Lalie Sorbet invited me to visit her latest collaborative piece – working with Chrix (chrixbed) – entitled Bloom: Flowers of Evil, and which is currently open to visitors at the Second Life Endowment for the Arts. A dynamic installation built around what I understand to be a scripted particle system of their own design (and called, appropriately, Bloom), mixed with 2-dimensional elements also under scripted management.
The result is a hard-to-define but infinitely beautiful series of collages-in-motion, centred on a 3D element of standing stones and a “starfish” which looks to be an elegant star-like piece of lava. Close by is an upright piano atop which a female form reclines and with an arc of benches with singles and couples poses ranged before it, allowing people to sit and appreciate the particle display.
The artists state that the installation is inspired by the works of French art critic, poet and essayist, Charles Baudelaire – the title being the English translation of what is regarded as his most famous volume of work, Fleur du Mal, first published in 1857. The original volume, with its focus on decadence, eroticism, sexuality, original sin and death, caused a considerable stir when it first appeared, with six of its poems leading to Baudelaire and his publisher being prosecuted for “creating an offense against public morals”, resulting in both being fined and the six “offending” poems being suppressed for several years, only appearing in volumes of their own published outside of France (as with Épaves – The Wrecks – published in 1866 in Belgium).
However, both despite and because of the outrage it caused, Fleur de Mal not only remained in publication – less “offensive” works by Baudelaire were substituted in place of those which caused some to try and suppress the volume entirely – it became synonymous with all his works, with the title being used for successive collections which both incorporated the original poems and other works, including an edition printed in 1868 following the poet’s death at just 48 and which includes 14 of his previously unpublished poems.
It is in this wider guise, and as a source of inspiration / reflection that Lalie and Chrix appear to utilise the title, rather than offering a more direct visual interpretation of poems from the volume (although there are what appear to be small nods towards some of the themes, here and there, for those familiar with the various sections of the volume). Baudelaire is regarded as a master of rhyme and rhythm within his prose-poetry – demonstrated by the fact that his style and work not only influenced poets down the years, but also artists and musicians, with some of the latter utilising Flowers of Evil or Fleur du Mal – and it is this aspect of his work which appears to be celebrated most directly through the ebb and flow of the piece, where particle patterns and images might be seen as poems and the stanzas therein, caught in a delicate dance of imagery.
Within Bloom: Flowers of Evil, the artists capture the essence of Baudelaire’s rhythm through the particles and images offered, whilst also reflecting the romanticism which also lay at the heart of his work. It also (possibly in part coincidentally) offers echoes of other ways in which Baudelaire’s influence has been felt; within the audio stream accompanying the installation is Sahalé’s Fleur du Mal, a piece with takes the iconic title and mixes it with the rhyme-like rhythm of Eastern and African music, whilst the presence of the piano put me in mind of Susanna Wallumrød’s Baudelaire and Piano (2019), which set several of Baudelaire’s works to music.
Whether or not you are a follower of Baudelaire or feel compelled to seek out his works (I admit to finding some of his work “florid” (for want of a better term), although Tableaux Parisians is a captivating read, presenting both a contemporary walk through Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s renovation of Paris at the behest of Napoleon III and a critical response to its modernity, thus combining Baudelaire’s gift as a poet with his work as a critic), Bloom: Flowers of Evil stands in its own right as a visually engaging installation; just be sure to try sitting and viewing it in Mouselook, rather than purely through a 3rd-person view!
SLurl Details
- Bloom: Flowers of Evil (SLEA6, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 