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Photo: ©Julien Grimard

Broken Spectre: learn more about Richard Mosse’s poignant work

  • Article
  • PHI Centre
By  PHI

English translation by Jo-Anne Balcaen

Between the walls of the PHI Centre, a new immersive cinematic installation by Richard Mosse was on view from May 22 to September 15, 2024.

Broken Spectre pulls us into the heart of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest as it documents, in the artist’s singular aesthetic, the different fronts of its destruction. Above all, however, the work is an invitation to deeply reflect on what we, both individually and collectively, can do to halt this trend. The following overview provides greater context and information on the exhibition.

Who is Richard Mosse?

Richard Mosse is an award-winning Irish artist now based in New York, working primarily in photography and video. After earning his MFA in Photography from the Yale University School of Art, Mosse combined his passion for the world we live in with a keen aesthetic sense to develop his own artistic signature that is part documentary film, part contemporary art.

His first works, Infra (2010-2015) and The Enclave (2012-2013), gained widespread recognition through their unique coverage of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as depicted through the prism of Kodak Aerochrome 16mm film, a type of infrared film that reveals normally invisible elements—a deliberate artistic choice that allows the artist to go beyond the limits of language and perception.

Similar in scope and approach is Incoming (2014-2017) that looks at the migratory crisis in Europe. For this work, Mosse used a military-grade thermal imaging camera, a more modern, even—in the words of the artist himself—futuristic technology that can detect body heat from up to 30 km away, and produces the same kind of pictorial quality as his other works.

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Photo: Richard Mosse in Mongolia / Ganbaa Ganseree
“My power, if I have any, is to be able to show you the things that I’ve seen in a more powerful way than perhaps the pictures you’ve seen in the newspaper of the same thing.”

– Richard Mosse

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Photo: ©Julien Grimard

What is Broken Spectre about?

Continuously driven by a desire to explore under-represented global and humanitarian issues, Mosse travelled to the Amazon rainforest to examine the various fronts of its ongoing deforestation.

The result of his research and documentation is Broken Spectre, a 74-minute immersive video installation produced in collaboration with Trevor Tweeten (cinematographer) and Ben Frost (composer).

The work looks at the ramifications of this hidden yet unrelenting ecological catastrophe. In 1975, only 1% of the Amazon was subjected to deforestation. Since 2019, the devastation has only gotten worse: Bolsonaro’s military regime in Brazil has promoted the vast development of the Trans-Amazonian Highway through the rainforest, bringing with it the extinction of several species and actively contributing to climate change. To date, nearly 20% of the original rainforest has been lost.

What sets this particular case apart from other global acts of violence in the Anthropocene, most often perpetuated by multiple generations before us, is that it is all happening right now. In other words, it’s not too late to stop it. We must collectively focus our efforts on this phenomenon and try to understand it better.

“It’s a tragedy. It really is. And I want you to go away feeling complicit. Feeling your power to make some change in your behavior as a consumer, as a voter, as a citizen, and as an individual, but also as somebody that is part of society.”

– Richard Mosse

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Photo: ©Julien Grimard

How does Mosse pull us into Broken Spectre?

The immensity of the Amazon rainforest is hard to imagine. This isn’t surprising given that it stretches across nine countries. To help us better connect with his subject and to demonstrate the complexity of this global natural treasure, Mosse divides his shots into three different scales, each with its own clearly defined intention.

  • The macro scale is filmed using a multispectral camera that simulates satellite imagery. This technique is indispensable for its ability to expose environmental damage and climate change.

  • The human scale is used for its familiarity to viewers. Scenes were captured on 35mm black-and-white film using the codes of “Spaghetti Western” films. This choice seeks to engage Western viewers with well-known images, reminding them of a familiar culture and its destructive impact.

  • The microscopic scale, filmed using ultraviolet light, highlights the organisms that live mere centimeters from the ground (plants, lichens, etc.). While it reveals what is hidden, it especially makes us more aware of what we risk losing altogether.

Beyond developing his piece on these three scales, Mosse uses a false colour palette that is integrated through multispectral and infrared technologies. True to the aesthetic for which he has become well-known, the Irish artist juxtaposes the ravages of deforestation against areas that are still intact. Here, living trees appear hot pink and stand in stark contrast to the dull rose of decimated logs, illustrating their gradual demise. The result is a compelling portrait that sounds the alarm about the urgency of the situation.

“I’m trying to use the indexical part of them as scientific imaging technologies, but I’m also combining that with the aesthetic power. The ability of these very aggressive aesthetic images to disarm you, to make you look in a new way. To defamiliarize you.”

– Richard Mosse

What is an immersive video installation?

Broken Spectre invites us to sit comfortably to face the uncomfortable. The work consists of a high definition projection on a 14 metre screen, accompanied by a quadrophonic sound system with 20 speakers that completely surround the audience, immersing them in the work.

For additional context on the nature of immersive works, Xn Québec gives the following definition: “The immersive nature of a work can take on several forms, be it visual, sonic and/or geographic. Immersive work therefore includes any innovative forms of creativity that do away with the symbolic barrier of the film screen or theatre stage and allow audiences to become an integral part of the work (by physically moving through it, via digital interactions, through sound installations, etc.).”

Richard Mosse’s immersive video installation Broken Spectre was presented at the PHI Centre until September 15, 2024. To view our current exhibitions, check out our programming page.

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