Photophonia
Sandra and Gaspard Bébié-Valérian
“Photophonia” is an installation inspired by a Alexander Graham Bell invention (1880), using light as a transmitter of sound. Although this invention might be considered as obsolete now, in regard of the current technologies, this protocol offers to build and propagate very small and localized networks. The question of the codification of language underlies also the process of this new creation, notably by articulating the politics of data with the plasticity of light, its universality and ephemeral beauty…
This installation exploits the movement of two flashing lights as sound transmitters. The circular mirrors rotating around the bulbs produce an oscillation and hypnotic sound perception. The sound reception is enabled by solar panels connected to an amplifier. This system, although functional, it is nonetheless crude and produces a characteristic brutalist and noise aesthetic.
URLs, short video records from the installation:
Sandra and Gaspard Bébié-Valérian work together since 2004. Their projects include organic, chemical and electronic materials. Interested in energy, food, climate, health or natural and industrial resources, they explore the intricated dependencies between industrial society and the living (human, animal, plant and microbial). Thinking about nature and industry interest them because it reveals, according to them, a paradigm of power games constitutive elements in our society and break with a romantic vision of nature asan immutable environment.
Sandra et Gaspard Bébié-Valérian have exhibited and participated in several exhibitions and festivals including the Science Galleryy (Melbourne), Voltaje Festival (Bogota), Rua Red (Dublin), the EDF Foundation (Paris),the Pyramide du Louvre (Paris), the BIAN (Montreal), Centraltrack (Dallas), the National Dramatic Center (Montpellier), SKOL artcenter and Art Souterrain (Montreal) or the Santa Monica art center (Barcelona)…