Armand Lesecq - Phosphène
Audiovisual performance, 30min, 2022
Video projection on audience with closed eyes, multichannel audio setup, hyper-directional loudspeaker.
FR
Phosphène est un film pour paupières closes et son spatial. Son dispositif consiste en une vidéo-projection sur les yeux fermés du public, d'un système sonore multicanal et de haut-parleurs hyperdirectifs motorisés.
Inspiré par les champs du rêves, des neurosciences et de l'hypnose, le projet vise à explorer une variété d'espaces intérieurs. C'est une tentative d'accès à ces territoires que nous pourrions avoir tendances à délaisser ou nier, entre la surface des sens et notre interprétation du réel, dans les profondeurs de l'imagination, des illusions et doutes.
Phosphene à été développé au sein de la ArtScience Interfaculty (La Haye, NL), lauréat de la résidence "Arts numériques, art sonore et nouvelles écritures" du Château Éphémère (FR) et à reçu l'award "Technology & Society" du Waag Future Lab (Amsterdam, NL).
ENG
Phosphene is a film for closed eyes and spatial sound. It uses a projection on the audience’s eyelids, a multichannel sound setup and a motorised hyper-directive loudspeaker.
Inspired by dreams, neurosciences and hypnosis, the project aims to explore varieties of inner spaces.
It is an attempt to reach those territories we might tend to forget or deny, between the surface of the senses and our interpretation of reality, in the depths of imagination, illusions and doubts.
Phosphene has been develop in the ArtScience Interfaculty (The Hague, NL), laureate of the "Digital Arts, Sound Art & New Writings" residency at Château Éphémère (FR), and received the "Technology & Society Award" by Waag Future Lab (Amsterdam, NL)
Phosphène, live at Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR. Pic by Frank Farre.Verbatim
J: "I didn't know there was so much space between my eyes and my eyelids."
V: “At some point I didn’t know if it was my mind, seeing something, or if it was actually a projection. And it was… very comforting and very unsettling at the same time”
J: "I was trying to imagine the space"
C: "I could feel the warm of the brightness"
J: "I was trying not to see"
V: “When it’s dark you feel like “something might happen”, you don’t know what to expect”
J: "I wanted to open my eyes to see what was approaching me"
C: "I wanted to open my eyes like when we want a dream to end"
V: “It was so oversaturated at some point that we were not really free of any thoughts and some other times that was the opposite.”
R: “I really liked the differences in the eyes because, then your mind starts trying to piece that together.”
A: “When I had different things in my two eyes I really felt “Is there something moving really close to my face?”"
X: "It was a projection straight into my unconscious"
Waag Future Lab "Technology & Society Award"
"Phosphene is cinema for experiencing and observation of our inner world, our inner self, which is a great finding in the context of immersive media, not using sophisticated VR technology but projection on the audience’s eyelids, combined with immersive sound. Just because in a world wherein more and more consumer media screens and applications push their endless audio-visual streams towards us, Phosphene represents a media work that does the opposite. It directs attention back towards ourselves, yet by simultaneously remaining abstract it makes us experience being approached, being left, being thrown back onto ourselves. It may be a stretch to relate this experience of inner observation to that of opposite direction, but it may train us not only to look better inside, but also outward. Senses, sharpened from both ends, in and outside to understand our world and what we do in it and do to it." (Jury report, Waag Future Lab "Technology & Society Award", Amsterdam, NL)
Phosphène, live at Chronic Now exhibition, The Hague, NL, 2022. © Myles Merkel & Finn Stevenhagen
Phosphène, live at Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR. Pic by Frank Farre.
Phosphène, live at Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR. Pic by Frank Farre.Award
Waag Future Lab "Technology & Society Award", Amsterdam, NL. Jury report
"Digital Arts, Sound Art & New Writings" residency, Château Éphémère (FR).
More
https://www.armandlesecq.com/av-show/phosphene
Phosphène, live at Chronic Now exhibition, The Hague, NL, 2022. © Myles Merkel & Finn Stevenhagen
Phosphène, live at Chronic Now exhibition, The Hague, NL, 2022.