Gallery Entry
Echoes
By Pascal Bertin · FR
The same man, four times, each alone in his capsule of light. Same suit, same white hair, same silence. Three sit with their backs to us; the nearest has turned, as if listening. Which is the voice, and which the echo? These are not clones. Each figure is a part of who I have become. In my school photo club, I spent more time in the darkroom than taking pictures: black-and-white printing, contrast, the way an image slowly appears. Then came drawing, video, special effects, miniatures, software, digital photography, and now AI. No tool ever erased the one before. We do not replace one version of ourselves with another: we build ourselves by accumulation. AI can multiply images. It does not know where the eye that chooses them comes from. Facing this work, viewers look for the original and cannot find it. Perhaps because it lies in none of the figures, but in what connects them. Human, after all.