L'Archipel
Summary: Sonia and Edouard spent two weeks in residency at the GMEA to work on their project L’Archipel. During their stay, they led a workshop titled L’Archipel Mécanique, which invited participants to draw inspiration from the history of mechanical and electronic music in order to reclaim the principles of music boxes and sequencers.
Sonia Saroya & Edouard Sufrin develop a fragile and discreet universe that questions the sensory impact of our environments and their influence on our cognitive mechanisms. By bringing together the imaginaries and symbolisms carried by underground landscapes and industrial remnants with the emancipatory issues raised by the humanities and philosophy, they seek to highlight the paradoxes of contemporary societies while reconsidering our capacities for action and our forms of know-how.
Their work consists of installations positioned at the crossroads of sculpture, craft, and sound art, as well as creations resembling “tool-works”—devices enabling collective artistic experiences to take place within marginal spaces.
This residency will allow them to pursue their research into the relationships between mineral origins and the sonic qualities of early electronic components, with the aim of creating a sound instrument-sculpture. Conceived as a duet-played sound sculpture, it is meant to be activated during live performances and collaborations with sound artists and musicians. Within this archipelago, each island is both a sculpture and an instrumental module. The time spent at GMEA will be devoted to finalizing the resonant filter modules and envelope generators, while developing a tangible interface that encourages musical gesture.