The magic of photochemical image-making is put to its ultimate test with the experimentation and painter-like cinematic work of Gaelle Rouard. Her extremely meticulous methods come to life in a tactile and sensory experience when projected inside the cinema room, together with the audience. Hearing, smelling and almost sensing the negative running through the projector gives another dimension to her performative way of presenting her unique work.
“I work like a painter, to me it’s the most important part of the fabrication of the image. So I spend a lot of time making tests—trying different developers in different temperatures, in order to get a specific kind of blue, deep darkness and so on. This is the main work.
The way I work is that the image you see is the original, I don’t use a negative. So it comes directly from the camera of the optical printer. And if it scratches, it’s scratched forever. So I’m the only one who takes the responsibility to project it. On my own projector. For the moment that’s how it is. Since I can’t make a spare print.”