Catherine Rannou

France

Colonisation 2041

( Colonisation 2041 ) Création @rt Outsiders 2009

Mixed media installation

Balises numériques 32Ko

( Digital Beacons 32Ko ) Création @rt Outsiders 2009

online work

Colonisation 2041 is an installation reflecting the active and actual occupation that the development of scientific stations in Antarctica represents; energy dependence, waste management, roads and tunnels, planes, tractors, helicopters, and building materials all point to a form of "urbanisation" that is clearly in progress.
Digital Beacons 32Ko is the trace and echo of Catherine Rannou's journey in Antarctica between October 2008 and February 2009. Texts, images and sounds were sent by email to five addressees in France, like "beacons" along the path. They were collected and put online on a web site as they came in.
32Ko is the size limit of emails from and to the French antarctic bases.
Catherine Rannou writes : Antarctic scientific bases if they are first and foremost working places, are also, due to their isolation and forced confinement, living places. The project is a transversal gaze, a kind of vision in a 3D cut of the « Antarctic system ».

Biography

Catherine Rannou is a video artist and an architect, she teaches at the “l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Bretagne” (ENSAB) (Higher National School of Architecture of Britany) in France. She is conducting a research in collaboration with the French Polar Institute (IPEV), a glaciology scientific laboratory (LGGE), the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) and a technical research office (T.E.S.S) in the Antarctic continent, that she started in 2006, during her artistic residency “art at the poles”, at the French Polar Base Dumont d’Urville.