Two works by Henri Michaux, L’infini Turbulent and Connaissance par les gouffres, are at the origin of this project.
Michaux’s experiments with psychotropic substances raise profound questions about our perception of reality and our ability to be satisfied with it. When Michaux slips into hallucinated worlds, he gives us a sum of alternatives from his experiments that cannot leave us indifferent. For if we are supposedly free in our civilisation, supposedly free to perceive the world, is it not the opposite that is happening?
All housed at the same address in an ultra-digitized life, driven by social networks, serials, video games, we are gradually replacing the experience of reality with a constant profusion of images. In reality, the system in which we live imposes more and more restrictions, monitors, analyses and processes our every actions. In this joyful and generalised consumption of our own images, what is left of the reality?
The hallucination, as Michaux delivers it to us, seems in the end to be much more stimulating than this state of dependence imposed on us by the networks...
« Hallucination is infinitely more real than the sight of ordinary reality. Reality, being formed of contradictory elements and impressions, is doubtful, entertaining, fragmentary. It distracts. It is noticed - (especially as an obstacle). The hallucination, on the other hand, is admirably synergistic, synthetic, «whole», corresponding perfectly, without blunder, without too much or too little, to the inner image, cannot be questioned, cannot be challenged. - ADEQUATE. »
Henri Michaux, l’Infini turbulent
