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Mutations
Plastic and musical numeric installation
© B. Gortais/Y. Orlarey/G. Hutzler
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:: Credits ::
- Bernard Gortais (scenography and plastic design)
- Guillaume Hutzler (technical design and
programming)
- Yann Orlarey (musical design and programming)
:: Exhibitions ::
- March
10th-19th 2000: Musiques en Scène
contemporary music festival, Lyon Cité Sonore, Grame, Lyon
(France)
- December 7th-10th 2000: Les
Nouveaux Gutenberg, Morlaix (France)
- April 3rd-June 9th 2001: Art
et technologie festival, espace Jean Legendre,
Compiègne (France)
- March 28th-May
1st 2001: Traverser un jardin silencieux,
Bernard Gortais personal exhibition, Abbaye des Prémontrés,
Pont-à-Mousson (France)
- September 26th-October
4th 2003: Arborescence Contemporary art
festival, Aix-en-Provence
- October 13th-18th 2009: La
Novela, festival des savoirs, Toulouse (France)
:: Publications ::
In English
Hutzler G., Gortais B., Orlarey
Y., "Mutations: Plastic and Musical Improvisation by
Distributed Agents", in World Multiconference on Systemics,
Cybernetics and Informatics 2001, Orlando (Florida, USA),
N. Callaos, X. Zong, C. Vergez and J. R. Peleaz eds, Volume
X, pp. 380 385, IIIS, Orlando, 2001.
Hutzler G.,
Gortais B., Drogoul A., "The Garden of Chances: a Visual
Ecosystem", in Leonardo, Vol. 33, Issue 2, pp. 101-106,
April 2000, International Society for the Arts, Sciences and
Technology, MIT Press.
In French
Hutzler G., "Le Has(Art) et la
néce(Cité) - Une approche (auto-)poïétique des systèmes
complexes", Thèse d'Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches,
Université d'Evry-Val d'Essonne, 15 juin 2011.
Hutzler G., "Le Has(art) et la
nécessité", Esthétique et Complexité - Créations,
expérimentations et neurosciences, Z. Kapoula et
L.-J. Lestocart éds., pp. 85-102, Editions du CNRS, Paris,
2011.
:: Presentation ::
A sound ecosystem
In this project, created in collaboration
with
Y. Orlarey
of Grame (Hutzler et al. 2001), the focus was on sound
dynamics alongside visual dynamics. The main idea was to
enable the agents making up the image to "sing" according to
their individual "state of form", and according to their
mutual interactions. The aim is to establish musical dialogues
between neighboring shapes in the image and, more generally, a
musical composition at system level. At a higher level, the
project is to link four distinct systems, connected to four
sources of meteorological data corresponding to four
geographical locations symbolizing the four seasons (Capetown,
Oslo, Shuzhou, Rio de Janeiro). The aim is to fully immerse
the viewer in an ever-changing visual and aural ambience, with
strong contrasts in both visual and aural terms.
Has(art) and necessity
To avoid cacophony, the agents' "voices" need to harmonize,
and not all agents need to sing simultaneously. The first
aspect has been addressed by associating sampled sound files
with the agents, created and selected to form a coherent sound
palette for each system. The second aspect is addressed by
considering that agents, as they evolve in the ecosystem,
acquire a greater or lesser amount of energy. Those whose
energy exceeds a high S
h threshold can then
spontaneously sing (see below), propagating a sound wave
around them. Agents that perceive a sound wave can in turn
sing, provided their energy exceeds a low threshold
S
b (see below). The intensity of singing is
proportional to the energy of the agent producing it. Singing
is also accompanied by a decrease in energy, so as to prevent
two neighboring agents from activating each other infinitely.

Orchestration of situated agents
From an artistic point of view, the system produces a visual
and sound composition that is constantly renewed, while always
maintaining a "style" in keeping with the wishes of composer
Y.Orlarey. This delicate dynamic balance is achieved through
the composition of the rules described above and the
intervention of chance to constantly bring about
novelty. Compared with the regulation of spatial clutter
introduced in Le Jardin des Hasards, we have here more dynamic
principles of information transmission and synchronization,
which can also be recycled for the design of visualization
systems.