Jérôme Cognet
2021
Topsy
Jérôme Cognet
On January 4, 1903, thousands of spectators gathered at Luna Park on Coney Island to attend the death by electrocution of the elephant named Topsy. This event was filmed using the Universal Projecting Kinescope, capable of recording 12 images on 35mm film, invented by Thomas Alva Edison a few years earlier.
Topsy
Guérilla-Hubble
Jérôme Cognet
The images of GUERILLA-HUBBLE come essentially from scientific imagery captured by the Hubble telescope (galaxies, nebulae, black holes). The sound refers to the roar of social unrest (riots, demonstrations, guerrillas). The aim of this project is to combine the vibrations and trajectories of the universe with those related to social upheavals in a kind of « chaosmos ». It is perhaps in this « internal identity of the world and chaos », in James Joyce's words, that all the resonances and arrangements of stars and men reveal their common determinations, whether they are driven by objective or subjective forces.
Guérilla-Hubble
Le soleil tout entier ne se trouve nulle part
Jérôme Cognet
Inspired by Isaac Asimov's short story "Nightfall", this film portrays the anxiety and hysteria of a civilization that has never known night, in the face of the impending death of the suns that compose its solar system. The images of LE SOLEIL TOUT ENTIER NE SE TROUVE NULLE PART are taken from scenes of existing narrative films where the sun is predominant, and from which all human forms have been erased in post-production. This film is organized around colorimetric variations and a decreasing luminosity, as in Asimov's story. The soundtrack comes from sound recordings of the energy produced by solar winds captured by NASA's Parker Probe.
The Entire Sun Is Nowhere To Be Found
F.L.I.R. (Forward Looking Infra-Red)
Jérôme Cognet
F.L.I.R. deals mainly with military imagery captured by AC-130s, BlackHawks and war drones during ordered missions on Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi territory. The sound material comes from the sensations and feelings of the soldiers responsible for carrying out these objectives. In this project, the aim is to poetically destroy this military aesthetic in such a way as to paradoxically place the viewer in a combat space so that he can feel its sensory depths.
F.L.I.R. (Forward Looking Infra-Red)
Baltagi
Jérôme Cognet
The SS Champollion, liner of the Maritime Messengers Company and assigned to the Egypt-Syria express line (Alexandria, Port Said, Beirut), had to transport emigrants to Palestine and Port Said. On December 22, 1952, following a confusion between the Beirut airport lighthouse and the one at the Al Manara port, the crew carried out an operation that rushed the ship onto the breakers 600 meters from the shore. Due to a storm, the lifeboats close to the tragedy were unable to respond, leaving the passengers trapped in the wreckage. At the end, it was thanks to three Lebanese brothers named Baltagi, who succeeded in docking the ship, that a large number of passengers were saved.
Baltagi
