BEHIND VERIDIS QUO...   

I was inspired by Solange’s film ‘’when i get home’’ when I first had the idea of making a shoot that was purely for the joy of experiencing and creating several new aesthetics, set designs and atmospheres.
Styling is something I have developed a particular liking for when it comes to planning and orchestrating photoshoots.
Through various influences I started to envision different colour palettes, textures and sounds and instantly wanted to recreate them. 
At first there was no particular meaning behind this shoot. Then slowly things started to click and mesh together to create a story which had somewhat of a coherence and a common thread.


This happened when I chose the song ‘’Veridis Quo’’ by Daft Punk for the soundtrack to this project.
It was initially a song I chose for its rhythm and essentially the energy it transcended and the way it made me feel when I listened to it.
But I looked deeper into the meaning and definition behind ‘’veridis quo’’ and a story started to form itself in my head.


"Veridis quo" is a wordplay on the Latin phrase "Quo vadis?"  meaning: "Where are you going?". ... In Latin, viridis means green, and veritas means truth, analogical to that the discovery is always the truth. -  google

The meaning behind the song’s title ended up making a lot of sense and eventually built a narrative to my photographs which wasn’t initially intended.


‘’Where to?’’ – The photographs I took felt like they had an order, led to a climax or a destination and communicated a story.
Between all the different scenes and models (more so characters in my eyes, even avatars at times), I felt that there was a point of unification where all these scenes and characters would come in contact for the same reason, a reason they all mutually knew about.


Where are they going?


Each avatar has a separate story but one common thread unifies them; they're heading towards the same destination.
In the meantime they exist within their own narrative and own personal story.


In the end, calling this project ‘’Veridis Quo’’ seemed like the perfect coincidence.


Daft punk makes music that feels very chronological and often tells a story in a gradual way. It’s music that makes you travel. It reminds me of a lot of film soundtracks. The songs are typically long and build tension as they go.
In this shoot I had elements of old and new that converged together in the same scenes. It's paradoxical because Daft Punk to me is a group that has a blend of sounds that are both old and more modern., and eventually create something completely new.

They mix older sounds with more furitisc ones like the one of the synthesiser.
Their sound is nothing short of timeless. That's what daft punk is to me, a mix of the future and the old which creates something new, but that new something feels timeless somehow.

I later came across the term ‘’Retrofuturism’’; ‘’Retro Futurism is an art movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation.’’


Influences:

Before creating these photographs I was initially inspired by the artist Solange. The work she does as an artistic director is beyond phenomenal. The mouvement, colour palette, styling and cinematography of one of her projects ‘’When I get home’’ has stuck with me since i first saw it.


Films like Tron Legacy, The Matrix, Ex-Machina also really inspired me. These gave me feelings of a dystopian world, a futuristic society.


Electronic music was by far the thing that inspired me the most before and during the whole process of creating the ambiance and universe of VERIDIS QUO.

The way electronic music makes me feel is very particular. I feel focused, almost like I am heading in a straight line towards a certain destination, ascending with full concentration & determination. The electronic sounds I listened to before this shoot were sharp, clean, and precise

The sounds of artists like Cobrah, Grimes, Shygirl and Gorgio Moroder made me feel like I was entering the aesthetic I was picturing and fed the visuals I would create in my mind.

Designers like Mugler also contributed to a lot of my inspiration.

Modernist architecture and furniture designs by people like Marcel Breuer (Bauhaus) sparked a lot of creativity in me.







Credits:

Art director, photographer & editor: Line-Teta Blémont // @ ltblemont

VHS Filming: Ange Mukunde // @ jemenmoque.be

Shot at MAD Brussels ‘’Home of Creators’’

Thanks to the models: Anais, Roman, Otto, Mariem, Irina, Alekko, Sasha & Eliora.