TUTTI is an interactive installation by Zahra Poonawala, where movements generate musical modifications, appearances or disappearances of instrumental parts. The loudspeakers, mounted on motors, follow the movements of the visitors.

‘This piece tends to prolong a reflection started several years ago, which questions the sound and visual relationships between a part and a whole, between production and perception of sound. While previous works offered a static presentation, this one places the spectator in the position of explorer for the first time. Drawing on the precedent of ‘acousmoniums’ or loudspeaker orchestras, the work aims to materialise a more dynamic experience of listening based on movement.

The space occupied by the installation is given, but it can be perceived in different ways. It is first marked by a fixed marker, that of the wall of loudspeakers which forms the background, both visually and audibly. Its characters each have a different volume, register and character. In front of this background, soloists stand out, isolated loudspeakers that are endowed with mobility, since they react to the movements of the spectator, who is encouraged to move to make them react. The different sound planes redouble this spatial organisation. From a complex fundamental chord that forms a base, the reaction to the spectator’s movements determines changes in intensity, launching solos that stand out from the sound mass. To come closer is to listen, it is also to elicit a differentiated sound response.

The recorded music, born from the proposals of Zahra Poonawala, was written by Gaëtan Gromer for a chamber music ensemble. Influenced by works such as that of Giacinto Scelsi, it is heard as a complex chord in which the spectator, like a speleologist, will direct the lamp of their attention to such a desk, such a part of the orchestra, traveling inside the sound as through the space circumscribed by the installation. »

_Stéphane Valdenaire.

Credits

Sound installation by Zahra Poonawala

Composition: Gaëtan Gromer

Production: Le Fresnoy 2012

Flutes: Ayako Okubo

Clarinets: Adam Starkie

Violin: Marie Osswald

Viola: Antoine Spindler

Cello: Anne-Catherine Dupraz

Double bass: Elodie Peaudepièce

Computer music: Benoît Jester, Gaëtan Gromer

Robotic computing: Antoine Rousseau

Computer detection: David Lemarchal

Construction: Jean-Marc Delannoy

In partnership with Métalu