La Fée Electricité, 2007 At the centre of events in La Fée Electricité, a fictitious 19th century chronicle, lies the advent of electric light, which was, at the time, beginning to drastically change life. It presents elements of a detective story, a genre invented by the contemporary witness Edgar Allan Poe in the mid-19th century, and tells of the electric light enthusiast, dancer Loie Fuller; anonymous eye-witnesses report on first experiments with electric light and the French Commerce Secretary's speech for the opening of the world exhibition in Paris in 1900 is quoted. Next to these historically anchored events and re-enacted historical scenes — e.g the first photograph taken with artificial lighting that Thomas A. Edison took of his companion Charles Batchelor — fictitious events also make their way into the chronicle. The succession of the scenes does not follow the logic of the year dates shown in pseudo-scientific diagrams before each intertitle, but rather follow a formal dramaturgy, leading from the the first raw light floods up to the decadently blinking facade of the World Exhibition's Electricity Palace via the carbon filament light bulb. Following this path, many light sources have left their traces on the film strip, reanimated by the light of the projector lamp. |