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Interview with Ludovic Celle "Red Mars" exhibition - 28th june 2013
Hi, we are at Grenoble's central library with Ludovic Celle
who is a freelance graphic artist
currently exhibiting about Red Mars
Ludovic, why did you choose the theme of Mars ?
During the last 3 years, I have been making a series
of images, photomanipulations
based on
the science fiction novel "Red Mars"
by american author Kim Stanley Robinson. A book released in 1992.
And
this is a novel
with lots of rich descriptions.
When I read it in 2007, I really
easily pictured the story in my mind
I easily dived in the landscapes, the situations, the scenes.
And I told myself
As a graphic artist for several years
I feel I just found a rich material to visually explore
And I said let's go,
let's illustrate what I see in this book.
Step by step I entered this world
And...
it led me to achieve some images
more ambitious than I previously thought,
the kind that fit
a possible exhibition project and so, here it is !
My first personal exhibition.
For those who don't know you... In Grenoble you are somehow
an activist
on ecological issues
also on the Occupy movement, debates on economics and politics, etc...
and, the space exploration, precisely, isn't it in opposition
with your other fights, considering it relies on heavy industry...
Today with the state of the Earth, have you been criticized
for going in the sense of such future, or do you see things differently ?
Do you have another vision of the space exploration ?
This is a very good question, that occures to me frequently
because yes indeed
there is a paradox in the sense that
on a side I encourage more and more
ecological consciousness and care for Earth
topics that are primary for me,
issues for which I dedicated a lot of time
and at the same time
I am fascinated by the exploration of space, the technological
and conceptual research
on how we will settle someday
on Mars
and be able to live in space
Yes it is paradoxical.
Actually,
I try not to oppose things,
because I think that, maybe,
with creativity and innovative ways
to conceive technology
different approaches in science and society, maybe we could be able
to have at the same time
a clever, ecological, sustainable society
a high quality kind of global developement,
AND a real full access to space,
to Mars, etc
reaching
all that there is
in space.
I wish we will be able
to reconciliate both ecological balance and the exploration of space.
I think this has to be thought at many levels,
in scientific researches,
but also in a poetical,
philosophical way.
Our state of mind and all that we will bring to Mars,
technologies, culture, anything,
are things that will first exist on Earth.
So, if we want to achieve something great
on Mars, we first have to make it as great on Earth.
This is why I don't see anything wrong
with aiming for space,
because it does questions us here first
on Earth. So,
we have everything to gain in continuing
to improve our relationship with ressources, with the environment
with society,
the links between people, keeping making Earth a better place to live
Ensuring a good future on our planet
for a long time
a real solid sustainable development.
It is these good foundations
we can build on Earth that will assure a good context for Mars,
But if we mess with Earth
we will fail with Mars too
and it will look like some SF stories
freaking ones.
About that, the book that inspired me
these images
talks about these both aspects,
it shows at the same time, a very industrial
and capitalistic
settlement of Mars
with heavy
overwhelming
environmental impacts
with tough questions on what is ecology, and on the other hand,
the book also depicts other approaches
other forms of communities, collective developments
with sustainable solutions
for the challenge of settling Mars.
In this, Red Mars is an excellent debate of thoughts on
what is settling a land, what is "living together"
and so it shows differents approaches, different attitudes
with lots ot politics
and that makes it a very stimulating read
that reminds us there are always several possible ways
and let's choose the best.
Talking about the book, Red Mars,
I saw in the exibition a quote from the novel
that talks about the first settlers, their feeling as the arrive to Mars,
they feel so disconnected from Earth by their trip in deep space
huge distances, slow communications...
All this makes them feel
differents beings
different from the Earthians.
Then, could it be a risk, somehow,
if it makes "2 species" potentially adversaries
with lots of implications behind that perspective...
You put this quote in the exhibition
and I wonder what you think
about it all.
Well, I don't know
I think it is to be meditated.
Well, I said before
that we'll bring to Mars
what and who we are on Earth, our Earthian customs,
attitudes, etc
but at the same time,
maybe
it's not so sure
that what we carry
will define us so much. And definitely, this new planet,
of course, will transform us.
But how fast will we be transformed ?
Straight as we land on it, in the very first days there
or will it be a very long term process
on several generations ?
Hard to say. But yes, in the book, he says
that the deep space trip (about 9 months long) in itself
does affect deeply the first comers,
they realize they have changed
they are new persons
so...
yes maybe
it does question
how this will really start out there
but anyway, in the books
he describes how much "Earth" has been brought
in each of them.
Ludovic, you selected some of your works
to explore in detail with us.
What about this one ?
This is...
the space elevator,
a cable connected
connected to Mars,
here we're on the Martian surface
These strange shapes are domes sheltering a city
built at the top of a martian volcano
and this cable, made of nanotubes,
is tightened and connected at the other side
to and asteroid,
set 37 000 km away
from the surface.
Imagine
an asteroid that's been set onto a precise orbit, following
constantly
the rotation of Mars.
This is a mind-blowing scientific calculation described in the book
that's pretty
crazy.
This cable stay tense, and along it slide
sorts of cars
big ones, carrying
people, materials, all kinds of payloads.
So, the space elevator
is a mean
to circulate
up and down
between deep space and the surface
avoiding the use of rockets.
So, once this cable is set,
which is a massive effort
over-scaled engineering,
once it is set
it is an elevator at the scale of a whole planet
a fast mean
of travel and transport.
Visually speaking
this stuff is one of the very first I wanted to illustrate
when I discovered it in the book. It's unique,
it looks like nothing we know now,
it twists the mind.
And,
it then turned out as a series
of images on this theme.
Now,
what can I say in term of image making...
It is funny to know that here are fly eyes
microscopic details
of fly eyes
used several times
to form this bumped dome under which lies this city
and up there, it is an asteroid photo that I manipulated
and added elements
mostly modules from the International Space Station
This is simple photomanipulation,
a collage of many photos grabbed here and there.
Oh, and here, there is bamboo on Mars ??
Yes. Again, as described in the book,
one of the interior architecture construction materials
for the first Martian bases, is actually bamboo.
Basically, inside their spaceship,
they grow plants
cared during the trip
including young bamboos
and as they land on Mars
they build greenhouses in which they
grow all the needed bamboo
then used for light architectures.
What we see here is the inside of a greenhouse on Mars
producing
construction material bamboo
for shelves, beds,
furnitures of all kinds,
partitions...
All this is told in the early chapters of Red Mars,
and it talked to me a lot, because I do work with bamboo
here in Grenoble,
I do bamboo craft.
For this reason, I really felt caught into the story, especially
the character called Nadia
a Russian,
who can be called the builder of the settlement.
She is fully dedicated
to design and build all that's needed, very efficiently.
I really loved that part of the story,
and as I tried to visualize it,
I saw that greenhouse
a place to grow and cut bamboo,
and also a little "green world", a deep green color presence
so contrasted with the red landscape,
this overwhelming washed red horizon.
I thought
that this bamboo's fresh green
would be a very important psychological support
more than necessary for human beings.
I'd like to say
that the bamboos here
are a photo I took in
the bamboo forest
I do maintain near Grenoble.
And the boy in the foreground
he is the silhouette I redrawn
from and original photo
by Edward Burtynsky.
This photographer takes
photos of the biggest industrial impacts around the world.
He's go this photo of a young man
in Bangladesh, one of the shipbreakers, those people who dismantle huge wrecks
those cargos coming from everywhere in the world
wrecked on a beach
where the locals come to break them. This is their job.
And there's this boy
who holds a miner's pick behind his neck like this
and now this miner's pick is turned into a bamboo !
A silhouettes effect.
So, this young man,
this young worker, probably under-paid
hardly working as a shipbreaker
in Bangladesh,
I thought about him,
and I've virtually put him on Mars where he cares for bamboos,
and builds architecture with Nadia.
It's a transfer.
So, this is a sort ot tribute for him ?
Yes. I wish to those young generations a brighter future, more turned toward
bamboo, be it on Earth or Mars, instead of risking their life
breaking huge steel ships.
Maybe he will see this video and get the message.
Maybe!
Ok, now we are in front of a landscape, and this time
no technology, no human presence,
but this small vehicle...
What can you
tell us about this image ?
We are here in the depths of
the canyon called Valles Marineris
famous for anyone interested
in geography and geology
of Mars
and of the Solar system in general
because
this is the biggest canyon
there is in the Solar system.
If I remember correctly, it is as big as
the entire United States of America,
overlayered, it would take all its space
width
and length
and in term of depth, it goes around 5km and more.
This is what I tried to illustrate.
Giving the scale, this incredible relief
without comparison on Earth.
The idea was to make you feel the depth
on several backgrounds,
because it is very very large
and sometimes you would hardly see the end
it would sometimes be behind the horizon
behind the planet's curve.
But here, putting the viewer in the bottom of the canyon
it's a low angle view
where the backgrounds go vertically.
I tried to give
the sense of the scale
a mind-blowing scale.
I told myself,
try to express the unexpressible.
If we would be in front of this landscape
maybe it would be like
if our eyes are not accustomed to such huge thing in row
and maybe we wouldn't really be able to exactly receive the image.
This is the direction I got on this picture.
Also, I designed this image,
a bit like a classical painting
these unreal paintings
after the Renaissance
those paintings of dark landscapes
strange and dark horizons.
I really dived into
that kind of atmosphere
of unreal but actually real !
I didn't want to make
a futuristic image, but rather
finding an ancient mood,
a timeless vision,
something that always existed.
For that kind of sight, do we already have real photos
took by rovers, actual footage
of these landscapes of Mars
or did you have to visualize them yourself,
how much did you have to use your imagination here ?
Well, the very interesting thing
for anybody working on images of Mars
is that,
for now, we have zero
ground photo of those gigantic reliefs of Mars
yet.
All the ground photos we have for now
only show flat landscapes
All rovers, Opportunity,
Curiosity, and others
only landed on flat regions, with just a few hills
and a few craters
so, basically, all rather boring landscapes,
without any epic geography
on the horizon
no cliffs around.
This is why it is a little hard
to put ourselves in the situation of
OK, I am in a martian canyon, or at the top of a super high cliff
an I see
these dimensions...
In the book, the sense of vertigo is strongly expressed
the sense
of scale
and then I tried to translate this into pictures
like on this one.
For me, the process of making those pictures
then started with a sort of personal immersion
in how immense it is and imagining, what do I see ?
What can't I see ?
As, considering
the atmosphere,
the farther you look, the more the landscape disappears into the atmosphere.
It defines
the grounds.
Here, we have four grounds
A first one here
A second here
This line here.
Another one there.
And finally a last one there. So, 4 grounds with different depth
and different height.
Which on Earth is rather uncommon.
It's unusual to see such scale.
And if you consider this foreground
it would already be very impressive on Earth.
You think it is the horizon
but no, the land keeps stretching behind
That's what Mars is !
This mosaic
is what I call a kaleidoscope
of all the content of the book.
Red Mars, but also Green Mars and Blue Mars
which make this grand trilogy that wrote
Kim Stanley Robinson.
And,
the books have these color names
Red, Green, Blue
because it tells
how in about 300 years
of human impact
and large scale engineering
the planet changes of look, water flows again
on the surface
the atmosphere warms up
changing the planet's red color
to a greener tone
followed by the blue, which makes it look
more and more like Earth.
That's what is called
Terraformating a planet.
With this mosaic,
I tried to express
these 3 stages
Red, Green, Blue.
The background is
a Martian scape.
All those images, around 600
I have collected them all on the web,
all public domain,
most of them are NASA shots
which NASA provides in public domain
which allows us to create from them.
There are also many other photos that
and too from public domain
landscapes
of the Earth
of plants,
techniques,
many things, architecture...
and also several of them are
photos of mine,
photomanipulations
or 3D models I made
Well...
contrary to my other artworks
this one is special
and takes time to be explored.
If you dive insde you will discover many details,
many things.
For example, I have put lots of shots from Greece
Santorini island mostly
where I've been last year.
The thing is that
Santorini is a volcanic island
with villages and towns
build on the edge of the crater's cliffs
and I know that this place has very much inspired
Kim Stanley Robinson for his book.
Several times, he does mentions
the constructive methods in Greece and particularly
Santorini.
As an example of settlement.
So, I really wanted to
make this reference here.
And, of course, I've included
several pictures of bamboo.
shots from my personal work.
It really is a mix between
the technologies of NASA, photos of space
from NASA and others,
some personal pictures,
some that are very local to Grenoble but that turn out with a role
on Mars !
And many wonderful landscapes from Earth
that fit
the vision.
Alright, thank you.
I would like to end
this talk
by saying
that I work
on Linux.
More precisely with Ubuntu,
one of Linux's distributions.
So I don't use neither Windows
nor Mac.
I only work with free open-source softwares.
My photomanipulations and all the photo works here
was done with GIMP.
which is equivalent to Photoshop
allowing to do the same things, working greatly.
The assembling of the pictures here
was made with Andrea Mosaic
a great program, excellent and easy to use.
You give it the pictures
and it assembles them
following a model image.
This one too is open-source.
This counts a lot for me. Before, we talked about
my activisim...
and...
through my image work,
even if I sometimes make capitalism-friendly visions
I still
put to the front
the fact
that I work
with a cooperative and collaborative state of mind
particularly with this choice of free open source softwares
in the cultural
and artistical
production of visuals.
So, it's somehow against the idea
that if you are interested in technology,
you surely are not ecologist, you're pro-nuclear, etc ?
Yes. I think we can
manage to find
connections where they are missing.
I am among those who
approach the space question
in an ecological way.
Even if that seems impossible, I think there really are
possibilities.
Another way to deal with
technologies,
recycling, and all these
high tech issues,
I also know that
in the area of smartphones and all the electronic stuffs
there are people working on solutions to
enable
more and more recyclable materials, coming from more ethical sources,
avoiding the exploitation of the Southern countries, because
the materials, even for hi-tech uses
sometimes do exist
in Northern
countries.
I think we must change our way
to deal with ressources, and this space issue
questions many things.
Well, Ludovic, you know how it works, in the end,
you must introduce a book...
I'm ready! You are ? Oh, cool, I see you check Cause Toujours'
website
Go on.
Which book have you choose ?
It's extremely original... I choosed
the book of Kim Stanley Robinson,
the one of my exhibition... yeah,
I made a choice...
Let me ask you : why this choice ?
Because it's on the same theme !
The Mars Trilogy, it's the title of the whole,
which contains Red Mars, Green Mars
and then Blue Mars.
It's thick, but it's fascinating.
It really is an excellent read.
What I'd like to say about it
is that, even if you are not,
fond of science-fiction
it's very probable that you will love this novel because
it's all about humans
making society, living together,
working from
an environment, ressources... It asks fundamental
questions related to nowadays
on Earth
It has much to say.
and Robinson is famous
as an author
who dig deep into everything
be it psychology,
how the characters feel on Mars,
the nostalgia of Earth
He really cares for the work of every single character
all the team, the geologists, biologists
the different points of view,
those who want anarchy, an utopy that fits their needs
and cut from the authorities of Earth,
free from the institutions
and powers of Earth that weight as far as Mars
so,
there are
various political ways, different economical models,
described in the book and that are fascinating.
The meeting of different visions.
So this is a book that, I think, will talk to much more people
than just SF fans.
Sincerely, without exagerating, this book as much contributed
to awake me to
politics
the complexity of politics, environmental complexity
and
it helped me a lot
to understand better the actual complexity today on Earth
And as it is told
in an exotic set,
in a new context,
it allows us to get in touch with these complex issues
in an exciting way.
It is precious.
It gave me keys to understand things of today,
what kind of world we're heading for.
So... yes,
it is a rather
powerful read.
OK. Can you give us back
the dates of the exbition ?
The exhibition started June 20th
And will last until September 7th.
With closure during July
all of July.
But early august,
the library reopens
until September 7th,
you can see the exhibition.
I am considering maybe adding
a few elements,
to complete
the understanding of the process
so... it will be worth
coming back even if you've already saw it.
That's all.
Let me thank you Ludovic for accepting
this interview for Cause Toujours.
And,
do you want to add a last word ?
Well, thank you Cause Toujours
for this very nice interview.
It's a pleasure to go in the details, thanks for your interest.
And, I'd like to
say that
the experience
of this first exhibition
shows me
the public interest for the images, the photomanipulations,
and so, I think
I am going to plan
another exhibiton on
more concrete things
something that will talk to people even more
It would be an exhibition
for the project "Greenoble"
I lead wth a friend,
where we explore
another way
to imagine Grenoble, more ecological, more engaged by the citizens
more social, more human,
I have started a work on images,
which is still in an early stage
but it will also be, like Mars, a series
of images
that will take us
to another reality,
a very probable one, if we want to make it
So it will very likely be ready
in about 6 months.
So, stay tuned !
I'm going to work on this.
Ok,
we will surely come back to you then.