Soleil Noir (Black Sun) is an audiovisual poem inspired by Gérard de Nerval’s and J ulia Kristeva’s writings on melancholy.
Images, sounds, actions and text that evoke some of the most intimate sensations and concerns of a melancholic state, propose to the audience a reflection on sadness and depression in our daily lives. What is this black sun whose radiation clouds my wishes and burns my hopes? How to escape from the prison of sadness? Can artistic creation overcome melancholy?
Selected in Magmart XII International Videoart Festival 2021. Naples, Italy, 19th Media Art Biennale WRO 2021. Wroclaw, Poland. Rencontres Internationales Traverse vidéo 2021, Toulouse, France. Videoformes 2021, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Ursula San Cristóbal (1987) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Barcelona. Her work is devoted mainly to performance art and video art, which she conceives as tools for exploring contemporary subjectivity, addressing issues such as gender, identity, fragility, eroticism, intimacy and the uncanny. She has been invited to make a video installation for the Festival Videoformes 2023 (Clermont-Ferrand, France), and she has been an artist in residence at Nau Estruch (Sabadell, Spain). Her video artwork has been screened in festivals such as Festival Les Instants Vidéo (France), Camagüey International Video Art Festival (Cuba), BIDEODROMO International Experimental Film and Video Festival (Spain), Miami New Media Festival (USA), Traverse Vidéo (France), FILE Electronic Language International Festival (Brazil), Video Art Miden (Greece) and 19th Media Art Biennale WRO 2021 (Poland). Úrsula holds a PhD in Art History and Musicology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
