Since 2010, my research is focused on the particular relationship between sound and light. The process that I use is based on the “optical sound”, principle of the sound motion picture films of the late 1920s and the “graphical sound” developed by Russians and Germans in the 1930s and developed further by Daphne Oram and Norman McLaren in 1940-50.
I’m working on two installations called L’excitation sonore de Zoé T., one version is analog and the other is the digital version. L’excitation sonore de Zoé T. consists of six sound generators in which the soul source of sound is the light. The project does not use any frequency generators or oscillators. Rather, what we hear are sounds generated by harnessing the electromagnetic waves of light rays. Each ‘light-to-sound generator’ consists of a base equipped with a rotating black cardboard in which varying shapes are cut. The disk is activated by a motor. When it turns, the interplay of light with graphical patterns produces a unique palette of sounds.
EXCITATIONS SONORE DE ZOÉ T. (Analog version)
Sound installation – Performance presented at gallery OBORO in Montreal, October 2014.
Optical Sound – Test cardboard wheel 2014
Optical Sound – Test light automation
EXCITATIONS SONORE DE ZOÉ T. (Analog version, 2013)
Presentation during an art residency at gallery OBORO in October 2013. With two light-to-sound generators.
ANALOG VERSION STUDIES
Cardboard disk and photodiode (2011)
The device is placed on a lightbox. Illusion revealed by the cardboard as well as the sound that light generated when the motor speed changes, slow to fast.
DIGITAL VERSION STUDIES: Spinning camera (2012)
Small camera mounted to an electric drill. No sound, just visuel studies. The video begins on a view of the kitchen area from the living room. Then I moved slowly the camera at the Cascade ‘electric water heater’, the TV, the living room lamp and slowly I return to the kitchen.
Casacade, electric water heater (2012)
OTHER STUDIES
16mm and photodiode (2009)
Small cardboard on a lightbox (2010)