sound installation
2022
A circular room. Around the listener, four speakers placed equidistantly at the top of each corner of a square, against the walls. Minimalistic room with only white floor cushions.
The meditative sound of the piece is composed of four field recordings from distinct scales of the environment of human life : earthly nature (June rain), human body (the artist's heartbeats), the machine (electromagnetic interferences of a computer on one track, and hardware vibrations on a second track) and outer space (a montage of electromagnetic waves recorded by NASA). All these field recordings were edited, treated and filtered to enhance their specific frequency range and sound characteristics.
The work links several scales: the cosmic scale, the planetary and natural scale, the bodily and human scale.
The world of the machine is present from two points of view: the material point of view (the vibratory production of the actual computer) and the invisible point of view (the electromagnetic waves captured, which also metaphorically represent the virtual, invisible sphere of the internet).
Electromagnetic waves do not belong to matter since they are pure vibrations in space, without materiality like particles. They are of the order of the imperceptible, beyond the infinitely small, at the opposite, in the register of scales, to the cosmos, on the side of the infinitely large.
At the same time these waves are the language of the cosmos, since each cosmic body produces them. Here, in the same way that NASA's Radio Plasma Wave Science probes capture the electromagnetic output of the planets and their satellites in the cosmic void, we record the interference of the microphone sensor with the electromagnetic production of the computer.
What impact does technology have on the climate, on human life? What impact does the electromagnetic radiation we create (by our machines) have on humans and nature on Earth? What impact does space technology have on the terrestrial environment, but also on the cosmic environment ? We have in mind, for example, China recently using cloud seeding technology o create artificial rain for crops, or blue sky for important events. We also think of Elon Musk with his Starlink project; this involves potentially sending up to 42,000 thousand satellites (60 have been sent so far) into orbit to improve internet connections. We know that the mass of waste we leave in space could one day turn the orbit into a dumping ground, and prevent us from ever leaving Earth if necessary.
The work creates a sound environment. An empty room, like the cosmic void. The piece seeks to create a sound environment because it deals with the question of the environment, in the broadest sense: natural environment (rain), spatial environment (cosmic recording), virtual environment (sound extracted from a computer), wave environment (electromagnetic) and vibratory environment. Contrary to the potential toxicity of electromagnetic radiation, in some people, or of technological pollution on earth or in space, the piece creates a soothing, continuous, pulsating, vibratory environment, which invites meditation on the infinitely large, the infinitely small, the scales of communication in nature and the cosmos, technology, and our place in the universe.
The acronym HEMS (Human Earth Machine Space) refers to the idea of hem. The hem is an edge, a boundary between two spaces of a distinct nature. It is also a suture. With this sound work, we propose to the listener to place himself precisely at the edge, at the hem, between these dimensions of the universe of distinct scales.