Yvain, mout fus or oublians

video, double projection, sound, 11 min

Yvain, mout fus oublians is a video diptych created by Éric Giraudet with the contribution of students - teachers in the Master MEEF arts plastics program and middle school students from La Binquenais, during his residency at the ESPE - Rennes site.

Composed at the end of the 12th century in a mix of Champenois and Old Picard, The Knight with the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes tells the story of Sir Yvain, a companion of King Arthur. In order to win the favors of his lady, Laudine, the knight had promised to return after a year of brave exploits. As he is jousting with a light heart alongside Sir Gauvin, the messenger of his beloved comes to find him: "Yvain, you have indeed forgotten". Carried away by his acts of bravery, the knight has failed to keep his promise. Mad with despair, he flees civilization, plunges into the forest, sheds his clothes, and loses his speech and reason.

Yvain, mout fus or oublians is part of a series of works around the medieval figure of the wild man and its contemporary representations, from Tarzan to linguistic experiments on primates. The man of the woods, the hidden beast, halfway between civilization and the elfish spirits of nature, questions our past at the dawn of human speech and consciousness. Here, Yvain gradually slips onto a groundless floor, at the mercy of spatial reversals, bodies that collide with and brush against him.

The installation is the result of two weeks of work and experimentation with seven students in the Master 2 arts plastics program at the ESPE Bretagne - Rennes site, middle school students from La Binquenais, and CPE students and librarian teachers. It is a research project around a language that is both familiar and distant, which we have tried to appropriate by folding it like the space of our choreographies. Éric Giraudet de Boudemange