SOUND INSTALLATIONS

A part from concerts, a selection of sound installations will be presented in the studios and public areas of the Ircam, some of them using real time interaction technology or virtual reality devices.

 Date : October 15th-24th, 2003
 Venue : Ircam, public spaces and studios
 Access conditions : Free entrance

SOUND INSTALLATIONS

Wagner en têtes

This installation is based on Wagner's writings about his dreams, which are told through a specific listening mode (artificial heads of Wagner) and a multi-channel computer controlled sound system.

Saturday, October 18th and Sunday, October 19th : performance of a reader (Cyril Béghin) and viola player (Delphine Anne) at the installation.

 by Yann Rocher and Emmanuel Rio
 Venue : Ircam, Studio 1

This installation was made possible by the support of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Topologies de l'instant (n° 7) (Photos)

This installation presents a 3D choreographic navigation. Real and virtual stage designs brought together in one device, focusing on water and air, confusing the relation between art and reality. Concrete and imaginary spaces are following one to another, colliding, mixed up and then put together again. Bi-localization procedures are just a supplementary but important argument to the principle of distance and irony that are typical in the works of N+N Corsino.

 by Nicole and Norbert Corsino (choreographers)
 Jacques Diennet (musical creation)
 Venue : Ircam, Studio 2

Production : Danse 34.Productions / CICV Pierre Schaeffer

Carrouso and Listen Projects

Now that the European project CARROUSO is in its final phase, researchers of Ircam's Room Acoustics team used instrumental music in order to create holophonic sound effects in a public area.
In the framework of the European project LISTEN, Ircam's Acoustics team developed a tool for conception of 3D sound scenes (ListenSpace) for a reproduction system on headphone. The sound information received by the visitor changes according to his own movements and orientation, for example in a museum.

 by Olivier Warusfel, Etiennne Corteel, Riitta Väänänen, Olivier Delerue (Ircam)
 Venue : Ircam, Studio 4

Khorwa

Real time installation based on the creation of a society of "sound" beings that has its own evolution with mutations and "genetic musical patrimony" sound evolutions.

 by Mikhail Malt (Ircam)
 Venue : Ircam, Espace A202, niveau -2

INTERACTIVE TERMINALS

Bandoneon (Photos)

Bandoneon is a free musical promenade in an urban night time allegory made up of light sources : bulbs, neon, windows, traffic lights... The city architecture behaves as a score the user can visit. On the musical side, it's like sound navigation ; in other words, the spectator travels through localized sound sources, moving according to his situation and actions. Moreover, autonomous dynamic sound processes are attached to the behaviors of each of the objects making up the universe. These processes can be modified by the player's interventions.

The sound technology that was used is a software sampler "FluidSynth", free software created by Peter Hanappe and integrated into the author 3D real time software "Virtools" by Antoine Schmitt. This new tool using the standard SoundFont(.sf2) format to manage sounds sets, offers an important number of real time sound controls. Being much lighter than most of the sound engine, it allows a significant progress in sound possibilities for multimedia sound creation.

Bandoneon is an interactive installation work in progress.

 Conception and 3D realisation : Xavier Boissarie
 Sound design : Roland Cahen
 Graphic design : Véronique Caraux
 Bandoneon sound samples recorded by Victor Villena
 Venue : Ircam, Labo 5

Le Bal

A PC game of sensorial production and exploration allowing you to build music by combining imaginary instruments animated with visual and sound patterns.

 Graphic design : Véronique Caraux - Music and Sound design : Jean-Jacques Birgé and Bernard Vitet - Digital design : Xavier Boissarie
 Venue : Ircam, Labo 5

Cartographie instrumentale

This multimedia production is the result of a nonstop research during several years and aims to create a cartography of instruments. In this case it's a musical instrument : the bassoon. It's the privileged field of artists from Dürer to Jasper Johns ; a musical instrument is a territory that can be explored and represented.

 Production of the "Atelier de recherche et de creation" of the ESI in Angoulême.
 Venue : Ircam, Labo 5

Les Percussions virtuelles

Set up at the "Cité des sciences" (La Villette), virtual percussions are linking video recordings of user movements with sound processing in Max/MSP.

 Production : Laurent Pottier, GMEM
 Venue : Ircam, Niveau -2

Dropper 01 (Photos)

Excitation of percussion instruments by a regular flow of "musical" drops. The installation, which uses Max/MSP, creates water vibrations of marimbas, cymbals, timbales, litophones.

 by Arno Fabre
 Venue : Ircam, Niveau -3

Co-production : Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains