L’Abominable – Navire Argo (in english)

L’Abominable is an artist-run film laboratory near Paris.

Since 1996, it offers filmmakers the tools to work with silver-based film material: super-8, 16mm and 35mm. Different machines used for film production have been pooled together: one can develop negative or reversal originals, create blow-ups or optical printer effects, edit, work on sound or strike prints.

The filmmakers who already know how to work these machines train the ones who are just starting out. After this support period, each filmmaker can be independent in his or her work and explore the technical possibilities on one’s own.

In this way, without a selection process for projects, a wide variety of films are produced including “live” film performances or installations using the film medium. The scope of what is produced there and the specificity of practices make L’Abominable a unique place of creation, a living conservatory of cinematographic techniques.

The evolution of L’Abominable, as of all these laboratories, reflects a history in the making. In an age when digital technologies are taking over, artists are recovering the tool of cinematography from the industrial labs and reclaiming the entire manufacturing process. This new autonomy allows for filmmaking to overcome production networks and institutional funding. But beyond economy, by concretely confronting the manufacture of images, it allows for using new tools, inventing new forms of expression and exploring uncharted territories of cinema.