I've been working on translations for the exhibition Batbox by Erik Samakh which opened at the Chateau de Trévarez on Saturday. First I did the information panels for the exhibition, and now there's a long discussion between the artist and an art historian to complete for the catalogue.
It's been an interesting job, and seeing the whole thing in situ at the weekend was even more so. The Batbox installation is basically a blackout of the huge stables room, with a mulched floor and the sounds of bats, transferred from the chateau itself which is inhabited by a protected colony of Greater horseshoe bats.
What was even more striking than the echoing bat calls and wing-strokes was the reaction of human beings - not to the bats, but to each other in conditions of almost total darkness. It revealed our virtually complete spatial ignorance and a deep rooted fear of moving without seeing. People were bumping into each other, putting out tentative hands to feel rather than sense a clear way ahead, far more aware of other bodily presence to be avoided than the absent presence of the bats themselves.
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