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EDITO 2009

One day aliens decided to multiply on earth. Sumatrans tell this saga on their clay tablets. They are the only ones who have done so. In fact, aliens landed between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Right away, we can see in the aforementioned a tendency towards pleasantry. They designate a planet of the solar system as their star of origin. A big gassy one which smokes a bit of sulphur and ammonia by swirling its cloud masses. The aliens are afraid of nothing and resist everything.
Only beasts in the universe that no law of physics can restrain, they are also beings of taste, sensitive to oxygenated atmospheres rather than hydrogenated. They love green, pastoral and restful expanses. Their size is that of giants. The Sumatrans teach us about this subject as well. A bas-relief representing one of these visitors sitting in profile on a throne, to which two men standing before him, show homage. Considering the average size of a Sumatran as round about 1m70, the alien, once standing would measure 3 meters. There we have the first definition of giants and it's wrong. He is far too small.
A closer look, they're all too small. There isn't one to adore the other, not one to lay out his formidable power. Their bodies are stylised the same. To this resemblance is added an evident will, in the scenic composition, to not diminish the stature of the three characters, which would have been the case with a realistic representation : he who sits would have been smaller than those standing. The position badly accommodates the symbolic power of the throne. Subterfuge of proportional relations, they appear to us aligned. A sovereign receiving ambassadors? The figure of a sun surrounded by eleven stars and planets precise the date.
Which leaves the aliens who correspond so much to us. They mewl with the cats, on the roofs, towards those far stars. We invent gods and devils that are within our reach and images within our measure. Images Contre Nature, international festival of experimental video, proposes some of these forms that resemble us through its programmes and it's events of which :
"Engrammes" photographic exposition by Valérie Sarrouy
"Installation composite n°1 / cinq portraits" installation by Alain Joule
"Caminos Cruzados" concert by Sandra Rivas, Alain Joule and Dan Roth
"Here We Are !" carte blanche to Cologne Online Film Festival,
"111 fois marseille géographie intime" film by Jean-Paul Noguès
and "Soleil Caraïbes" audio chronicles of the festival
H.B.