The Figures installation comprises four video projections featuring dancer Maud Le Pladec, filmed underwater at the Dominique Savio swimming pool in Rennes. Figures highlights the presence of the dancer's body, holding its breath and almost motionless underwater, and that of the artist, suggested by the rotating movement of the camera.
This movement gives the space a temporal dimension, that of the duration of the loop, which ends when the dancer rises to the surface to catch her breath. The slow-motion effect accentuates the impression of weightlessness, of “suspended time.”
In the small room, Marcel Dinahet has chosen to present another video from the series on screen. In this one, the frame is closer to Maud Le Pladec's face and the camera remains stationary. Marcel Dinahet films the face closed in on itself (the mouth and eyes are closed) and draws our attention to the person's inner self. This point of view reveals the changes in the face and body when they are deprived of air and immersed in a foreign environment.
In this series, Marcel Dinahet focuses on the relationship between the body and the aquatic environment. This environment is a space where both physical and internal experiences take place, involving the loss of spatial reference points and the liberation from the weight of the body. The artist had already used dancers in his 2006 video installation performance Les Danseurs immobiles (The Motionless Dancers). This choice is not insignificant, as dancers have a mastery and awareness of their bodies and space that allows them to remain focused and confident underwater. In the Figures videos, it is the medium of video, and more specifically the artist's movement, that creates the performance, or even the choreography. When viewing these images, visitors can try to put themselves in the dancer's place and imagine what she is feeling by drawing on their own experience. The installation thus allows us to see and feel the effects of total immersion underwater and questions our relationship with ourselves, others, and our image.
