Julie Stephen Chheng

Interview by Fanny Bauguil (guest lecturer at VIDEOFORMES)

• How would you describe this installation? What do we see? What do we hear? What do we do?

Fortune Teller is an augmented reality fresco that invites us to encounter the character of water. The viewer downloads a free app called Fortune Teller AR and animates the eyes in the illustration. A filter and animations invite you to see through the eyes of water. Texts help you understand its vision of the world and grasp the philosophy of water through certain concepts related to the symbolism of water.

• What is it about?

It’s about water as a character. Overall, the texts are inspired by various writings from around the world, including Gaston Bachelard’s Water and Dreams.

• Is this the first time this installation has been presented to the public? Can you tell us a little about the process of developing the work to achieve this result?

Yes, it’s the first time. For this project with the Route des Villes d’Eaux, I worked in Montrond-les-Bains, mainly at the Les Passerelles media library, but also in other locations around the town. It’s a pleasant area, ideal for walks, with a beautiful heritage, including a magnificent open-air castle that dominates the landscape.

I was able to stay there for a week with my partner and facilitator Thomas Pons to create the first drawings and animations. Living on site allows you to feel the vibe of the place. It’s also about encounters: talking to the locals, letting yourself be influenced, allowing the area and its people to permeate the project.

I didn’t know anything about spa towns before this project. However, I did have some knowledge of water therapies, particularly in India and China. I find the idea of the Route des Villes d’Eaux very poetic, both for what it symbolises – water as a therapeutic element, capable of healing – and for its connecting dimension: water connects people to each other, but also, on another scale, cities, regions and even Europe.

In my work, I have always been sensitive to water: I have often depicted marine environments, rivers, lakes, tides… images that are highly symbolic. I have just returned from New Zealand, where water occupies a very special place and where people relate to it in many ways.
Living in Paris would almost allow me to introduce myself by saying that I live “south of the river” and that I was born “near the sea”.

Little by little, after several months.

Water Eyes has become a fresco composed of modules, which can be expanded using an app. It tells the story of the Water character. With this app, you can literally see through her eyes: access her perception of the world. In this proposal, only the eyes are animated, an idea that I really liked because it offers a very powerful narrative entry point.

Finally, building everything around the eyes allows for several levels of use:

a combinatorial fresco, which can be different each time
a game with the location, in this case Les Passerelles, to integrate eyes into the furniture and thus embody the character of Water on real-life elements.
and participatory workshops, where everyone can create their own version of the character of Water and thus take their guardian home with them.

I wanted to work simultaneously on the narrative, animation, music and image using the app to create an enveloping, mysterious and poetic universe. I collaborated with Julien Hognon and Étienne de Volumique, as well as Apollo Noir and Thomas P., so that everyone could contribute their own sensibility. The filters, an idea proposed by Julien de Volumique, particularly steered the project towards this notion of the gaze of water, of multiple and changing perceptions.

Visually, I wanted to evoke these visible and invisible waterways. Using felt-tip pen, I seek to show that water is not only spatial: it also connects people and creates a common bond. The graphic lines are inspired by waterways, and the different characters we encounter, although numerous, are in fact one and the same being, as they share the same eye.

This single eye travels between living beings and can be found in all the water sources around us. It embodies continuity, circulation, and the invisible bonds that exist between us.

Which artists (in all fields) or, more generally, which art forms inspire your creative process, and what references, if any, do you allude to in this installation?

I am very interested in fashion and design: Issey Miyake, Bruno Munari, and Enzo Mari are designers who work with devices and mechanics.

In this installation, more specifically, it’s about learning more about the world of water, how it perceives others, its relationships, while at the same time discovering something about oneself. Two of his friends also appear: the Eye of Thunder and the Eye of the Sky, secondary characters who enrich his universe.

I also wanted to share various thoughts and concepts related to water that I find particularly interesting and revealing of a true philosophy of water, including:

Wu Wei (non-action, Taoism)
Mizu no Kokoro (水の心), ‘the spirit of water’ (Japan)
Panta Rhei (Greek: ‘everything flows’)
Water and Dreams by Gaston Bachelard

And I have included several expressions from around the world that convey universal wisdom about water:

‘Flowing water does not grow mouldy.’ (Greek)

‘Water is thin but heavy.’ (India)

‘Water is the oldest remedy.’ (Finnish)

‘Do not bathe in water you do not know.’ (Senegal)

‘Water flows and finds its way.’ (China)

‘When water arrives, the channel forms.’ (China)

‘Still waters run deep.’ (Germany)

‘Like water off a duck’s back.’ (France)

‘The Spirit is like water.’ (Japan)

‘Like a fish in water.’ (France)

Throughout the experience, the character of Water speaks to us. If we take the time to open ourselves up to him, we can access his advice, which can guide us in our daily lives.

More broadly, it is a way of evoking the multiplicity of perspectives: showing that our vision can be enriched when we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and accept that everyone perceives the world differently. This applies equally to an animal whose vision differs from ours, to a personified image – such as water in this case – and to people from other places, other cultures, other social backgrounds or living with a disability.

It is an invitation to embrace differences and different points of view. That is the message I want to convey.

• What were the difficulties, constraints and challenges you faced in developing it?

The main challenge is to use augmented reality as a narrative medium and not just a gimmick, which requires working on the intertwining of usage, illustration and animation.

• Can you give us one or more web addresses where we can see your work?

Instagram: @julie_stephen_chheng

• What keywords would best describe your installation?

Interactive, device, narrative, combinatorial narration, illustration

• Can you tell us a little about your artistic background? When did you first become interested in digital art? Are you able to make a living from your creative work?

I graduated from the Arts Décoratifs in Paris with a degree in Printed Image, where I learned how to create books, from storytelling and illustration to graphic design, printing and binding. I quickly became interested in Oulipo and system books as a way of exploring different mechanisms for creating stories. Surrounded by people working in cinema, I set out to combine book-making techniques with digital tools to create worlds where the viewer’s choices and movements play a role and enrich the story.

I have been living off my personal projects for the past 6-7 years.