Direction: Gwenola Wagon

Concept : Pierre Cassou-Noguès et Gwenola Wagon

Text: Pierre Cassou-Noguès

Video, 17 min, colour, stereo, sound

2023

In a dystopian future, humans have had to block out the sun in order to survive on Earth. Drought is extreme and the planet is gradually turning into a scorching desert where the survivors, installed in the basements of the great observatories, live in perpetual darkness. To compensate for the image of a sun they can no longer see, they instruct an artificial intelligence program to reconstruct it. The AI is supervised by a young woman whose mental images are particularly vivid.

Drawing on the photo-novel structure of Chris Marker's film La Jetée (1962), Chronicles of the Dark Sun work on a science fiction narrative in which, as in Marker's film, an algorithm is tasked with reconstructing the past using an image from the protagonist's childhood. By recycling photographs from personal albums, advertising images and scientific snapshots, all of which are reprocessed by an AI, the film examines our relationship with technology in a disturbing and ironic way. This work is an uncanny fable that makes us think about the deformation of reality in AI as well as the unsustainability of our way of inhabiting the planet.

Production with the support of Hangar Y, in partnership with l’Observatoire de Paris-PSL, for " Prendre le Soleil" exhibition (December 2023 - April 2024) Curators : Aurélie Baron, Luce Lebart et Marta Ponsa

Diffusion

exposition « Prendre le soleil », décembre 2023-avril 2024,  Hangar Y (Meudon) ; Exposition Dialogues avec l’IA, Galerie Analix Forever, Genève,  mai-juin 2024 ; Exposition Genossin Sonne Comrade Sun, Kunsthalle Wien and Wiener Festwochen, Freie Republik Wien, Vienne, 16 mai- 1er septembre 2024 ; Exposition Paysages Ultimes – 2024, IMAGES/VENTENAC, Ventenac, 2024 ; Projection 29th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, 27 octobre, 1 novembre 2024 ; Projection Speculative Archives – AI films, Harvard University, US, Carpenter Center, Curator Antonio Somaini, Boston, 30 octobre 2024 ; Projection, Tous les détails du monde, Colloque international La Fabrique du détail, La Fémis, Paris, 8 novembre 2024 ; Projection, Rencontres internationales Paris / Berlin, Séance d'ouverture, Auditorium Forum des images, Paris, 18 novembre 2024 et Cinéma Pathé Les Fauvettes, Paris, 23 novembre 2024 ; Chiayi International Art Documentary Festival Chiayi City 14 mars - 30 mars 2025 ; Exposition Solar biennale #2, Mudac, Musée cantonal de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains Lausanne, 21 mars - 21 septembre 2025 ; Exposition Fixing Futures, Transformation and future, Museum Giersch of the Goethe University (MGGU), Frankfurt, 5 avril 2025 - 31 aout 2025