Stanford, le 15 octobre 2001
Grunt
#116 - 350 East 2nd Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5T 4R8
(604) 875-9516
Dear Grunt

Here is a proposal for a video installation (or audio-video ? or text-video ? or...) called "Catarina".
For the last few years, I have been very interested in working on memory, what it is, the way it
unveils or hide itself. This project is part of that interest.
"Catarina" is made to be projected in loop from a video projector linked directly to a Macintosh,
and the projection must be between 6 and 8 feet high to be at a good scale. The sound has to be in
the space, coming from the opposite wall to the one of the projection. And there has be a few chairs
so people can sit and live the project in its duration.
Some more technical informations are included on the cd.
Also : don't worry for the silence at the begining : it is very normal. There is about 5 minutes of
sound on the total nine minutes of images.

Thank you for your time

Jocelyn Robert
306 rue de l'Eglise
Quebec, Qc
G1K6G9
(418) 523-9464 / (650) 497-2435
j rontheroad® hotmail .com

A few words on "Catarina"

I am fascinated by memory, by the way that some bits of this and that, a subtle tone in a voice, a
color, a smell or a sudden light end up being part of our memories and, ultimatly, being part of us.
Memory is always a set of eclectic elements for which we are the binding thread, and through us
they build sense. So I made a series of audio projects built upon the process of memory,fromwhich
"La theorie des nerfs creux", or "Le Crachecophage", with Laetitia Sonami, have been important
ones.
In the last few years, I have been trying to bring this idea to other media. To do so, I tend to use
independently different levels —text, sound, video— that follow their own pace. It allows me to
use their own rythmns, their specific space to build contrepoints that bring us in some poetic space
created by the intersection of the different discouses.
Some will have seen "La Salle des Noeuds 2" in Montreal, an installation I made with Emile Morin
that was partly built on this approach. The version 3, shown last May at the Walter Phillips Gallery
was going even further in this direction, with a text that was "played" on the piano notes. My
installation "La memoire de Laetitia", shown in the "LfArt dans le monde" event in Paris fall 2000
was conceived on the same idea, giving the visitor a opportunity for an "augmented listening" with
the juxtaposition of audio text and video.
In "Catarina", I am trying to make the effect stronger by simplifying the process. Both image and
sound have their own rythmn, and they overlay in a controlled manner. But they do more than
simply add to each other : they modify each other.
Also, I tried to keep the contents simple. Both images and words refer to memory for their nature
and the way they flow, but also each discourse is relatively empty, asking to befilled.It creates a
void that invites to create new links betwen these two streams, and finally leaves with the impression
that something has been said, while in reality nothing has been really seen, nothing has been really
named.

Jocelyn Robert
2001