An Artist Built a Tower in the Water to Give You a Different Perspective

Artist and designer Florent Albinet, has created GABIE, an installation open to the public at Domaine de Chamarande in Essone, France, until November 1st, 2015.

To reach the tower, you ride on a tethered platform that docks at the base of the 6 meter (20ft) tall tower. From there, you climb aboard your seat and peddle your way to the top, where you can relax and enjoy the view of the surrounding area.

“The Gabie Project stems from a desire to explore and inhabit new landscapes. New landscapes? Our environment would seem to have already been entirely explored or visited. Technology now allows us to see nearly all of the Earth’s surface, giving us seemingly omniscient vision.”, explains an artist.

“That is, unless we make our minds available and open to the discovery of new territories! At the border between the oneiric and the real, each of us possesses individual spaces to discover, our own “terra incognita,” but only on the condition that we transcend preconceived notions.”

“There are as many perceptions of a landscape as there are individuals in the world. The notion of the landscape cannot be dissociated from its subjective dimension. Without the observer, there is no vision; without vision, there is no landscape!”

“Each of us may thus perceive an environment according to our own experiences. To discover new territories requires the cultivation of one’s experience; in order; to develop one’s creativity one must reorient perception of the world.”

“My imagination is drawn toward marine environments. This space in perpetual movement, mirroring our subconscious, fascinates me for its elusiveness. By studying movement, wave formation, material structure, and hydrostatics, I was able to define the parameters of my new project. It would in no way resemble the habitual constructions which permit us to navigate this milieu (rafts, sailboats…).”

“Contemplation of the marine environment is its objective. Because of the need to cultivate experience, construction of the object is in itself an integral part of the project.”

“The use of techniques and materials which are manageable at a personal level allow for all of the inputs of this experiment to be controlled, its parameters varied.”

“Like a new Robinson Crusoe, building this project was akin to building a new world according to private needs and capacities. The fantasy of positioning oneself in the role of a Leonard da Vinci, at the outset of a new civilization, inspires me.”

“This developed inventiveness is motivated by a desire to fully live in the world, to discover new intentions, based on methodical observation and analysis of our environment.”

Via Contemporist. Photography by Florent Albinet.