Laurie Joly / ART 2017-2026 / VALSE : MOUVEMENT VIE

WALTZ : MOVEMENT IS LIFE, photographic and video project, 2024/--

The project WALTZ : MOVEMENT IS LIFE focuses on Photography. Through it, I return to the roots of Photography, which was the first medium to take part in my artistic practice and is now one of the four main mediums, alongside Video, Installation and Performance.

For this project, I go back and forth in time, exploring the many photographic discoveries and inventions, and alternating between technical, artistic and philosophical questions. My approach can be compared to that of an archaeologist of Photography, an approach that aims to create a dialogue between eras, based on the "major" and "minor" questions that have engaged photographers and theorists. This dialogue takes place in a search of pluralist viewpoints and different ways to enter into the field of photographic medium. Thus, I explore the questions of support and surface, of reflection and memory, of time and its inscription, of light, of photographic act, of trace, and of contact. These questions gradually take an artistic form, each one constituting one of the eight chapters of my project.

Chapter 5 [on memory / Svoradov], video, 2026

1 HD digital video, color, stereo sound, + 0.12.28. Edition 2+ 1EA.

Chapter 5 [on memory / Svoradov], series of photographic objects, 2026

7 digital photographs, coulor, 15x20cm. Pigment inkjet print on Hahnemuhle RC satin paper, covered with a scratched gold film. Varnished wooden boxes 18,9x23,8x5cm + engraved glass. Edition 1.

WALTZ : MOVEMENT IS LIFE. Chapter 5 [on memory / Svoradov] is the fifth chapter of the project WALTZ : MOVEMENT IS LIFE. It has two distinct forms. The first is a video. The second is a series of photographic objects. Both share the same photograph and the same text, which they reveal according to their own formal and plastic particularities and through a narrative rhythm unique to each of them.

WALTZ : Movement is Life. Chapter 5 [on memory / Svoradov] approaches Photography from the question of memory. This work explores olfactory and visual memory processes, from the trigger to the mechanisms involved, including the activation of sensory, neuronal, temporal and spatial connections, until the emergence of images, colors and sounds. It examines the strength of these processes and their capacity of interaction. It questions the supports of memory and their stability over time.

Through a shift in gesture, the act of "scrutinizing" becomes the guiding principle for both the work’s creation and its reception. The artist invites the spectator to adopt a similar position to her own when she engages in the identification and analysis of memory processes that require moving back and forth in time and call for repetition.

Thus, "scrutinizing" amounts to scratching a surface to reveal an image, paced by the simultaneous unveiling of a text. In the video form, the spectator can identify with these hands in action within the intimacy created by image and sound, and within a temporality based on the interplay between still and moving images. In the photographic form, access to the images and text depends on the spectator’s hand, which controls the lighting, and on its movement through the space within the series.

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Chapter 6 [on the photographic act], series of photographic objects, 2026

10 digital photographs, coulor, 25x45cm. Inkjet print on perforated translucent backlit film. Under 3mm perforated glass. Concrete bases, various sizes (approx. 10x8x6cm). Edition 1.