Nicolas Ponce
Novembre 85, 2023
Video, sound, 42:08 minutes

Novembre 85 is a code word among the diplomatic service in the Swiss city of Geneva, home to multiple banks, corporations and, the key European office of the United Nations. Over two days towards the end of the month of November of 1985 the U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time to discuss the ongoing Cold War tensions and the arms race. Both sides arrived with their typical entourage: aides, security, secret service agents, as well as film crews – all of them anticipating a celebration of the successful of the high-profile meeting.

In this short video of Nicolas Ponce, the archival footage of the Geneva Summit is condensed, distilled, and hardly identifiable. The late 19th century villa north-east of the city offers a setting that might as well serve as a backdrop for a movie about paranormal events or a spy plot. We are not allowed a glimpse of the meeting itself, instead, the people captured on camera make for excellent cinematic extras: verging on the comical in the way they are dressed and act when the camera is around.

Novembre 85 is a hypnotizing video that carves out a different space: where historical events seem more like their clichéd representations, where the setting is made into a set, and the fantasy about secrets, wealth, and behind-the-scenes politics is almost tangible. It is no longer archival footage, rather, a reminder of how decisions impacting individuals, nations, and global political landscape are made.

Set to a soundtrack of a late 1970s horror classic, the Amityville Horror, the work showcases not the event itself, but the staff, the architecture, and the surrounding park necessary for it to take place. All of them are picture-perfect. Novembre 85 has several protagonists: the surroundings, the humans, and the architecture. And it taps into the space between reality and fiction, the trailer for the Amityvile Horror opens with the following phrase: “It’s the kind of house they don’t build anymore. A relic of a time when the world wasn’t in such a hurry, there was still time for a little charm and elegance”.

Krzysztof Kościuczuk

_

Nicolas Ponce (b. 1998, Courtedoux , Switzerland), holds a BA from ÉCAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and MA from HEAD Geneva University of Art and Design. He works with video and objects that frequently materialize as installations addressing topics of scenery, landscape and popular culture. His recent exhibitions include: lokal-int, Biel/Bienne; Hit, Geneva; Kunsthalle Palazzo, Liestal. He is co-curating an artist-run-space in Lausanne called La Placette.