Hicham Berrada

This video belongs to the Présages series, initiated in 2007 and still in progress. It brings together water landscapes created in glass basins through chemical processes, displayed through different medium : video, performance or in situ. They are hermetic little worlds cut off from our own, made out of minerals immersed in an aqueous solution. To made them, a whole range of components is deployed to produce a wide variety of colours and shapes.

It summon us to see inorganic matter in a different light. We habitually think of the mineral world as static, as opposed to the animate living world. We are unable to perceive the movement of the mineral but by subjecting purified minerals to particular pH and viscosity conditions, we discover the metamorphoses of substances we normally consider inert and immutable. In this video, the mineral even turns out to have a gestural dimension, to be capable of movements we thought the prerogative of living systems.

Out of this chemically activated matter emerge multiple worlds simultaneously suggestive of forms of animal life, buildings and surreal or familiar landscapes. In motion, they challenge the viewer’s imagination and capacity for interpretation, like psychedelic Rorschach tests or those ornate clouds supposedly open to predictive explication. The Présages take their title from this evocative power.