Through a female magician’s monologue performed by Olwen Fouéré, L’idée de Camillo appropriates and deconstructs the theory presented by the Italian humanist Giulio Camillo in The Theatre of Memory in the late sixteenth century. Drawing on the ancient art of memory, he developed a universal mnemonic system in the form of a theatre with the aim of gaining access to infinite knowledge about the world. In Aurélien Froment’s film, the character introduces this concept by combining Camillo’s text describing his project and its interpretation by a contemporary. Between fiction and documentary, the work brings together and confronts two primary sources to deliver a new reading of the concept which, far from being a demonstration, plays on the ambiguity of the idea. Despite the precision of the information communicated by the actress, the system devised by the Italian remains abstract and opaque for the viewer. The film was made with the support of the Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin for the exhibition Il Palazzo Enciclopedico presented at the international pavilion of the fifty-fifth Venice Biennale (2013).

Text written by Suzana Danilovic as part of the partnership between the École du Louvre and Lafayette Anticipations – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin.

Exhibitions