Vidya Gastaldon

Visiomire

Animation, 1'40'', 2019

IN ORDER TO COMMIT TO REDUCING OUR ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION TOGETHER, THE VIDEO WORKS OF THE MIRE PROGRAMME ARE BROADCAST ONLY DURING PEAK HOURS, FROM 7AM TO 9.30AM, FROM 12PM TO 2.30PM AND FROM 5.30PM TO 8PM. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND HAVE A NICE TRIP.

Vidya Gastaldon’s Visiomire is inspired by the television test card, the still image that for decades appeared on the screen whenever there was no broadcast. Here, however, the artist animated the test card to create a hypnotic video. The film is composed of abstract geometric patterns, modelled on a computer to ease the choice of colours, which play on changes in values, contrasts, nuances, casts, complementary colours, or intensities. These chromatic games are alternatively matched with multiple pattern changes, extremely different compositions resulting from the same basic structure, either entirely or partially visible, through lines or through coloured areas – or through both at the same time. The density also varies, from very dense to very sparse coverage of the surface area. Sequences are thus nuanced – frantic changes alternate with quieter moments and slowed down movements. These short colourful pauses allow our gaze to rest. Visiomire shows that from a very simple basis, there is an almost infinite potential for variation.

Produced by the Fonds cantonal d'art contemporain, Geneva.

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Vidya Gastaldon was born in 1974 in Besançon. She lives and works in Geneva. She grew up in a family practicing meditation, which introduced her to various forms of spirituality.

Vidya Gastaldon studied at the Beaux-Arts de Grenoble, where she graduated in 1997. She made a noteworthy debut with a performance at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1993. Between 1994 and 2001, the artist collaborated with Jean-Michel Wicker, whom she met during her studies at the Beaux-Arts. Her work won her multiple Swiss Art Awards. She was a co-director of the art space Zabriskie Point in Geneva between 2010 and 2015.

Her work takes various forms, including drawing, sculpture and video. She favours the use of simple materials and techniques, sometimes associated with traditionally feminine activities, such as knitting or embroidery. Her works take the viewer into a fantasy world, which seems to come out of a dream or to result from hallucinations. The artist mixes, often with humour, references from various fields such as religion, art history or cartoons. In the imaginary landscapes that compose her drawings, Vidya Gastaldon reproduces nature in its complexity and in the various forms that make it up. She shows the physical phenomena that punctuate the cycle of life, such as transformation of matter.