My concept arose one afternoon as I sat across the street from the gas station and attempted to do some sketches of the area. It was rush-hour in Montreal, and the traffic at that particular corner was heavy. My sketching was constantly interrupted by cars, trucks and buses as they pulled up to the intersection and waited for the lights to change. Each time I put my pen back to the paper, I found that the scene behind the moving screen had changed.
I began to consider the notion of fragments.
We do not need to be watching a slide show or face a physical barrier
for our view to be limited. All of our experience of our surroundings arises
from our sensing of fragments. Our mind artificially pieces the fragments
together to form a fluid landscape, but each fragment was gathered at a
different instant and from a different angle. As a result, the images in
our mind are constructed, and never really existed.
'ne demandes pas au silence
de découvrir ce que cachent les mots
si tu ne retournes en toi-même
des pierres qu'attentives tes mains
couvaient'
(Fragment by Michel Beaulieu)