Etienne Chambaud INCOMPLT, 2016

INCOMPLT is a documentary of a precisely constructed situation that combined a natural spectacle with an intervention by the artist. Filmed in a mountain forest in the Mexican state Michoacán, the film depicts scenes from the annual migration of millions of monarch butterflies. Yet, in this pastoral-looking landscape a giant ice sculpture exists incongruously. Individual butterflies land on the ice yet their response is equally difficult to read without projecting our own expectations. The soundtrack also combines references to such a pairing of “natural” and digital representation: a mix of signs and noises, meaning and information.