The Visitor: Living by Numbers

The Visitor, living by numbers, Panoscope 360 -- 1st Edition
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The Visitor, Living by Numbers, Panoscope 360 -2nd Edition
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Inspired by Pier-Paolo Passolini's 1969 film Theorema and by a dream Courchesne's daughter had when she was 10 years old. In the installation, visitors are planted somewhere in the Japanese countryside. From there they will try to make a life for themselves by saying any number between one and twelve. Exploring the territory, happening upon and entering a shelter, meeting and dealing with the inhabitants and gaining status within the group will define a visitor's experience. Leaving the place and the inhabitants to themselves (as in Passolini's film) or being forced to escape after an earthquake (as in his daughter's dream) will further characterize the visitor's experience.

To interact with this work visitors enter the dome and adjust the height until they feel visually comfortable. When the action stops, visitors may speak any number between one and twelve to indicate the direction they want to go or to show interest in people and what they have to say.

The experience starts in daytime, in the middle of rice fields just north of Ogaki-City in central Japan (Gifu Prefecture). In the inner garden of a low building, visitors will happen upon a woman preparing tea. This first encounter may lead to an invitation to diner where a mixed group of people (6) prepare and share a Japanese style stew (nabet). The diner is endless but conversations with dining partners may bring a visitor to spare moments in the intimacy of one's room where he or she is offered the host's mind and thoughts on different topics growing increasingly personal. In the process, a visitor builds a position in the group that either will have him invited to take more place among the group, or gradually ignored and abandoned.

Meanwhile, night has come and the risk of an unforgiving event in this earthquake prone area is more tangible. If such a thing was to happen, destroying the shelter and forcing everyone out, visitors would, depending on their status, be left behind or invited to join in the chaotic and confuse quest for a new place where every aspect of this group's life will resume in the same way as if nothing had happened.

(Luc Couchesne)