The Analogue Tracks – Films

Les Sentiers analogues

Florent Meng
France, Switzerland | 2024 | 56 min
World premiere
Languages : French, English
Subtitles : English, French

A crystal hunter finds a quartz crystal on the Mont Blanc massif. The mineral passes through the hands of geophysicists, acoustic engineers and gemmologists, exploring our potential for communication with the inanimate world. This diary of a quartz crystal takes us on a journey to the edge of our systems of perception, skilfully calling into question the seemingly irrefutable.

A crystal hunter finds a quartz crystal on the Mont Blanc massif, beneath what was once a glacier. Artist and filmmaker Florent Meng takes this crystalline stone on a journey around the world in an attempt to explore the potential for dialogue between the living and the inanimate world. From a laboratory in Geneva to the University of Grenoble, from an anechoic chamber to a gemmology facility in western America, this diary of a quartz questions the irrefutable: While philosophy argues that inanimate matter is devoid of consciousness, what does science postulate? Are we capable of shifting our systems of perception to perceive living beings where they are not? In a succession of encounters and questions, an array of possibilities is revealed that gives the mountains back their voice. The Analogue Tracks is the tale of an investigative voyage to the very limits of our understanding, aimed at broadening our field of vision and putting human knowledge into perspective in the face of the vast unknown.
Aurélien Marsais

The Analogue Tracks, 2024
The Lost Line, 2018
Dunes of Deletes, 2016