“Garden of Sensations” is an interactive sound installation set in a garden or a park.

 

It was designed for “listening to” sensations, and going through, seeing and touching sounds.

 

A TRANSDISCIPLINARY APPROACH :

 

• A MUSICAL CONCEPT : THE REAL VS. THE VIRTUAL SCORE

 

• A PLASTIC CONCEPT : STAGING THE OBJECT

 

• A PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT : GILLES CLÉMENT’S “MOVING GARDEN” THEORY

 

The music played throughout this installation comes from a real score. At the interactive level, the music is reorganized and uploaded into modules that create a “virtual score”. By means of its interactivity, the installation encourages participants to add their own touch of imagination, at least in part, giving reality to the virtual score.

 

At the end of the real score performance, listeners are invited to experiment with the same, but reorganized music. Each participant dances, using his or her body to brush up against, touch or just pass by the various modules. The audience-turned-performers thus add their own fancy to the installation, and instinctively and playfully redefine it.

 

The installation modules make use of ordinary objects found in gardens. Beyond diverting them, the artist sublimates their everyday role by staging them musically and poetically. Their symbolic value is emphasized through this shifted perspective.

 

A 2-PART WORK :

• PART 1: LISTENING TO A MUSICAL PIECE

• PART 2: INTERACTING WITH THE AUDIENCE

 

How it works:

 

In Part 1, music is performed in a closed space for listeners. The 5-module interactive installation is set up outside this space, but in close proximity.

 

The five interactive modules in the “Garden of Sensations” are: The Lovers' Bench, Tree-Brushing, Birdhouses, The Door and The Mirror, and the Territory of Fireflies.

 

Sequence of Events:

 

Instrumental and electroacoustic pieces are played at different times of day. The audience can first access the closed space where these are played, and then discover the interactive garden. Or the other way around. The type of interactivity and sounds heard in the Garden of Sensation change along with each musical performance. The public can thus experience two distinct temporalities: short and continuous with the performances, and diffuse with the installation.

 

The various performance types include piano + electroacoustics, percussions + electroacoustics, ambulatory flute + electroacoustics, as well as combinations of these.

 

Design, music and execution: Alexandre Lévy

Design, installation and videos: Sophie Lecomte

Computerized musical  programming: Max Bruckert

Stage props and lights: Jean-Louis Esclapès

Sound engineer: David Thomas

 

This joint aKousthéa production was made with the cooperation of: GRAME, Musée Gadagne (Lyons), the cities of La Courneuve and Savigny-le-Temple, the Ferme du Buisson (National Stage of Marne-la-Vallée) and the Val d’Europe urban community, and was Co-financed by: GRAME and the Musée Gadagne.

 

It received financial support from: the French Ministry of Culture throughDRAC Île-de-France, the General Council of Seine-et-Marne, the Cinema National Center (CNC) and the DICRÉAM.