Les Bruits de l’Esprit

November 2001

Description:

Images and sound, static and dynamic. Images as light, as virtual architecture, as expressions of being. Sounds as ambiance, fused with the visual space, as music of the essences emerging from the images. Sound and image, conjuring the movements of being, of existence; evoking the ineffable of the spirit, with equal architectural and artistic importance.

Concept:

The visitor is invited to an audiovisual (multimedia) semi-narrated, semi-reactive, pre-assembled and spontaneously generated "voyage". This voyage incorporates static and dynamic images which are projected on enclosing walls (screens) of the space and fused with live-generated supporting sound, lying in the continuum of ambiance and music and diffused among multiple speakers in the space. The idea is to use electronic image and sound to establish the space. Using rear projection and surround sound, the entire periphery of the space is continuously defined in terms of audiovisual information, allowing for the presentation the images and the establishment of the space’s architecture, ambience and general character.

Of particular importance is the relationship of the audio to the image. Beyond the obvious artistic "marriage of sound/music and image, there is the tight fusing of audio and images in order to support a general perception of the particular space intended by the artists. For example, when the images depict/establish the sense of a large resonant space, the use of live reverbation (of the sounds of the public) can serve to reinforce this sensation

The idea of transitions, and juxtaposition play an important role in the modulated space, allowing for the public to experience a passage from an "enclosed" finite space, to an open and seemingly unlimited space. Beyond the obvious architectural interplay, the audiovisual encounter itself is mise en jeu : the public is invited to reconsider its way of experiencing the every-day visual/auditory environment with its habitual information rates (velocities); the relationship of "informational density" to the sense of "environment" is exposed.

The image source for the space are original paintings. Multiple modes of presentation for these paintings are possible. In fact, the original paintings, used as source material for the images, are considered as prima-materia in alchemical sense (rather than end-result objects) by being put into a “technological framing” using digital image processing. The analog is thus being “framed” by the digital environment. The same approach applies to the sound, which most often draws upon analog sources (musique concrete). The audio material is rendered in realtime to provide for musical and sonic variation in the space from performance to performance; sound (the public) in this space is processed and diffused live.