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Ten Drum Culture Village in Tainan, Taiwan

Alexandre Lévy was invited in 2015 to set up artistic residency at the Ten Drum Culture Village of Tainan, Taiwan, and create one of his interactive post-modern trees. The installation is suspended on a ficus tree inside a former industrial building. It was completed in November 2015 and will remain in place for 3 years.

Immersion within this installation lets the audience experience heightened sensations of touch, through sounds that reveal the reactive and phantasmatic dimension of our fifth sense.

The sculpture-tree creates a local sound and touch universe which becomes central to all of its surroundings, shooting out poetical growths that are only revealed through interaction. Sound textures are emitted and experienced like fields of living sound, activated by the listener’s presence. Vegetal textures are also selected for their particular touch-related characteristics, and contribute to a consistent plastic whole, which coherently links the two substances, that which one can hear and that which one can touch. Within such an “animated by the audience” scheme, each tree (“In-situ” tree and sculpture-tree) has its own area of (tactile, sounding, interaction) influence, which hybridizes with its natural environment according to the public’s whims. Experiencing sound and touch reveals an ongoing dialog between these two universes, first at the level of each sound module, and then, as these interact, at the center of the installation. The entire set feels like soothing sound rain, which reinforces the sensation of being one with nature.

Immersion et Hybridation  

Chaumont sur Loire, France

At the 2013 International Garden Festival in Chaumont-sur-Loire, France, the Garden of Caresses enticed visitors to immerse themselves in an installation made up of a sculpture-tree spawning as many as 1500 interactive vines and connected to 2 other natural trees by means of interactive cords.

Production cie aKousthéa, jointly produced by the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, GRAME, (town of) La Courneuve, La Ferme du Buisson Scène Nationale de Marne la Vallée. Financially supported by the French ministry of Culture (through the DRAC Île-de-France), General Council of Seine et Marne, du CNC et CIDMA.

Design and Music : Alexandre Lévy 

Plastic design : Sophie Lecomte

Interactivity realisation : Max Bruckert

Construction and direction : aKousthéa cie

Integration and adaptation to the urban or natural site

This version of the installation can be entirely built up or “piggyback” on an existing tree or building, such as a greenhouse.

Garden of Caresses :

An acoustic and interactive immersion in the vegetal realm 

The Garden of Caresses is an invitation to stroll through an interactive set made up of real vines equipped with sensors, which serve as extensions of the surrounding natural environment.

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