This Causes Consciousness to Fracture
This Causes Consciousness to Fracture is a recent photo book created by Estelle Hanania in collaboration with Gisèle Vienne. The book is carefully designed to resemble a performance, with a narrative that includes an introduction and rising conflict that unfolds towards the end of the story. The narrative comes to life through the design and layout, carefully blurring the lines between humans and puppets.
The intensity of the tension is captured through the movement of the performers, the sequencing of images, and the high contrast of colors. As viewers are introduced to the puppets, a sense of unease replaces the previous set of a variety of emotions confronted during the choreography and performance art in the beginning of the book.
In this interview, we discuss Estelle's work on the new photo book This Causes Consciousness to Fracture. This book represents her collaboration with Gisèle Vienne and the ongoing partnership between the artists. Estelle speaks about the work on the photo book, “Gisèle and I had the idea of making a book that would be almost a play in itself. A book with its own narrative and form that would unfold like a new four-handed creation, whose very material would be the photos, and which we would articulate together to create a new space.” We also talk about how the story was reimagined from previous performance acts to allow something new to emerge. Estelle goes into detail on the work on designs and print, explaining the choices in color, the creation of folds, and the arrangement of images to provide a different and more engaging visual experience.
Estelle Hanania is a French photographer whose work has been exhibited internationally across Europe, Australia, and the United States. A graduate of l'École de Beaux-Arts in Paris, Estelle began her collaboration with Gisèle Vienne, a Franco-Austrian artist, choreographer, and director, in 2009. Her photo book This Causes Consciousness to Fracture, published by Spector Books and Haus am Waldsee, is her recent collaboration with Vienne that incorporates staged plays Crowd (2017), L’Étang (2020), EXTRA LIFE, and the short film Kerstin Kraus (2019–24) alongside puppets created by Vienne.
Photography by Estelle Hanania Represented by M.A.P (Management & Production) Published by Spector Books and Haus am Waldsee Artist Gisèle Vienne Edited by Gisèle Vienne Estelle Hanania Anna Gritz at Haus am Waldsee Managing Editor Eva Wilson Text by Elsa Dorlin Anna Gritz Design by Natasha Agapova at Spector Books Lithography by Carsten Humme Print by Offsetdruckerei Karl Grammlich GmbH Coproduced by Georg Kolbe Museum In collaboration with Sophiensaele Book Signings at PARIS PHOTO
Get your copy at Spector Books
169 pp. with flaps
152 color illustrations
Thread-sewn hardcover
‘My interest in the metamorphosis of bodies and the double found an incredible echo in Gisèle's work and the human-sized dolls she regularly stages.’
The Collaboration
Hi Estelle, it is such a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak with you again, this time about your new photo book, This Causes Consciousness to Fracture, published by Spector Books and Haus am Waldsee. The book is a collaboration with Gisèle Vienne, a Franco-Austrian artist and choreographer. How did this collaboration come about, leading to an exhibition in the Haus am Waldsee and the publication of the book?
Gisèle and I met in 2009 when I discovered her play Kindertotenlieder, which was playing at the Théâtre de la Bastille and in which she portrayed the Perchten, Austrian costumed characters taking part in winter rituals in the mountains. For my part, I had already begun work on these same rituals and costume traditions, which immediately linked us. My interest in the metamorphosis of bodies and the double found an incredible echo in Gisèle's work and the human-sized dolls she regularly stages. That sums up our meeting and our common ground of inspiration.
We've never left each other's side creatively since then and meet up regularly for photo shoots and research trips. The exhibition at Haus am Waldsee is dedicated to Gisèle Vienne's work as a visual artist. The venue offered to participate in the making of a book, and Gisèle and I had the idea of making a book that would be almost a play in itself. A book with its own narrative and form that would unfold like a new four-handed creation, whose very material would be the photos, and which we would articulate together to create a new space. We then asked Spector Books to be our partner in this adventure, and it's been an incredibly exciting process, with a demanding and precise editor who has resulted in the book This Causes Consciousness to Fracture, released last November.
‘As a photographer, I offered my material to the work process and cut it out like a quasi-filmic narrative, combining images in an extremely surprising way, guided by Gisèle Vienne's vision.’
This Causes Consciousness to Fracture
Your collaboration with Gisèle Vienne brings an intriguing shift and intense dimension to your work, blending choreography and photography, incorporating humans and life-size puppets. The photo book features several projects: Crowd (2017), L’Étang (2020), EXTRA LIFE, and the short film Kerstin Kraus (2019–24). How do you perceive the dynamics between photography and choreography and the way they influence the viewer's perception of the themes and emotions being explored?
The whole idea was to make use of a very rich material, the plays you mentioned, and to build narrative bridges between characters common to these plays because, in fact, certain characters from Crowd are to be found in Extra Life, who are to be found in l’Étang and these red threads guided the construction of the book. It was a question of making a hybrid photo-choreographic book, if I may put it that way. Philosopher Elsa Dorlin's essay in the book explains this relationship between photographic images and the plays being performed extremely well. As a photographer, I offered my material to the work process and cut it out like a quasi-filmic narrative, combining images in an extremely surprising way, guided by Gisèle Vienne's vision. As a choreographer, she didn't look at the photos as a record of her pieces, intended to be faithful to them, but rather, by reimagining something new, a story specific to this book, we both let go and ended up with something new, strong, and that tells us a new and exciting story.
‘The book slides slowly into a world where humans, the living, freeze, and the final sequence of the book is composed almost entirely of dolls.’
The Narrative
The intensity of the performance on stage is vividly conveyed through the emotions, movement, and dynamics among the performers. What is striking about the book, its layout and narrative, is how seamlessly this experience shifts and introduces puppets, blurring the lines between reality and perception. This creates a sense of uneasiness, especially through the contrasts of colors, lights, and frames. How did you approach capturing this seamless transition between the performers and the puppets, creating this sense of uneasiness?
We wanted to start the book with humans, performers, bodies, skin, flesh. We wanted to emphasize a very carnal, sensual beginning to the book. It begins at a party where bodies touch, mouths kiss, beings live, rich, and sometimes violent shared experiences, a place where people dance, sweat, love each other. Gradually, the party empties out, leaving just a few characters and performers who slowly slip into another dimension. Gisèle was also inspired by the 80s horror film Altered States, and we sought to recreate this almost science-fiction-like shift with dolls and colored or blinding lights. I produced many images of the piece Extra Life, in which Gisèle uses red and green lasers, smoke, and very raw colored lights. We used this as material for the changeover. The blinding white lights of the play l’Étang created a sort of science fiction atmosphere, timelessness, and loss of reference points. The book slides slowly into a world where humans, the living, freeze, and the final sequence of the book is composed almost entirely of dolls. We worked carefully on this shift, drawing on Gisèle Vienne's expertise and mastery of choreography.
‘In this book, we first created the narrative around the performers and then, in a second phase, organized a photo shoot with the dolls.’
The Emotional Layer
Emotions come as one of the main elements to be deciphered, bridging the gap between the worlds of humans and puppets, the real and the imaginary. This is especially true when we ascribe feelings to puppets as perceived from their facial expressions and postures. Another dimension is the viewer, who interprets these emotions and validates the perception of the puppet's role in the real world. What have you learned throughout the process of working with humans and puppets, and what angle do you choose to make images of both to tell the story?
As a photographer, I have a different relationship with dolls than with performers, of course. With performers, we've sometimes known each other for several years, and I always try to approach them with a distance that doesn't interfere with their play or state at the time. I try to capture images, to look for moments in them that will tell in an image a physical and mental state: a scream, a fall, someone getting up, leaning on another person, kisses, power struggles. I try to find different angles for each shoot, sometimes looking for expressions, close-ups; sometimes more for group ensembles and interactions. At the beginning of our collaboration, I mainly photographed dolls. I was fascinated by their immobility and yet the way they seemed so alive and special, like embodied characters with their own personalities.
In this book, we first created the narrative around the performers and then, in a second phase, organized a photo shoot with the dolls. These end-of-sequence photos were produced for the book. Specifically, with a view to completing the narrative in a world of dolls, as a counterpoint to the highly embodied beginning of the book. Gisèle and I arranged the dolls in a space that resembled a dressing room to reactivate the relationships between them and accentuate the strength of their presence. This part is a bit like the antechamber to the book.
‘It’s a book that demands concentration and special attention when handled. A book that requires you to pause, look and touch, and let yourself be carried along without hurry.’
The Photo Book
Thinking about the editing of the images into the narrative for this project, the choreography comes as a parallel between the two worlds: the photo book and the performance in its unfolding of the story, the movement, and the pace. What was the experience of the publication process, including the layouts, editing, and design for you working with Spector Books and Haus am Waldsee?
The book was a very precise job of editing a fair amount of images, several years of photographic production. We worked first and foremost with a film editor, Caroline Detournay, something I'd never done before. It was a very interesting experience and forced me to look at my images differently, to desacralize some of them, and sometimes see some of them I wouldn’t have considered using as a necessary link in the unfolding of a larger narrative. That said, the photos are the heart of this book, and we paid a great deal of attention to the grain, the colors, and the printing of the book.
Spector Books brought us all its experience and finesse of approach. They consistently sought the technical solutions needed to unfold the story. We printed the book in non-traditional colors, which gives a richness to the colors that I've never had in my previous books. The folds/flaps on all the left-hand pages required research into shaping the book. It's a book that can be laid down and leafed through in a thousand different ways. It's a book that demands concentration and special attention when handled. A book that requires you to pause, look and touch, and let yourself be carried along without hurry.
