Futurum Febris, Denise Duhamel x Diane Drubay, 2023
Part of "FeralVerse" exhibition, curated by TheVERSEVerse, exhibited on FeralFile

“Futurum Febris,” fruit of the collaboration between the poet Denise Duhamel and visual artist Diane Drubay, takes us on a journey towards a distressing transcendence. The planet becomes a metaphor for the memories and thoughts of the narrator of “Pilgrims,” Duhamel’s poem. Like a path that accompanies the text, going from the naivety of youth to the realization of a conflicting system, the exploration of the two planets invites us to travel towards a feverish future.
The visual piece is composed of an excerpt from Duhamel’s poem “Pilgrims,” encircling the planets like a blue guiding thread. The two rotating 3D objects are covered with photographs of interference colors captured in the sky. One is calming and peaceful, creating a meditative state and a moment of harmony. The second is heated and alarming, causing a sense of fascination and panic at the same time. Drubay uses psycho-active colors and the feeling of total isolation to heighten the senses and embrace new ideas and perspectives.

This work plays with a descriptive narrative that takes the viewer/reader into a scene of changing emotions and states, calling for transformation by creating true impact.

Interaction instructions:
Scroll mouse wheel or pinch to zoom and enter the orb
Middle mouse button or finger drag to pan the view

Experience the artwork here.

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Pilgrims by Denise Duhamel
In June 2012, Mecca had the hottest downpour
in earth’s history–rain at 109 degrees. I had just finished
replacing my last old light bulb with the new expensive twisty kind
which I now learn contains mercury,
that beautiful dollop
that once rolled out from a broken thermometer when I was a child,
its elusive silver shimmer. I had a fever, now the planet has a fever.
I don’t remember how
my mother disposed of the mercury,
but we are supposed to open the windows if we break
one of these new bulbs, wear gloves for the clean up.
The earth’s fever will not break.
Feverish agribusiness
no crop rotation, overgrazing. It is difficult to get a man
to understand something, when his salary depends on
his not understanding it, wrote Upton Sinclair.
Everyone
at the dinner parties I go to agrees–we have to do something.
Sincerity. Irony. It doesn’t really matter which. Thieves
of pennies and dimes…put out of the way
by the swindlers
of millions. Upton Sinclair, again. Pilgrims to the holy city
looked up, surprised by the warm drops, by a breeze coming in
from the Red Sea where ancient turtles slogged through crude.

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Futurum Febris is part of the larger body of work "Futurum Uelut" produced photographs of natural landscapes and interferential colours shot at Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland, 2020.