SMITH

Saturnium by SMITH & Hoang:

Fascinated by the work of Marie Curie, the duo decided to make radioactivity their dream machine for forms. They composed a tale based on the imaginary discovery by Marie Curie of a new radioactive chemical element they named “saturnium,” in reference to the god of time and the melancholic figure. A substance capable of modifying space-time, which the famous scientist chose never to reveal…

The artistic proposition of the duo imagines the encounter between our world and that of saturnium. The sum of the poetry, power, revolution, threat, and force contained in this phenomenon, during which unstable atomic nuclei spontaneously disintegrate, emitting radiation capable of transmuting matter, was seen by the winners as the ideal approach to the theme proposed for this competition.

Their tale allows for thinking, working, and exploring, in images and music, the possibility of catastrophe, nuclear apocalypse, change of era, the advent of an end of history as structuring meaning, the poetic, dreamlike thought of the form of the beginnings of a new world it is possible to dream of.

“We wish to create a work capable of crossing, of transforming the spectator through dreamed mutations of matter, time, space, images, and sounds. By tacitly questioning the legacy of disasters such as Chernobyl or Fukushima in contemporary philosophy and creation, our Anthropocene and our relationship to our present, our past, and our future, we hope, through this Saturnium made of dreams of new forms, to spark amazement, if not wonder, an awakening in our spectators, so that this project makes sense and meaning in the face of what surpasses us,” comment the winners.:

Thus, a new possible world is being born under our feet, and the project invites the spectator to come into contact with it.