Monsieur G., Le sanctuaire des lasers/The sanctuary of lasers

pictures from PULPwiki, the Jarvis Cocker website

When the british singer Jarvis Cocker in 1998 was filming in France part of his Channel 4 TV movie Journey into the Outside (broadcasted 1999), he went along the sites of Abbé Fouré, Robert Vasseur, Bodan Litnianski, Raymond Isidore (=Picassiette), Chomo, Ferdinand Cheval (=le Facteur), all well known today.

Mr Cocker also paid attention to Monsieur G., who nowadays is less well known and about whom the internet hardly has any observation.

Monsieur G (1898-1986) is said to have travelled a lot around the world. At some moment he settled himself in the small community of Nesles-la-Gilberde, in the Seine et Marne department of France, south-east of Paris.

There he built his own house, constructing terraces, towers, an interior swimming pool. He decorated the walls and the pallisades of the property with all kind of paintings of subjects he considered important in life, and he also made a room where images were projected and voices of the past could be heard, so as to interfere with sounds and images of the present.

What made him special in the opinion of the locals, was his affinity with lasers. He is quoted to have said: "The laser is unique in the world. Only my house distributes it. Why is this here the sanctuary? There is something that attracts them.'' In mr G's opinion, the Russians were responsible for all incoming lasers, those directed upon his house.

I could not trace any facts about the life of monsieur G before he settled in Nesles. Neither is there agreement on his real name, he is referred to as Gaston Louis, Gaston Gaye and Gaston Gastineau.

I could not find any reference to what happened with the house and the decorations after 1986, the year monsieur G. died.

The french filmmaker and author mr Clovis Prevost in 1977 has made a 28 min movie, entitled Monsieur G dans le sanctuaire des lasers (trailer on INA France, can also be ordered on DVD).

And, by the way, in London, Jarvis Cocker's Journey into the outside nowadays (november 2009) can be seen. It is on screen in the Museum of Everything (on outsider art), that was opened in october 2009.

Monsieur G
le Sanctuaire des lasers
77540 Nesles-la-Gilberde, dep Seine et Marne, FR
actual status unknown