Presentation text 1998
Home of the Page
The French duo present a performance combining Internet resources and language with music and video, resulting in a spectacular live production
The Home of the Page performance consists, above all, in a live presentation integrating a variety of elements, from the most peculiar to this type of event, i.e., music and dance, all the way to innovations that reach, for the most part, the use of electronic technology, specifically, Internet resources and language. According to the author Jérôme Lefdup, Home of the Page “offers a representation of the Cybernetic World” where “all of its reverberation remits us to a different part of the world in the same way the Web does”.
The performance environment is set in ample surroundings, where all the elements used by the actors are displayed. The characters perform along the central area, as if it were a real stage. All told there are nine musicians and two dancers performing a truly live show. Simultaneously, an electronic installation provides the integration between images, sounds and signs with the performers. Three giant screens, powered by three DVD cameras, make up a single 180-degree image creating the visual background. Additional images, edited live, are exhibited in monitors set about the space, joined by diversified sound effects which merge with the whole. An Internet connection integrates site images and homepages with the performance environment allowing other artists around the world to intervene on-line. According to the author, these artists are called upon to participate in the performance where “music must reflect the diversity of the homepages through which we surf during a Cyber Trip while attempting, at the same time, to make the audience dream and dance”.
There is a plot intertwining these elements: a cybernetic love affair between a man and a woman who search for eachother by E-mail, fighting against the net’s typical technical problems such as missing files, unknown addresses and low connection speeds. Other characteristic icons of the bit-and-byte universe complement a visual message loaded with computer-artistic meanings.
The author of Home of the Page is a renowned European artist with multiple talents, whose music background provided him with the necessary resources to explore the sound universe within his performances and installations. Born in Paris in 1961, Jérôme Lefdup began his professional career as a composer of musical scores for short films, although he had graduated from the École Superieure of Decorative Arts (Video Chapter). Starting in the 80’s the restless artist, fascinated by the world of electronics, did not hesitate to incorporate video elements to his artistic manifestations. It is around this time that he forms the group Les Maîtres du Monde (Masters of the World) with some friends and begins his vast curriculum of performances, video productions and concerts all over Europe.
The performance presented at Videobrasil, with Brazilian and French performers, musicians and dancers, is an exclusive production for the event. Along with Jérôme, his brother Denis also signs as co-author of this work. The two brothers form a duo of creators widely acclaimed for various works and presentations, under the Lefdup & Lefdup label.
ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "XII Videobrasil - Festival Internacional de Arte Eletrônica" [XII Videobrasil - International Electronic Art Festival]: from September 22 to October 11, 1998, pp. 77, São Paulo, SP, 1998.