FRAGILE WARNING LIGHTS is a photographic research on the specificities of phytoplankton endowed with bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the emission of light by living organisms follow-ing a chemical reaction that converts chemical energy into visible light. emission of these light flashes is due to a kind of stress attack, generally linked to the backwash of the waves.

 

In FRAGILE WARNING LIGHTS, I practice photography in the etymological sense of the term: I write with light. Using the technique of the photo-gram, a photographic process without a camera, I want to make what is disappearing from our environment appear again. These erasures of the surface of the earth of certain species signal that we have changed geological era because of hu-man activity which modifies the ecosystems. The question of the trace, the memory, the relevance of the image is found in the photographs.

 

By placing the plankton on an analog film-sheet, the sheet is exposed to the emission of light by the plankton. The fact that the light comes from the object and not from an external source shows us the ultimate radical photogram (on a film surface). Instantaneous flashes of light and the agitation of the plankton, are thus fixed in an image, which - by recording the movement - captures the gradations and visually creates a depth. Through the enlargement, the excessively small of the plankton, we can and another reading: the images relate to the infinitely large and underline the importance of these microorganisms. Marine plankton is one of the main supports of the existence of our own species. Not only does it form the base of the marine food chain, but it also captures a significant portion of atmospheric carbon dioxide and releases oxygen through photosynthesis. These microorganisms cover only 1% of the total plant mass of the planet, but produce more than half of all the oxygen we breathe. This lung of the planet is in danger. Since the 1950s, phytoplankton populations have declined by 40%.

 

With this work, however, it is not a question of documenting the disaster, but of showing the beauty of these microorganisms in decline, which are - via photosynthesis - one of the most important producers of oxygen.