Théo Gerbert / Funerals 2.0

This is a video of an ecomystical performance, through a ritual of consolation for the dying forest. It’s like an insect’s infestation in the electronic networks, as if Nature found a new place to grow after being burnt :

In the video, flowers have withered and we are attending the forest mourning. This city was a forest before, but Nature has been devoured and replaced by computers. The forest died and we are attending her funerals. Funerals and rebirth scream, through a ritual run by forest spirits like insectoids and chimeric creatures : The guardian, a mother receiving the woodland souls and staying at their bedside sepulture ; the gravedigger, cultivating the venom flowing from the forest as she passes away ; the priestess, leading the procession with her flames and her dance. I gave life to those creatures by crafting driftwood masks.

The ritual with its funereal dance is like a rage scream full of softness and consolation. 

Between forest memories and dreams. Nature is coming alive again, in the electronic networks, she reappears in this video, to yell and blossom, led by the spirit’s funeral oration. 

I grew up playing with my fathers' collection of art tools. And after two years studying art and design in the city of Nîmes, I joined the École de Recherche en Graphisme (ERG) in Bruxelles, where I studied videography. I eventually left the city in order to spend my time learning some new techniques.

Inspired by my nightmares, my work is a way to question myself about death, and I like trying to trat it with poetry, and working on the after death, by giving life to ghost creatures or working on the idea of rebirth. This with an ecological dimension with the concept of ecomysticism : a way to think about ecology and our link to earth, derived from the way of life and transformation the insects have, inspired by bruno Latour's advice to be human-insect in his book "où-suis-je?" I am really interested on this state of human-insect being with insectoids creatures that i connect with christian figures or performances and rituals , to propose a new way to think about nature, an ecology like a peaceful link to the earth, spiritual word and death : as insects do, we live and metamorphose on earth, to end dying and being entirely part of nature. 

instagram @theo.gbr