Co-created with composer Patrick Saint-Denis, this project unites video, musical composition and sound outside of mainstream traditional and commercial formats.

For approximately 60 minutes, a musical score for string quartet, percussion quartet and computers is interpreted in a video installation. Seating is arranged in concentric circles with the string quartet in the middle and the percussion quartet on the perimeter. A three-dimensional amplification system and four screens also surround the audience.

Our listening habits, strongly conditioned by television and cinema, often see us relegate music and image to a secondary role when compared with narration. This project is designed to give sound, musical composition and image equal footing outside narrative confines. The object is for narration to give way to a narrativity that is specific to each medium.

Special attention is given to the immersive character of the project through the 3D spatialization of computer-generated sounds, the live 3D spatialization of acoustic instruments and the musical composition’s management of space. The video image, juxtaposed and simultaneously projected on four 16’X9’ screens, is in continual movement, placing the spectator inside a fiction in constant transformation.

The video images, primarily landscapes, interiors and portraits, are digitally manipulated on site. The acoustic instruments are linked to various components of the image through the use of the programming platform max/msp/jitter, giving rise to a formal interactivity between the two. The immersive cohabitation of image and sound allow audience members to experience an event enriched by the unique characteristics of both concert and installation.

Research and creation of this project have been funded by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.