Electronic Shadow: Naziha Mestaoui & Yacine Aït Kaci

H2O

Abstract:
H2O is an immersive installation, interactive and narrative. The set deploys around a large pool filled with water and metamorphoses continuously according to the feminine silhouette’s gestures living a daily cycle. On the ground, a carpet allows the visitors to enter the scene; its presence launches the apparition of a second silhouette, a man. The presence of the man doesn’t seem to perturb the woman’s cycle but the two silhouettes live like a couple in two superimposed loneliness.

Biography:
The history of the French group Electronic Shadow began in 2000. The architect Naziha Mestaoui and the multimedia director Yacine Aït Kaci gathered their talents to express a world without bounders between the different practices (art, architecture, design, live shows.). Together they developed a new field, inventing in 2003 the interactive 3D video mapping, and exploring the contemporary links between material world and immaterial, creating a new hybrid reality. Connecting sciences, art and philosophy, Electronic Shadow conceives a personal poetic language, using the last technologies to design emotions and experiences for the audience. Their work were rewarded by many prices such as Japan Media Art Festival Price in 2004 for «3minutes² », and their installations are shown all over the world (MOMA in New York, the Grand Palais, Palais de Tokyo or Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Tokyo, Biacs – Biennale of Contemporary art of Sevilla, SESI in Sao Paulo, MOCA in Shanghai..). For some specific projects, they collaborate with architects such as Jakob+MacFarlane for the Frac Center Orléans in 2012 or with the choreographer Carolyn Carlson for « Double Vision » (2006). They just had a personal exhibition in Musée Granet of Aix-en-Provence visited by 35 000 people.