Real Remnants of Fictive Wars V

This series of five films, produced in 2004 by Cyprien Gaillard, depicts picturesque landscapes brought to life by bursts of smoke. The clouds created by the artist come from powder fire extinguishers, the discharge of which disrupts the image. The artist refers to this act as ‘vandalism’, noting that its traces in nature are harmful and serve no purpose. Each episode takes place in a different landscape.

The second instalment is set at the exit of a railway tunnel. From this site, which evokes 19th-century painting, a white atmospheric mass escapes before filling the entire screen. Introduced via a cross-fade, the second part of the film captures the same explosion, but in a wider shot, from a low-angle perspective. Played in reverse, the film then seems to depict an Impressionist landscape of gorges before the smoke dissipates back into the tunnel.

The fifth instalment is a back-and-forth tracking shot from a balcony with an 18th-century balustrade towards an English-style garden. The explosion is triggered in a tree in the foreground. As the camera moves, the tree is gradually engulfed in white before appearing as though burnt.

In both cases, the use of film stock to create these works is a reference to the films of Robert Smithson, who had established a relationship of equivalence in cinema with his interventions in nature. But it is also explained by the desire to use a technology that