Read more The experience is unique. Become Claudette Colvin, the first African-American woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus. Thanks to augmented reality, you can discover the daily life of this teenager in the southern United States facing racism and segregation. It all starts with an explanation of how a bone conduction headset works, to be sure to hear all the melodies and voices of this new kind of performance. A little lost, a mediator explains the difference with a classic audio headset. "The sounds will not pass through your eardrums, but through the bones of your skull. You will therefore not be isolated and will even be able to continue chatting with your friends." Especially since, in addition to that, we also put on a transparent HoloLens visor, placed in front of our eyes on which images will appear. Here too, we continue to see those around us normally.
As with every session, we form a group of ten people, very curious to live this unique experience: slipping into the shoes of a young black woman in the 1950s in Montgomery, a small town in Alabama. From the first steps, we travel in time and space. Here we are in the Cotton Belt, in the south of the USA, in one of the states where black workers continue to harvest cotton.
"Walk slowly in this experience which will last about 30 minutes. The pace of your steps must be slow, warns us the mediator. Because this new technology requires a multitude of calculations in real time with each of your movements. There is a small risk of dropping out." video length: 00h02mn54s A report by Didier Morel and Maïla Mendy • ©France 3 Paris IDF With a steady gaze, Tania de Montaigne, author and narrator, warns us from the outset on the central screen:
Now you are black. You are a woman, therefore less than a man, and you are black, therefore less than nothing.
Tania de Montaigne, author
And in a storyteller's voice, she specifies: "What is after the black woman? No one has come back to tell."
Before our eyes, a bus materializes, one of those mythical buses popularized by American cinema. On board, seated quietly, is a young 15-year-old teenager: Claudette Colvin. In this city of Montgomery, the law is thus: when all the first ten seats reserved at the front for whites are taken, the black men and women in the row that follows must get up to give up their place.
In those years, the so-called Jim Crow laws defined racial segregation for all acts of daily life. During the immersive experience, we also catch a black child trying to drink from the water fountain reserved for whites; his mother quickly catches him when she sees us. It is this little-known story that Tania de Montaigne has chosen to present in a unique installation at the Centre Pompidou. We too, simple spectators, become actors. Equipped with my augmented reality headset, I sat next to Claudette Colvin who appears to me in the form of a hologram. Armchair, walls, desk ... Elements of the decor are very real, so we can sit on a bus seat like the discriminated black residents, or find ourselves between the four walls of Montgomery prison with the teenager, and even demonstrate with the black population of Alabama. The technical process used in this immersive show is very different from virtual reality: here, spectators see each other, can talk to each other and navigate between parts of the real set and those in hologram.
When the young teenager Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat, she is returning home after a day of classes. It is difficult to know where her refusal to comply comes from, on three occasions: first to the insistent look of the passenger who demands her seat; then to the injunctions of the bus driver; and finally to the police officers who come to note her crime. When she is arrested by the police, then brought to justice, at no time does she speak of an act of militancy. So, as Tania de Montaigne states, "when we are told very violent stories, we have a defense mechanism that kicks in to keep us at a distance, so that we say to ourselves: "I am not in their place, but I pity them!" She said to herself that what would be interesting: "would be to make sure that the reader is not on the outside, but in the seat next to Claudette Colvin at the time of the event. "To carry out this experiment, the authors called on the 4DViews laboratory in Grenoble and then a less expensive public laboratory in Taiwan. There are only six in the world capable of such a feat.
The technique has progressed at the same time as the development of the idea, explains the person responsible for this immersive visualization, Pierre-Alain Giraud. He is at the origin of this choice: "The principle of augmented reality is that we see virtual elements that are added to our real environment, without ever losing sight of our real environment. For the sound, we looked for the sound equivalent of augmented reality. We found these new bone conduction headsets that do not enclose the ears, just as the augmented reality headset does not enclose our eyes in a virtual environment. We still hear what is around us, we can talk to each other, but we have headsets that send sound to our temples."
First, it all started with a book by Tania de Montaigne, Noire, la vie méconnue de Claudette Colvin published by Grasset in 2015, then a theater show in 2019 very often performed on different stages and at the same time an adaptation into a graphic novel. This new installation is the crossroads of several arts, to reach the public differently. The author summarizes the issues as follows: "To make people feel segregation. It is important for us to show that it is everyday life: how I sit on a bus, how I buy shoes, how I drink from a public fountain. In the end, it is for the spectator to come away enhanced by the experience of a black woman at the time of segregation, which still resonates today." When the one who is not yet the world-famous Reverend Martin Luther King appears before our eyes, the resemblance is striking. The filmmaker of La Délicatesse, Stéphane Foenkinos, who also directed the show, took a lot of time choosing the actors.
Because all the protagonists who appear in hologram form were first filmed in real life. Luther King is played by a singer from Kenya who performs in bars in Taipei, Taiwan. And Claudette Colvin is a young Ugandan economics student. "When she understood the symbolism that this role represented, she felt invested with a mission," says the filmmaker, before adding: "It was an even crazier production because I found myself with green screens, 64 cameras in a studio, and the need to find actors to embody all these characters, in Taiwan." On the cinema screen, montages mix archives, videos, trailers and original images to immerse us in the era, to the sound of melodies by Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, and Ray Charles.
This invitation to put ourselves in Claudette Colvin's shoes also allows us to better understand who it was that had refused to give up her seat. That day, by simply deciding "that she would not move", this young girl lit a fuse that would lead the following year to a first step towards the abolition of these racist laws. She thus paved the way for the end of segregation in transport in all the southern states of the United States. Everything was in place for History to remember the name of Claudette Colvin. Why did Rosa Parks prevail?
They both live in the same city of Montgomery, Alabama. The difference is that Rosa Parks, a 40-year-old seamstress, had become a civil rights activist several years earlier. For her, it was a conscious choice to refuse to stand up. At that time, Pastor Martin Luther King was not yet the leader we know and the men of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) were not ready to fight institutionalized segregation head-on. They justified their refusal to support Claudette Colvin because of her age and sex: "She is a child, and a girl at that, and therefore doubly irresponsible." It would take another nine months for Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. 381 days of boycotting public transportation would follow. Her name thus entered into the history of the United States. The show presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou invites the spectator to experience this boycott, as if he were truly one of the demonstrators. A striking interaction with these hologram demonstrators then takes place. My fellow experience participants and I come away shaken by what we have just discovered. "It's very gripping, very troubling and even disturbing," says one of the visitors of the day.
The experience can be discovered at the Centre Pompidou until the end of May, before the installation travels, in English and even in Mandarin.
A tour is already planned in the United States in particular. Perhaps an opportunity for Claudette Colvin to discover this story about her own history. She is now 83 years old and has returned to live in Montgomery, in a retirement home.
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Practical information: Noire, The Unknown Life of Claudette Colvin Augmented reality experience until May 29, 2023 – Centre Pompidou
Price 10 and 14€ – Duration: 30 minutes – reservation required
The experience is unique. Become Claudette Colvin, the first African-American woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus. Thanks to augmented reality, you will be able to discover the daily life of this teenager in the southern United States facing racism and segregation.
It all starts with an explanation of how bone conduction headphones work, to make sure you can hear all the melodies and voices in this new kind of performance. A little lost, a mediator explains the difference with a classic audio headset. The sounds will not pass through your eardrums, but through the bones of your skull. You will therefore not be isolated and will even be able to continue chatting with your friends. " Especially since, in addition to that, we also put on a transparent HoloLens visor, placed before our eyes on which images will appear. Here too, we continue to see those around us normally.
As with every session, we form a group of ten people, very curious to live this unique experience: slipping into the shoes of a young black woman in the 1950s in Montgomery, a small town in Alabama. From the first steps, we travel in time and space. Here we are in the Cotton Belt, in the south of the USA, in one of the states where black workers continue to harvest cotton.
« Walk slowly in this experience which will last about 30 minutes. The pace of your steps should be slow, the mediator warns us. Because this new technology requires a multitude of real-time calculations for each of your movements. There are small risks of dropping out. »
video duration: 00h02mn54s
A report by Didier Morel and Maïla Mendy • ©France 3 Paris IDF
With a confident look, Tania de Montaigne, author and narrator, warns us straight away on the central screen:
Now you are black. You are a woman, therefore less than a man, and you are black, therefore less than nothing.
Tania de Montaigne, author
And in a storyteller's voice, she explains: "What's next for the black woman? No one has come back to tell." »
Before our eyes, a bus materializes, one of those legendary buses popularized by American cinema. On board, seated quietly, is a young 15-year-old teenager: Claudette Colvin. In this city of Montgomery, the law is thus made: when all the first ten places reserved for whites at the front are taken, the black men and women in the next row must rise to give up their place.
In those years, the so-called Jim Crow laws define racial segregation for all acts of daily life. During the immersive experience, we also catch a black child trying to drink from the water fountain reserved for whites; his mother quickly catches him when she sees us. It is this little-known story that Tania de Montaigne has chosen to present in a new installation at the Centre Pompidou.
We too, simple spectators, become actors. Equipped with my augmented reality headset, I sat next to Claudette Colvin who appears to me in the form of a hologram. Armchair, walls, desk… Elements of the decor are very real, so we can sit on a bus seat like the discriminated black residents, or find ourselves between the four walls of Montgomery prison with the teenager, and even demonstrate with the black population of Alabama. The technical process used in this immersive show is very different from virtual reality: here the spectators see each other, can talk to each other and navigate between the parts of the real decor and those in hologram.
When young teenager Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat, she is returning home after a day of classes. It is difficult to know where her refusal to comply comes from, on three occasions: first to the insistent gaze of the passenger who demands her seat; then to the injunctions of the bus driver; and finally to the police officers who come to note her crime. When she is arrested by the police, then brought to justice, at no time does she speak of an act of militancy. So, as Tania de Montaigne states, who are " When we are told very violent stories, we have a defense mechanism that kicks in to keep us at a distance, so that we say to ourselves: "I am not in their place, but I pity them!" She thought that what would be interesting: "It would be to make sure that the reader is not outside, but is in the seat next to Claudette Colvin at the time of the event."
To live this experience, the authors called on the 4DViews laboratory in Grenoble then a public laboratory in Taiwan, less expensive. There are only six in the world capable of such a feat.
La The technique has progressed at the same time as the development of the idea, the r tells us.responsible for this immersive visualization, Pierre-Alain Giraud. He is at the origin of this choice: " The principle of augmented reality is that we see virtual elements that are added to our real environment, without ever losing sight of our real environment. For the sound, we looked for the sound equivalent of augmented reality. We found these new bone conduction headsets that do not enclose the ears, just as the augmented reality headset does not enclose our eyes in a virtual environment. We still hear what is around us, we can talk to each other, but we have headsets that send sound to our temples. »
First it all started with a book by Tania de Montaigne, Black, the unknown life of Claudette Colvin published by Grasset 2015, then a theatre show in 2019 very often performed on different stages and at the same time an adaptation into a graphic novel. This new installation is the crossroads of several arts, to reach the public differently. The author summarizes the issues as follows: « To make people feel segregation. It is important for us to show that it is everyday: how I sit on a bus, how I buy shoes, how I drink from a public fountain.. In the end, the viewer comes away with the experience of a black woman during segregation, which still resonates today. »
When the not-yet-world-famous Reverend Martin Luther King appears before our eyes, the resemblance is striking. The filmmaker Delicacy, Stéphane Foenkinos, also director of the show, took a long time to choose the actors.
Because all the protagonists who appear in hologram form were first filmed in real life. Luther King is played by a singer from Kenya who performs in bars in Taipei, Taiwan. And Claudette Colvin is a young Ugandan student studying economics. When she understood the symbolism that this role represented, she felt invested with a mission. ", the filmmaker specifies, before adding: " It was an even crazier production because I found myself with green screens, 64 cameras in a studio, and the need to find actors to play all these characters, in Taiwan. »
On the cinema screen, montages mix archives, videos, trailers and original images to immerse us in the era, to the sound of melodies by Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, and Ray Charles.
This invitation to put ourselves in Claudette Colvin's shoes also allows us to better understand who it was that had refused to give up her seat. That day, by simply deciding "that she would not move", this young girl lit a fuse that would lead the following year to a first step towards the abolition of these racist laws. She thus opened the way to the end of segregation in transport in all the southern states of the United States. Everything was in place for History to remember the name of Claudette Colvin. Why is it that of Rosa Parks who imposed himself?
They both live in the same city of Montgomery, Alabama. The difference is that Rosa Parks, a 40-year-old seamstress, has been a civil rights activist for several years. For her, it is a conscious choice to refuse to stand up. At that time, Pastor Martin Luther King was not yet the leader we know and the men of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) were not ready to fight institutionalized segregation head-on. They justified their refusal to support Claudette Colvin because of her age and gender: " She is a child, and a girl at that, and therefore doubly irresponsible."
It would take another nine months for Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. 381 days of boycotting public transportation would follow. Her name thus entered into American history.
The show presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou invites the spectator to experience this boycott, as if he were truly one of the demonstrators. A striking interaction with these demonstrators in holograms then takes place. My fellow experience participants and I come away shaken by what we have just discovered. "It is very gripping, very troubling and even disturbing" declares one of today's visitors.
The experience is to be discovered at the Centre Pompidou until the end of May, before the installation travels, in English and even in Mandarin.
A tour is already planned in the United States in particular. Perhaps an opportunity for Claudette Colvin to discover this story about her own history. She is now 83 years old and has returned to live in Montgomery, in a retirement home.
See this post on Instagram
A post shared by Black Women Radicals (@blackwomenradicals)
Practical information : Black, The Unknown Life by Claudette Colvin Augmented reality experience until May 29, 2023 – Centre Pompidou
Price 10 and 14€ – Duration: 30 minutes – mandatory reservation
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