2024-07-05 03:51:44
In this interview, Vincent Moon, known for his quest for ritual trances around the world, discusses the unique experience he had in Fez, a place he describes as a “source of profound inspiration.”
1- In your quest to capture the magic of the “optical rite”, what fascinates you most about these trance states induced by music during sacred rituals?
– So many experiences have marked my journey that it is difficult for me to establish a comparison. I have certainly experienced great moments of ceremonial trance throughout the world, magnificent states of modified consciousness induced by music. But nowhere else have I witnessed a manifestation as direct and powerful as the one I was the amazed spectator of here, in Fez.
A few years ago, I recorded a healing ceremony with the Hmadchas, a ritual of immense beauty that left a deep impression on me. I really touched on this inseparable link between ceremony, healing, care and communion.
An experience so memorable that I ardently wanted to return and I am delighted to be back for the 27th edition of the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music.
2 – Could you enlighten us on your live creation process during your “Live Cinema” performances? How do you select and assemble the images and music for each unique show?
– I have made over a thousand films around the world, thus building up a vast digital library at my disposal. But above all I love improvisation.
As the present moment unfolds, I let myself be inspired by the presence of a spectator, the whisper of the wind or the song of a bird. I then begin to draw on my film archives, juxtaposing for example the gestures of a bell ringer at the top of a mountain church with the hustle and bustle of a street in Fez where fresh water is being distributed. Everything is improvised on the spot, in a spontaneous flow lasting about an hour to an hour and a half. I am the pilot in a way, but I do not know where we are going to land. What is certain is that we are landing, carried by this wave of instinctive creation.
3- Technology plays a major role in your work, particularly through real-time editing software. How do you perceive technological developments in the arts of cinema and music, and how does it influence your artistic approach?
– I would say that we are overwhelmed by technology today. So the question is whether we want to continue this race forward that inevitably overtakes us.
Artificial intelligence, to name just one, will allow us to make unimaginable films tomorrow. What interests me is to return to ancestral technologies. That is to say, to find a technology of living together. That is what really fascinates me. I will not deny my modern tools – computer, camera, microphones. But I think that I can already achieve so many things with them, that it is interesting to ask ourselves how these technologies can bring us closer together again, bring us together as a community, create moments of sharing instead of isolating us behind our screens.
2024-07-05 03:51:44