Jacques Perconte

Salammbô is an alchemical game between my images, Othman Louati's music vibrating in Noé Nillni's trumpet and Gustave Flaubert's text carried by Julien Ribeill's voice.

The window of an apartment in Rotterdam leads us to the outskirts of an industrial industrial port, a strident and devouring machine that pours out its flames. In front of this infernal and metallic spectacle, the horizon appears obstructed. The steel factories transform the material into smoke and and the boats sail against winds and tides. Above the metal and the buildings that pierce the sky: silence and the flight of and the flight of birds are only a hypothesis.

The window of an apartment in Rotterdam leads us to the outskirts of an industrial industrial port, a strident and devouring machine that pours out its flames. In front of this infernal and metallic spectacle, the horizon appears obstructed. The steel factories transform the material into smoke and and the boats sail against winds and tides. Above the metal and the buildings that pierce the sky: silence and the flight of and the flight of birds are only a hypothesis.

Infinite Loop. "Filmed during a flight to Mont-Blanc, this summit adventure offers us a rare point of view of many peaks threatened by the disappearance of the ice which keeps them in balance. Carried away by the turbulence of the winds which prevent a uniform trajectory so close to the cliffs, the camera films according to the kinetic energy of the movements of the plane. The images do not reflect well what the heart and the imagination combine as energy to accommodate the vastness of sight and the magic of flight. The inability to see the mountain seems to be overcome in the experience. But the images I bring back tell that this challenge of technique against nature is swayed on all sides by the violence of the lurking danger." –JP

For Jean-Luc Godard, with all the admiration and affection of Jacques Perconte and Nicole Brenez. December 3, 2020.

Montanhas estão caindo e não há nada que possamos fazer a respeito. E mesmo que tenhamos os meios necessários para escalá-las e superar aqueles picos inacessíveis nos quais muitos exploradores perderam suas vidas em busca do privilégio de superá-los, as montanhas continuarão a cair à medida que continuemos a escalá-las.

Montanhas estão caindo e não há nada que possamos fazer a respeito. E mesmo que tenhamos os meios necessários para escalá-las e superar aqueles picos inacessíveis nos quais muitos exploradores perderam suas vidas em busca do privilégio de superá-los, as montanhas continuarão a cair à medida que continuemos a escalá-las.

Montanhas estão caindo e não há nada que possamos fazer a respeito. E mesmo que tenhamos os meios necessários para escalá-las e superar aqueles picos inacessíveis nos quais muitos exploradores perderam suas vidas em busca do privilégio de superá-los, as montanhas continuarão a cair à medida que continuemos a escalá-las.

Music by Jean-Jacques Birgé.

From Rotterdam.

Infinite Loop. In his Tempestaire (2020), Jacques Perconte digitally interprets the meteorological imagery of Jean Epstein's film Le Tempestaire (1947). After capturing images of a storm in Cap Fagnet, Normandy, Perconte translates the atmospheric vibrations of the elements and colours of nature into vibrations of digital images whose pixellized textures and deconstructed take on a pictorial dimension reminiscent of the landscape painting of Romanticism and Impressionism. Perconte's work is a generative video in which images, constantly fed by software, never repeat themselves. The duration of the video is therefore potentially unlimited.

At the end of October (a few days before my birthday actually) Nicole asked me to produce a small film for a great man, a short film, a film like a birthday song, a common gift. Nicole sends me many portraits that she likes very much, some are historical documents, others pictures made by JLG.

The agitation of matter plays on balance of everything : nothing is fixed. Carried by the force of gold flowing in their bodies, the swallows weight hardly at all. In flight, they get rid of these shadows that no longer serve. They are the light that goes back and forth without order and to see them, do not try to catch them. To see them, you have to let time stretch.

without gloves

Quenched in the Klimt’s gold, the aurora upon Budapest shines of thousand fires. The tiny birds seam to be flying from the firmament and dancing. Immensity and calmness enter indeed in resonance with the fluxes of the Earth. Our entrails, as pulled by the forces of the underground lavas, remind us of the power of patience. The quest for light, the quest for love can begin in the vibrations of this letter of incandescente images, fanned with emotions.

In the Klimt’s gold brought to the melting point by a flaming afternoon sky above Hawick, in the south of Scotland, one bird is crossing the sky. From one end of the horizon to the other, its flight defies space and time, to the extent of making them bend and overlap into each other. The journey to the light is to waive the appearences to embrace a mystical dimension where all become love-light-gold. This infinite flux evolves into harmony of existence and unity of life, where all colors join together, kiss and blend.

With the immense freighters, the colors of the horizon will come, pushed by the winds, to take the whites of the cliffs, to project them in the green of the vegetation...

“What is a mantra? Mantra is two words: Man and tra. Man means mind. Tra means the heat of life. Rameans sun. So, mantra is a powerful combination of words which, if recited, takes the vibratory effect of each of your molecules into the Infinity of the Cosmos. That is called 'Mantra.'” 
Yogi Bhajan 4/22/97

A peaceful image transforms imperceptibly into a blood-red scene. Below the soothing waves of the sea, deep unrest simmers. Digital impressionism. An inner journey in our relationship with violence and memory, through a patient deconstruction of the image, set to the subtle sound of a never-ceasing wind.

A new adventure above the Alps.

108 repetitions at the pond.

This second repetition engages time even more, it is a hundred and eight times that we see these few two minutes already slowed down. With each new repetition, the colors slide and feed. The color reflects the inner journey.

These few steps in the forest are a hundred and eight times that we see them. With each new repetition, the colors slide and feed. The color reflects the inner journey.

Curta-metragem

A recording of a generative work by Jacques Perconte.

The wind blew from the starting of the Ferry. Offshore, the swell could make the travel difficult, but that boat would split the sea and project its Mediterranean blue in the golden sky and the fire light of the setting sun in the waves. The horizon would be only sea, more than heaven, more than sea, more than heaven...

"The camera always returns to these places by the same paths, the same looks. The river from above, this ruined tomb always on our left, sometimes an uninterrupted ascent towards the peaks and the sun. The forest seems to always remain the same, indifferent. No movement inhabits it, no presence other than itself, except for the remains of a tomb, and a few butterflies"- Tom Cook--Rosset, 2017

Made over the course of several visits to the Scottish Borders by the French artist filmmaker Jacques Perconte, the film interrogates the Scottish borders unique heritage : sheep farming, fabrics, the woolen mill tradition and our unique landscapes are all rendered in an impressionistic arc of colour and movement. The path we drive leads to the heart of the Ettrick Forest, a dive into a textile world. A land where man, machinery and nature deal with a complex relationship that draws their future. Slipping through poetry, between the brutality of matter and the sublime landscape, we experience a penetrating vision that embodies the stability of our deep desire to live in peace. Spectators are aware of the impotence of our movements, and we know that nature will find its way.

Far off the coast of Africa, Madeira emerges from the ocean. It is the vast summit of an ancient volcano. As explorers we discover the coast, dive into the virgin forest and go through its million colors in the trough of valleys bathed in magical lights. Men on the other hillside, work the land, intending to exploit its richness. They get caught in matter and get slowly erased by the wind.

Musician Jean-Benoît Dunckel, one half of the band AIR, and filmmaker Jacques Perconte, who works with Jeff Mills, an artist known for his colors and landscapes, who sculpts with his digital palette. Together, they created especially for the opening of the festival, a dialogue between improvisation and high-speed chase. Normandy's wooded countryside, magnified for the occasion, turns into a thousand suns rise and dazzle us.

A gentle and patient travelling camera accompanies sunrise on the Père Lachaise cemetery, and by continual metamorphosis of the visual material shows a break through crossed by a chromatic life inexhaustible variations. A film born from Léos Carax's Holy Motors, with whom I collaborated on a music of Jean-Benoît Dunckel.

The infinity of an extraordinary landscape, a canoe trip down the Ardèche gorges. The image is lodged in a stone vault in a sacred place.

Colorama is a love story, where the image and bodies embrace and tell their stories.

The tree of life, an almost monochromatic cycle where the dominant is not an absolute rule. Here is a tree in the forest. It is from it that life arises full of wisdom. The awakening of a simple presence for the story of a life. From one green to another, an entire cycle awaits us.

rugby (MVI 1423)

The entire film is based on one motionless shot of the sea, behind which rises a hill and in the middle floats a boat. The tension rises with the changing autonomy of the image.

Misappropriation of the background from the 2012 N.S poster: "A Strong France". The poster is once more subverted. But this time, it is up to you to hear, to see, and to understand what it means. The future belongs to us !

A film about the magic power of nature. A journey to the heart of impressionistic Normandy. A colorful stroll in search of light and time.

It may be the view of the ocean from the cliffs that I prefer in Upper Normandy. It is from these two plans that my film impressions started. It is from these two plans that all my films leave since indirectly. The magical power of nature and the infinite so easily visible need only be breathed. (jacquesperconte.com)

A few kilometres from Ajaccio, the burnt earth gives in to the weight of colour. The ground opens up and frees pictorial energies that take over the sky. I see the horizon disappear, but I keep it in my sights. The train continues on its way...

In South West Corsica Crossing Ajaccio's Gulf to Sanguinary islands on the edge of the boat waterline. The sun burst the blue of the Mediterranean sea, and scum it shines a thousand crystals. This is a pure detection film.

TGV Paris-Bordeaux, tuesday january 6th 2009 : dawn... And airs grown calm when white the dawn appeareth And white snow falling where no wind is bent . . . Guido Cavalcanti (1255, 1300) Film (numérique) de 6', HD 720p, juin 2009 rom black to brown and then white, red and yellow, the light of this snowy dawn was astonishing. I had this phrase from Guido Cavalcanti in my head. I wanted to put it into colors. I wanted to film a landscape in movement, a landscape unfolding, a landscape that would go to our hearts through the play of fragile materialety and of pictural poetry.

The Satyagraha (from Sanskrit सत्याग्रह) or embrace the truth "(satya = truth agraha = seizure) is the principle of non-violence civil disobedience that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was introduced. What happened to the values of Gandhi today? What world do we want to build. Se film does not lecture, he does not explain, it opens a space to slip and sensitive issue.

On a Tuesday morning in April, I leave the island of Patiras to return to Bordeaux. I cross the Médoc while the sun is rising. The light hits the train's window, cutting across the landscape. All I can do is film. So I stick my small camera against the window and I do not look away from what is happening outside. It is one of the most beautiful journeys that I have ever been on ... The sun tears me away from reality. Between shadow and light, the image explodes. It empties and fills itself ...

The universe upside down, the form emerges from the light. The body emerges from the image. Everything becomes one. Digital critters vibrate and fly. The order is no longer the same….

On a bright morning in May 2005 in Landes on the current of Huchet, between the river mouth and the "pas-du-loup" island, I shot a movie which will be like those of the series of naturalistic journeys towards abstraction...

The tour of the island at sunset. The light taps the sensors and saturates the colors. The boat spins and the water shakes me but I do not stop to fix the banks. The time could be suspended. There will never be a powerful enough way to capture the moment.

A bouquet of roses her. Petals brush up against each other. And this goes on as the image traces the feelings which invade me. The forms mingle, blend, and carress one another. Sixteen minutes to let oneself be carried off in this swirl of pink clouds.

A half-hour immersion under the trees, road after road, with a succession of landscapes from the Périgord Noir... “uaoen” is a dreamlike film that leads the spectator through a landscape in transformation: in turn, its image is transformed, tree by tree, pixel by pixel — the landscape looses it’s iconography and its depth all while moving towards a final rupture with perspective by becoming completely flat. A work which frees itself from classical film dogma in order to become a space that is open and thus reserved for the liberty of the imagination.

Rhythmic convulsions, erotic syncopations, mechanics of bodies, red invading shadows and tinting the skin…

Experiment in abstraction through the discovery of bodies and of the senses: six moments in a story of a meeting. The story of two (or three) bodies. Stigmas, decompression, red. Black. Several days. Several short stories. Green. Yellow. Abstract pornography. This movie is the first movie completely based on psychovisual compressions. The film is the story of the relationships between forms and the image in which they are registered. It is a story of meetings. It is a sulphurous story. This movie has something of a pornographic character. It focuses on the act itself.

Jacques Perconte takes us on the heels of a silhouette that will gradually take on the final shape of a young woman. Divided into three scenes of different durations and speeds, “promenade” immerses us from the start in a nocturnal atmosphere, dense than in universes alternately, confined, feverish, and finally contemplative; each is bathed in light and its own atmosphere. Only nuance, intermediate shots, on a dark sky where a moon is gradually extracted from the clouds which mask it. The whole punctuates with repetitive rhythms. Coming to the light, coming to the day, one thinks of course of the birth and the passage of life. The impression is only confirmed by a soothing finale facing the ocean.

Historical single - band video on the question of my approach: exploration of digital bodies in 13 sequences.

AV10212010_201611 (official upload description)

As we glide over the surface of the water, the trees that surround the canals play tricks on us and their colors get carried away from time to time. From time to time they disappear. And even closer to winter when the sky is as gray as it can be, its reflection blows dozens of blues on the waves of the marsh.