The Valley
translated from the French
– by Simone Dompeyre, curator, Rencontres Internationales Traverse Vidéo, Toulouse, France, 2025
The use of the definite article here may be misleading. The term 'the Valley' encompasses multiple domains: the topographic, which is traversed as a game; the title of a memorial photograph, whose facsimile is an integral part of the installation; and the allusion to the 'Uncanny Valley', which has potential ramifications across various psychoanalytic and robotic meanings, including a nod to AI.
The title and mise en abyme are self-reflexive structures that unfold through intermediality, with various media intersecting without cancelling each other out — each referring to the expressions, discourses and substance of the others.
A screen hangs on the wall, reflecting the aesthetics of video games with virtual sequences reminiscent of gaming. Around this screen, a film is projected with long scrolling text, shifting the playful surface into a more serious dimension and carrying it with the weight of the written word. However, the English language introduces an element of confusion, arising from the voice-overs commenting on the film. This space is filled by a French translation in laminated texts available to visitors, encouraging their participation. This translation was initially intended to be running text based on the English original. However, this would have made the film longer and delayed its use in the video timeline. Then there is the photograph to which the text refers.
Despite the seemingly fluid flow of text, which leaves afterimages of individual letters or rare words, this does not create calm, harmonious contemplation. This is not a game, but the war endured by Ukraine.
Wolfgang Oelze explains that, shortly before the Russian attack in February 2022, German television broadcast Russian military videos, which alarmed him and prompted a series of questions addressed by his installation.
It is not in logical order, but rather like a conversation that loses itself in digressions and follows associations of ideas or words, recalling personal memories. Added to this are a variety of questions about what is happening there, about the learning algorithm and the functions of the computer — always revolving around what is sent and broadcast.
Here, hypotheses about Russian staging collide with reflections on the 'Uncanny Valley' effect, the notion of computer-generated images. The 'Uncanny Valley' — echoing the German term 'unheimlich', theorised by Freud (though the text does not delve into this connection) — is mentioned by the voices in the film, as is Jung.
Reminder: outside of psychoanalysis, this term describes the unease a human experiences when faced with a humanoid robot that appears too human. Here, the Uncanny Valley concept is used to explore the gap between 'realism and rejection', which is an allusion to AI. The discourse then shifts towards the collective unconscious and the 'shadow figure as a portrait of our hidden mental world', finally leading to the 'cognitive mapping and meta-knowledge' produced by play, before returning to the photograph
Meanwhile, the omnipresent game world changes its starting point, transforming the landscape with artificial trees and a small luminous dome or a pond called 'Little Ocean'. This evokes a distant illuminated city and industrial landscapes with rails, on which a Land Rover appears to be frozen in place. The gaze brushes past corrugated metal buildings, barracks and supporting structures near machines reminiscent of old oil wells. There is a dilapidated interior crossed with cartons, Chinese writing, pots, and other containers, before ferns and a sudden red spot. All this takes place amid a flow of conversations.
Transformations are rapid and sped up, with backward and forward jumps and jolts marking the rhythm. Colours are oversaturated and sometimes appear unreal.
First, a computer game developer takes to the stage to defend the power of realistic destruction within his virtual landscape. He is followed by a 'specialist' who describes the fictional places in the game — the peripheral zones of society.
The mind is constantly challenged, forced to keep up to avoid being absorbed by this world of fleeting images — or, conversely, to avoid becoming too comfortable within it.
Then, prominently displayed on the wall, is a framed photograph. It contrasts with the game and responds to the clues scattered throughout the text.
'Photo of a landscape without vegetation or buildings. Distant view, obscured by hills. Spherical objects, cannonballs.'
The photograph is titled Valley of the Shadow of Death, is dated 1855 and is considered one of the earliest war photographs. The author is indicated alongside the facsimile, which has been faithfully copied to reflect the procedures used in 1855: Roger Fenton. It concerns the Crimean War.*
However, the discussion then moves on to the possibility of a fake, which is quickly dismissed when the photograph is officially recognised as authentic in 2007. An explanation is also provided as to how the doubt had arisen, which was triggered by manipulated photographs circulated by the U.S. in connection with the 2003 Iraq attacks. These photographs were intended to justify a counteroffensive. Although the connection is not explicitly made, any attentive citizen will draw parallels with Putin’s methods. From then on, the journey through the game, though disorienting, becomes an awakening experience, a guide and a whistle-blower.
Note: *As a reminder, photographic processes in 1855 required long exposure times. Historically, from March to the end of June that year, the British government made several attempts to send a photographic unit to document the Siege of Sevastopol, in which England and France supported the Ottoman Empire against Russia. They eventually engaged Fenton, a volunteer who obtained financial backing from a publisher of illustrated news books. He had to photograph at dawn to prevent the development baths from overheating and to avoid his highly visible wagon becoming a target. Its weight also prevented rapid movement and meant that he did not have to argue with eager soldiers wanting to be photographed. He did not photograph dead or wounded soldiers or hospitals, only portraits and scenes of rest. He brought back 360 glass negatives, which were later printed on paper. Capturing the living moment was difficult because snapshots were only possible between 1870 and 1880 onwards. The glass support had to be coated with wet collodion and exposed before the product dried, with immediate development for the same reason.