Space Oddity

“In the first part of a bird’s flight, as it rises, it launches obliquely as high as possible, and if the obliquity of this first path approaches the vertical, that is because it is hastening to get to a suitable height to glide.”


Georges Racle, Direction des Aérostats, Auguste Ghio Éditeur, 1883

When the very first hydrogen balloon in history crashed in Gonesse on August 27, 1783, it caused panic among the inhabitants, who received it with pitchforks and stones; the “diabolical” creature was tied to the tail of a horse, which dragged the shapeless object across the fields. An “Instruction to the people” was quickly published by the Intendant of the Généralité de Paris, specifying that “anyone who discovers such globes in the sky, which have the appearance of the darkened moon, must therefore be warned that far from being a frightening phenomenon, it is only a machine (...), which can cause no harm, and of which it is to be presumed that some day useful applications will be made to the needs of society”; the conquest of air and space was underway. Combining texts and images from various periods and sources, Space Oddity revisits and questions this famous episode in Gonesse’s history.

Space Oddity,
Bartleby & Co., 2017

 



Horse Latitudes


Atrocity Exhibition 

2023


The Return of the Durutti Column

2018


Nuclear Winter


Deux ou trois choses

2018


Space Oddity 

2017


Neuköln “Heroes”

2013


Lips that Would Kiss

2011


Stains 

2011


A1, the Great North Road

2009


A406, North Circular Road 

2008


Normandie

2006


Nostalghia 

2004


Verso 

2002