sound installation
As a fellow at the French Academy in Rome, I became interested in the anamorphoses in frescoes found in Rome, such as those in Trinita dei Monti and San Ignazio. Seeing these works, I was inspired by this perspectual distortion, where the viewer must adjust their viewpoint in order to experience the full effect of the image. How could I imagine a sonic equivalent to this phenomenon, where the listener explores their changing perceptions within the sound field? This is the question that led to the creation of a series of sonic anamorphosis.
Sound Anamorphose #2 (as Anamorphose #1) is based on an idea developped Pierre Schaeffer : the nature of an instrument can only be guessed from its timbre AND dynamics. For instance, if you take a piano sound, remove the attack, and slowly fade it in, the listener will have a hard finding the origin of that sound.
Anamorphose #2 was installed in the « potager du roi » (King’s vegetable garden) in Versailles. One loudspeaker (pale blue on the picture) was placed on one side of the garden on a high wall, playing a piano sound without attack. Another one (pale blue), on another high wall, playing a harpsichord sound without attack.
These two sounds could be heard from any position in the garden:
At a specific position in the garden were two loudspeakers (red on the pict) playing the corresponding attack sounds. This could only be heard within a limited area. At the anarmophose point, the listener could understand that the sounds he/she had been hearing in the garden were a piano sound and a harpsichord sound.
→ Festival Plastique Danse Flore