximity with the living which is related to a focus on the breath of the light and the way in which it inhabits space. Yet, one must not see this proximity as a parallel with what a human presence could bring, but rather the will to give to feel, through light, an immensely vast and vibrant universe: the light has a presence that gives it the possibility of incarnating the immensity and the intangibility, a form of vibration that allows to generate the living.

Calendrier des dates 

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Conception et écriture : Eric Arnal-Burtschy
Direction technique : Benoît Simon
Création sonore : Gérôme Nox
Production : BC Pertendo
Coproduction : ARCADI | L'L (Bruxelles) | Les Halles de Schaerbeek – accélérateur européen (Bruxelles) | Théâtre de Vanves | actOral (Marseille) & L'L fondation (Bruxelles)
Avec le soutien de : NEMO – Biennale des arts numériques | FRAC Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur (Marseille) | Le Merlan, scène nationale (Marseille) | CDC L’Atelier de Paris – Carolyn Carlson (Paris) | Le château éphémère (Carrières-sous-Poissy) | Centre Culturel Wolubilis (Bruxelles)
Accompagnement artistique : L'L (Bruxelles)