La Sentinelle
La Sentinelle is a needlepoint project initiated in 2022. The series, comprising 14 pictures in 56x46 cm format, was completed in February 2024.
Each needlepoint represents a scene from the video game The Sentinel (1986) created by Geoff Crammond—initially for BBC Micro. Each scene is illuminated by a unique color duo from the game’s eight-shade palette, here in the ZX Spectrum version—ported by Mike Follin.
The exact transfer of the game screens' pixels onto the embroidery canvas grid, combined with the airy wool material, produces a luminous effect whose precision and shimmer are reminiscent of the cathode-ray screen.
The resemblance between the pixel grid and the embroidery canvas often inspires my work. Many of my projects—Metroid, Maniac Mansion—are nourished by memories of the video games I loved, when the resolution of the images still revealed their original pixels. So there are always two important stages: dreaming and transcription.
Dreaming: closing my eyes and seeing scenes from video games that filled me with wonder. Finding images and videos of those old cartridges or floppy disks to remind me of the many hours I spent roaming through those landscapes, the carefreeness and strangeness of those ballads compared to everyday life…
Transcription: counting the number of pixels in width and height and arranging them by hand on the new embroidery grid, drawing each of them in black or white before assigning them a colored thread, then starting the needlepoint by following this precise plan with my eyes for days on end…
