Description
Power Book presents an interactive work made using a now-obsolete program called Adobe Flash. The user interacts with the work using a mouse. A laptop computer is installed in an unfinished wooded case. An opening is cut for the screen of the laptop and a flat shelf provides a surface for the computer mouse.
Two interactive animations are available. In one, entitled Turn Over A New Leaf/Tourner la page, a tree in the form of the letter “T” appears on the screen with a cloud of letters around its top. As the viewer moves the cursor across the screen the letters activate voices saying different idiomatic expressions in French and English related to trees, for example: On est pas sorti du bois; You can’t see the forest for the trees; Tire toi une buche.
In the other interactive animation, L’Orme, users are given a white screen. As they move the cursor it activates a grid of images that show fragments of the artist’s weaving The Elm Tree. The cursor movement “lights up” momentarily the square they pass over. The voice of the artist can be heard telling a story she wrote for the piece in French. She went for a bike ride looking to find an elm tree. When she found an impressive one, she stopped to admire it. An old guy came by and said “C’est un orme, il n’y a rien là! (That’s an elm, there’s nothing there!).
Statement
Power Book is related to a series of artist books in the exhibition Toucher du bois Touch Wood. In this case the “book” presents two interactive digital animations. Turn Over A New Leaf/Tourner la page is a playful look at expressions about trees in both French and English. Both languages are filled with vestiges of the tree’s connection to books. L’Orme is a fable about how the significance of something can be so different between people.