Conjoined Cell(s)

« Words […] are little houses, with a cellar and attic. Common sense resides on the ground floor, always ready for "outside trade", on the level with another, with this passer-by who is never a dreamer. Climbing the stairs in the house of the word is, step by step, to abstract. To descend in the cellar is to dream, to lose oneself in the distant corridors of an uncertain etymology. »¹ June 2024, La Borne² has landed in Puiseaux. They say the capsule has been traveling for more than 10 years, all over the region’s surroundings. This year, it will be the second time it has set foot in this small town. Inhabitants : approximately 3000, all around : crops, fields… It always comes from the sky as they say, this time the drop down occurred in broad day-night. When the sky opens up, the rays of sun hit the bodywork and you can spot it from a mile away. Its body appears to have been made of zinc, similar to the roofs of the Haussmannian buildings; only there it covers the entire external part, roof and walls, as if the space had built a shell from digested metal. Inside, a spinning staircase stitches together the roof and the ground floor. This spinal cord seems to support the cellular architecture. Although the space doesn’t fail to open up to the world, the opening exits through the existence of bow-windows without slipping away from its reflective properties. Every aspect of the space seems to echo itself, as if an invisible bend had turn reality two ways, a two-fold cell. In its womb, a duplex, a siamese rocking chair, a two-directional stairwell… Even if everything seems to have duplicates, it doesn’t mean that you have to consider this microcosm under a binary logic, because when two meet and melt, the added elements often unfold as a third one. The pleat, the axis, the inside of the split, is in itself existence. It is also of interest to remind us that mirrors don’t reflect reality without distortion. The 12 canines of the clock seem to indicate that the day is divided into 24 hounds, as if the year was composed of 365 dogs. This twisted world, reminisces the concept of the mental space. A materialization of the cognitive model, brought to life by space builders such as words, expressions, adverbs, adjectives… Considering this space as a mental one, split-personality could easily come to mind. A place of polysemism, in which ambiguous meaning and torn-up timeline are strong matches. 1. « Les mots […] sont de petites maisons, avec cave et grenier. Le sens commun séjourne au rez-de chaussée, toujours prêt au « commerce extérieur », de plain-pied avec autrui, ce passant qui n'est jamais un rêveur. Monter l'escalier dans la maison du mot c'est, de degré en degré, abstraire. Descendre à la cave, c'est rêver, c'est se perdre dans les lointains couloirs d'une étymologie incertaine ». Translated from La Poétique de l'espace, Gaston Bachelard, éd. PUF, 1961, p. 139 2. La Borne is an itinerant exhibition unit developed by Le pays où le ciel est toujours bleu (Poctb, Orléans) to multiply the points of encounter with a broad audience in public space. The project is supported by the DRAC (Regional Office of Cultural Affairs) and the Regional Council of the Centre Region.