Intermedia installation by Pascal Baltazar, with Pol Perez's complicity

Anatomie de l’invisible is a intermedia installation using sound, light, electric wires and more, in order to create an organic experience of space for the visitor, as if placed inside of a living body.

 (images by Chrystel Rostaing/es'tampa - Video editing by P. Baltazar)

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The leading idea for this work is the metaphor of place as an organism and nervous system. Anatomie de l’invisible brings the invisible activity of the electrical frame of the place to the senses: as the nervous influx allows both our perception of the world and our action on it, electricity is here the main material of the installation, and circulates through all sonic and visual phenomena and in their interactions.
The installation is composed of several “organs” that can be distributed among different spaces, according to the configuration of the place in which it is installed. Each of these organs has its own behavior, with reciprocal influences from the other organs and from the visitors presence and activity: a sensing system is thus used for “soft interaction” with the visitors, aiming to create a sensation of mutual presence rather than any direct and conscious interaction.

A simulation of the cerebral rhythms leads the global behavior and temporal evolution of the installation. This was inspired by the collaboration with a neurophysiologist during the conception of the work.
All the elements of the installation are interrelated, not only in their behaviors, but also through their materials: for example, the parasites caused by the neon tubes’ flickering are captured and granulated in synchrony with the movement of servo-motors shaking an anarchic network of wires. In the next room, vibration of a light wire creates both a slowly moving spectral drone surrounding it, and a low rumbling sound in the opposite space of whose the variations modulate the colors and intensity of light projectors...

Installation premiered at Maison Salvan, Labège, France : from november 9th to 25th   
Presented at the Journées Électriques  festival, Albi, march 2008

Performances by dance company La Zampa at both openings

Commissioned by Maison Salvan - Residency 2007 Ville de Labège  - Coproduction Maison Salvan   / GMEA     

 Images recorded at Maison Salvan by  Soraya Azouz :