SEQUENCE #5: SOUND ARTS

Sequence #5 : sound arts
From 10 March to 13 August 2023

The Lavoir Numérique first opened its doors two years ago (in October 2020). It is an atypical public cultural institution made up of three departments (photography, video and sound art) and is one of the rare places in France to focus on contemporary audiovisual creation. Its vast, exciting and vital mission consists in analysing the all-embracing flow of image and sound-based information that provides inspiration, while trying to understand its principles and sources, how it is transmitted (mainly on the Internet) and finally measuring its repercussions. Suffice it to say that we have set ourselves an ambitious task because, by trying to explain “how it all works”, we end up by exploring questions at the heart of contemporary society.

After having shown how photography changed with the advent of internet and presenting video surveillance from the viewpoint of video itself (remembering that it is first and foremost filmed images); after taking a look at art created on social media with the works of Anne Horel and plunging into the world of conspiracy theories by analysing them in our own unique way (both seriously and with levity), it was time to take a look at what was happening in sound art.

And it is indeed “looking” at sound that is the subject of this new sequence. Whereas Visualiser le son deals with data that can indifferently generate sounds or images and looks at the technological tools that are reinventing musical composition, the cinema programme accompanying the exhibition presents an overviewof the relationship between “audio” and “visual”. Finally, the filmed debate (the famous Rencontre du Lavoir) and the podcasts we will be producing to accompany this event will allow us to envisage this world of sound that is in the process of being built.

Michaël Houlette
Director of the Lavoir Numérique and the Maison Doisneau.