2021-2023

This image is from the launching of a life raft built during an artists residency at Thalassanté in the Estaque, with Mohamed Mokeddem. We
imagined a catastrophic rising of the sea level over the course
of the next 30 years, and created a DIY protocol in order to be able to construct a new home out of the remains of those which would float on the surface of the water. We spent a lot of time compiling lists of common materials used in our urban environment and looked at how buoyant they were, how waterproof, insulating, etc.

The principles put into place with the DIY Protocol are voluntarily very simple, using the most rudimentary hand tools and keeping in mind a sense of urgency. The walls, floating platforms, roofs and different facilities needed in order to be constructed quickly.

As part of Flotsam, we created a virtual reality (VR) immersive vision of this potential future in which we would all be living in our new floating homes built from flotsam and jetsam. 

The player is placed in the heart of a post ecological catastrophy. Waves break over the summet of the occasional building which is tall enough to not be completely submerged under the surface of the water. On the horizon and surrounding the sea around the raft in which the player spawns, there’s a litter of tires, barrels, bits of wood and other materials from the urban environment, which is now subaquatic. When exploring the raft the passager will discover different spaces defined by barrels, jerrycans & plastic bottles nested together, with corrugated sheet metal roofs and wooden transport pallets under foot. They can climb onto the roof in order to get a complete view of the materials and methods used to build the space, or simply in order to look at this drastically transformed landscape.

VR is a tool, used in this case to put the player in the context of an exagerated global emergency, and inviting them through exploration to question current ecological problems: polar ice melting, the collapsing of ecosystems, and as a result forced climatic migration.