Soleil Noir

Between innocence and thoughtlessness, humanity egocentrically unleashes the forces of nature without being sure that it will survive the resulting adverse effects. To power the servers that host our data and to preserve the (sometimes futile) testimonies of our lives on earth, we draw on an energy source verging on the cosmic proportions of a supernova.

The installation by Barthélemy Antoine-Loeff acts as an aesthetic and philosophical paradox. The onlooker is faced with an inconceivable event, reduced to the size of a black dot radiating an incandescent red light. Soleil Noir is an artistic interpretation of a tremendously powerful physical manifestation: the creation of a “mini supernova” just about to explode and the evocation of a series of solar explosions.

Soleil Noir expresses all the power of art, which can make us understand the incomprehensible in an instant. It’s also a comment on our modern time, human vanity and the fragility of living beings faced with the uncontrollable forces of physics.