BEAUTÉS DU MONDE ___ CARTIER
Immersive installation, CGI videosYEAR 2023
ART DIRECTION Mélanie Courtinat
CGI Bus Group
PRODUCTION New Collective
SOUND DESIGN Antoine Bertin
Located in the heart of Barcelona, the exhibition Beautés du Monde takes its title from Cartier's high jewellery collection, which celebrates the diversity of beauty. In order to highlight three major pieces of the collection, three immersive 3D videos were produced. Each of them revisits and reinterprets the signature of the piece from which it is inspired, with an emphasis on the emotional power it contains.
The first video features the story of a shape-shifting desert, in which sand dunes gently swaying in the wind are revealed to be the delicate shape of a woman's neck, in which the brand's iconic snake necklace wanders. The exquisite sound design complements this transformation, alternating between the murmur of the wind and the sigh of a woman. The second video concentrates on a drop of water and its journey. The aerial waltz of a little droplet is being followed and continues to form a dance with a multitude of other drops, before culminating in the formation of a diamond necklace shape.
The final video focuses on a fictional flower that hides a precious secret. As night falls, it closes in on itself and morphs into a bird, shifting to the rhythm of music made from recordings of rubbing petals and birdsongs turned into musical instruments.
I’M NOT TOUGH ENOUGH TO BE ONLINE ___ MAGAZINE MAGAZINE
CGI images, 3D scanYEAR 2023
ART DIRECTION Mélanie Courtinat, Salomé Chatriot
CGI Mélanie Courtinat
STYLING Salomé Poloudenny
3D SCANS Pierre Moulin, Nino Filiu
MUA Nora Le Dour
CHAINMAIL, JEWELRY Milari Barker (Membrane)
Conceived by Mélanie Courtinat and Salomé Chatriot, this fashion series for issue 40 of magazine Magazine explores the worlds of these two artists through a series of images featuring characteristic elements of their styles and practices. Acting as models, their bodies were scanned in 3D in order to be transposed into a virtual universe, then integrated into the Unreal Engine video game software. The sets are indeed completely CGI. The idea with this series was not to aim for photorealism, but to create confusion, sublimating the imperfections of the scan rather than trying to hide them.
DIGITAL FRESCO ___ DOLCE & GABBANA
Immersive installation, motion designYEAR 2019
ART DIRECTION, CGI Mélanie Courtinat, Pastor/Placzek
PRODUCTION Carbondale
There is a digitally animated 18th century painting located on the ceiling and walls of the top floor in Dolce&Gabbana’s new flagship in Piazza di Spagna, Rome, where Pallas Athena and Hercules come alive among gods and angels. Engulfed in billowing dark clouds of thunder and lightning, the viewers are surrounded by the penetrating vibrations of Gregorian Chants.
I NEVER PROMISED YOU A GARDEN ___ LVMH
Immersive installation, virtual realityYEAR 2017
ART DIRECTION, CGI, PRODUCTION Mélanie Courtinat
SOUND DESIGN Yatoni
I Never Promised You A Garden is an immersive experience in which the audience is invited to interact with a luxurious hanging garden. Both dreamlike and subtle, the installation proposes a critical approach to interactions while emphasizing the irruption of the virtual into reality.
NEI’S DEBUT ___ TRANSMODERNA, DIXON
Immersive installation, CGI avatar, motion captureYEAR 2022
ART DIRECTION Transmoderna
AVATAR Mélanie Courtinat
PERFORMER Franziska Zahl
MOTION CAPTURE NeXR Technologies, OnPoint Studios
POST ANIMATION Sam Aldridge
UNREAL ENGINEERING Carlos Minozzi
COSTUME Sól Hansdóttir
Nei is the name of a 3D avatar conceived in the context of "Xenopunk", the Transmoderna collective's speculative project on post-ecological survival strategies. While "xeno" means alien, "punk" refers to dissident behaviour resisting social norms and conventions. Together, xenopunk conveys the idea that only the persistence of life on earth is possible through alien approach. Nei embodies this alien in question.
Their body was designed for a motion capture performance at the event by Dixon and Transmoderna at Printworks London, but also a show at the NX Museum in Amsterdam.
