4 video tapes & monitors plus stereo sound-track, 7 mins.
During a 15-year collaboration with Michel Jaffrennou, we ended up creating live art works, mixed media works, site-specific works, video and video-theatre works as well as installations. This one was originally created for an exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Le plein in French is what one says when they want to fill up their car with petrol. Le plein d’plumes refers to what happens across the three video monitors. A person in the top monitor starts dropping white feathers that somehow drop down the three monitors seamlessly (well almost so in 1981 as synchronisation could be a problem) until, slowly but surely, the three monitors are filled with feathers.
Musically it seemed evident that a Bolero for our feathered friends was what was needed. The trick was to find field recordings of birds and simply see what could be constructed over seven minutes.
It is said that the guards near the installation which was at the Museum (and many other venues) for weeks went mad listening to the loop of one bird to hundreds every seven minutes. I suppose, it was intended to be seen once or twice at a time.
Patrick Bousquet, who collaborated with Jaffrennou, is the bearer of the feathers.
