MARKED HOUSES
An audiovisual installation by Julia Masvernat and Julia Suero
2018

The Tour de la Lanterne (Tower of the Lantern) was built during the 15th century. Located at the entrance to the port of the city of La Rochelle, on the French Atlantic coast, it first functioned as a lighthouse and watchtower. And for three centuries (XVII, XVIII and XIX) as a prison, where they imprisoned sailors, soldiers and political prisoners. In 1879 it was converted into a historical monument. On the stone walls of the tower remain the writings of the prisoners: texts and drawings etched on the surfaces. The Tour de la Lanterne subsists and underlies the present city. A city that was a slave port in the 16th century, a commercial and smuggler port; today the commercial port moved a few kilometers to the north, and the original port remains next to the old town as a historical space.

During 2017 we worked with Julia Suero, a sound artist who lives in La Rochelle, in field research to carry out an audiovisual installation on the fifth floor of the tower. We focus our gaze and our listening on those writings and drawings.

The result is an audiovisual installation that integrates a series of handcrafted analog projections with lights and magnifying glasses, digital video projections and immersive multi-channel sound.
The exhibition opened in March 2018 within the framework of a series of artistic interventions that the Center for National Monuments organized in various historical monuments in different cities throughout France. The work remains for three months on display. On each floor of the tower, different visual and sound artists developed site-specific interventions. To propose a rereading
of space and add one more layer to this superposition of footprints and stories.

«I use in this work drawing as a means of knowledge and transformation. I copy those writings to get closer to them, each one with a different style, I draw them on paper and screen, on the landscape and the stone walls. The prisoners' inscriptions include their names, the dates they were locked up, drawings of ships and tools, characters and indecipherable texts, in various languages (French, English, Spanish, Dutch). Many prisoners describe the situation and the ship in which they were captured, and pay homage to their ships. It is a male universe of sailors and pirates, carpenters, blacksmiths, warships and corsairs - privateers were ships prepared for their crew to engage in assaulting and destroying pirate and enemy ships with the authorization of the government of their nation. Often they were transformed into pirate ships themselves. " (Julia Masvernat)

Some examples:
"IOHN GARE / IOHN: GARE: V / AS: TKEN: ON: BORD: THE: MORNIN G: STA: PRIVATAR: OF: BR / IXHAM: MOVNF.6GUN / IUNEY 15 1778"
(John Gare was captured aboard the Corsair Morning Star from Brixham, armed with 6 guns, on June 15, 1778)

"VIVIER-G / 15 JOURS DE PRISON POUR / AVOIR DIT A UN / BRIGADIER DE FER [MER] / LA PORTE"
(Vivier-G 15 days in prison for having told a brigadier to close the door)

"FAVEL / ICI L ON REFLAI / CHI.A SA GENAICE / quI CE PASE"
(Favel. Ici l´on réfléchit a sa jeunesse qui se passe. Favel. Here he reflected on his passing youth.)


«I work from the marks and the rubble, what remains, the trace of what has been consumed. The bones of the tongue and the ambiguity of the signs. When does writing become drawing and drawing becomes writing? I look for those places with fuzzy edges, where the waters mix: the sweet sea.
Magic lanterns (pre-cinema projection devices) with their magnifying glasses in infinite rotation movement, generate a minimum instant of sharp image. Only for a second can we perceive the image in focus. It seems that the walls (cold, damp and dark walls) transpire those images.
The video projections are large female hands that draw, rewrite and amplify, in an ephemeral way, the texts on the walls. »(Julia Masvernat)

«Regarding the creation of sound, the acoustic material is initially recorded from what the tower itself proposes in terms of sound, both in its interior and exterior space: steps on the stairs, wooden doors, winds, waves of the sea . To these are added other electroacoustic sounds such as the gesture of carving the stone. From this material, I compose a dreamlike and immersive soundscape to which female voices are added that interpret some texts found in the scriptures: mainly the names of the prisoners and dates. The result is a mixed sound universe that is enriched with layers of diverse origins and is progressively transformed. A poetic sound rereading of the building and its history.
The soundscape is broadcast in a stereo system to which four small independent speakers are added that emit acoustic sounds. The latter are located next to the magic lantern devices so that when the viewer approaches them, his perception changes. »(Julia Suero)

General production: Quinzaine Numérique