About Reflecting Wilderness
Windows into the world or what preceded it
Louis Daguerre, the famous 19th century inventor of diorama’s and photography, often inspired our work for museums. In the early 19th century people found going to a diorama show of Daguerre compelling and fascinating. Natural history museums recognised the pedagogical value of these entertaining dioramas. Their use of dioramas was driven by the ambition to encapsulate all recorded knowledge in a single space, creating an image of nature for their visitors.
Reflecting wilderness
By creating dioramas with hologram images, we combine physical and virtual reality more or less as Daguerre was trying to do. Wilderness trapped in small oak cabinets open up new undiscovered worlds.
This wilderness is frozen in time and space. It is a dead bush, quite the opposite of what nature should be: full of life and the unexpected. A new beginning, instead of a dead end. In a giant water drop floating freely above the diorama, we can see the reflection of the same landscape. It is like an embryo of these primordial landscapes.
The reflection on the water drops reminds us of convex mirrors used in art to reflect the invisible or to distort the visible world. Like the photography of Daguerre, it is a mirror with a memory. But these water drops float and seem full of life. They are ever-changing when they move slowly in the diorama. These reflecting water drops are the beginning of the wilderness. You only have to enter.
Reflecting Wilderness 3
"Reflecting Wilderness II" presented by Art Advisor Juliette Bouffanet for Opera Gallery Paris