Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
StoryTANK, the European Think Tank dedicated to storytelling for film professionals and screenwriters throughout Europe, carries its exploratory approach into this new season, delving deeper into Le Groupe Ouest and lim’s methodology, designed to accelerate creativity and developed hand in hand with the applied research team of LA FABRIQUE DES MONDES (France 2030).
We interviewed 5 international researchers from complementary fields — cognitive neuroscience, cognitive ergonomics, the psychology of serendipity, social sciences, and anthropology — inviting their expertise to shed light on what they observed unfolding within this methodology, and on what is really at stake in its experimental setups.
Jean-Loïc Le Quellec is a French anthropologist and prehistorian specializing in Saharan rock art. He has conducted several expert missions in the Sahara for UNESCO and is a Research Director Emeritus at the CNRS. In 2022, he published The Original Cave: Art, Myths, and the First Humanities. On France Culture, he asks: “Why enter dark caves to depict a small number of animal species, and more rarely a few humans, often animalized?” and proposes the hypothesis of “a great creation myth that informed the ontology of Paleolithic artists: that of primordial emergence, which spread across the entire surface of the globe as Sapiens discovered new territories.”
THE NEED FOR A TRIGGER
“Imagination alone doesn’t work. Creative imagination, creating from nothing, absolutely not. We need a trigger.”
The Imaginary works with triggers. The trigger can be tactile, it can be auditory or visual, it can be the spoken word. Whatever. But we need a trigger. Imagination alone doesn’t work. Creative imagination, creating from nothing, absolutely not. We need a past, an experiences. We need a trigger.
AN OPENING FOR THE STORY
“In these ripped out images, there was an opening.”
The triggers began with images. Photos ripped out of magazines, they put together bits and pieces. These were just triggers. And also using AI generated images prompted with a few key words from a story, likely to generate the beginning of a story. In these ripped out images, there was an opening.
STORIES THAT RESIST TIME
“Humanity’s stories about its own origin are the ones that most resist change.”
We can prove that the outline of a story about the origin of humanity — the fact that humanity’s stories about its own origin are the ones that most resist change. Because when a group of humans tells a story about its own origins you don’t want to exchange it for that of your neighbour. So these are very resistant stories.
RETURNING TO THE CAVE
“The idea was to return to the cave to find their place of origin, the place of the original emergence.”
The great myth, the most legendary myth, which everyone knew of at a time when caves were decorated, was a myth about the origins of humankind, about how humans and animals originally lived underground until the day they came out into the open air — the emergence — and they spread over the earth. So since they emerged from a hole in the ground, a hole in the ground is a cave, the idea was to return to the cave to find their place of origin, the place of the original emergence.
CREATING AS WE SPEAK
“As I speak, I’m creating. I don’t know what I’m going to say next, I’m creating.”
When I talk about orality or “oraliture” it’s the ability to communicate immediately, without mediation. We have lost direct contact with speech which creates as the person speaks. Creation continues as the person speaks. A kind of poetry in the true sense of the word. Poetry is creation. As I speak, I’m creating. I don’t know what I’m going to say next, I’m creating.
LIVING THE STORY
“You tell it as if you’re living the story yourself.”
All storytellers work like that. There’s the framework, the story, the key elements, things happen, you know when and how they’re going to happen. And then you visualize. You walk through in story. It’s just words, but at the same time it’s totally physical. And this kind of movement helps because you live the story as if it was you living it. You’re so invested in the story you’re telling it as if you’re there in the story, you are both the storyteller and inside the story. It’s conveyed through your experience, your body, your mouth. You tell it as if you’re living the story yourself.
HOMO NARRANS
“Maybe this is what best characterizes the human species.”
Homo sapiens is a hyper-pretentious term. To designate oneself as the one who knows. Homo narrans, the narrating man is much closer, more specific to humans, the fact of telling. Homo narrans is a human species, among several human species, there have been several, now there is just one, but one human species, ours, is renowned for its narrating. Its storytelling. Maybe this is what best characterizes the human species.
THE NEED TO NARRATE
“There are now linguists who think that language was born from the need to narrate.”
And on the linguistic side, there are now linguists who think that language was born from the need to narrate. The need to tell what happened to me and also to tell something that didn’t happen to me.
