Harold Vasselin
Research project
Writing and preparation of the film “Shabono”, third part of the “Regards interrogatifs” triptych.
Project summary
Harold Vasselin develops the third part of the “Regards interrogatifs” series at Iméra. Les regards interrogatifs” – A triptych :
-How Albert lives moving mountains
-Operation Epsilon
-Shabono
This set of three films tells the story of three viewpoints, three passages in which a scientific question changes our perception of the world.
How Albert saw mountains move is set in the 19th century. It recounts a polemic on mountain movement – the clarity of vision, and yet Albert Heim’s error.
Comment Albert vit bouger les montagnes, produced by Catherine Jacques (Mandrake films), was presented at the 2008 Locarno Film Festival.
Operation Epsilon is framed around one of the twentieth century’s leading sciences: quantum physics. This science established a new relationship with the world, a relationship that is established through a highly advanced use of mathematical abstraction. It is also – paradoxically at first sight – the field in which the question of the scientist’s responsibility is most intensely and tragically posed.
The question of the use of knowledge – a moral question, a political question – is here centered around the character of Werner Heisenberg.
Operation Epsilonis currently in production.
Shabonois the third part, currently being written. Set at the beginning of the 21st century, the film focuses on climate science. It questions the “model” representation of nature: If Albert Heim thinks with his pencil, if Werner Heisenberg thinks with his brain, today’s scientist thinks by means of a “model”, i.e. a virtual being in which millions of datas and concepts are aggregated, collecting the experiences of tens of thousands of people and the phenomena of hundreds of thousands of places, thus linking thought and the world, man and nature, in a way totally unprecedented in human history. As it happens, this “thinking” is confronted with a responsibility that is also totally new in form and nature, since, faced with climate risk, it commits not man (one man), but humanity.
The main character is a climatologist working on the interconnections between vegetation and the atmosphere. His quest takes him to the Amazon rainforest in search of a particular plant…
The triptych of questioning glances follows in three stories, three fictions based on historical and scientific facts. This passage through history is useful for constructing a story for today: questions about the relationship between man and nature – the relationship of knowledge and the relationship of responsibility – are at the forefront of today’s concerns. These questions also have a historical dimension, inscribed and questionable in the history of representations.
