Mathias Isouard
Hypergravitation - Installation - 2017
presented as part of the exhibition panorama 19
Hypergravitation is a generative audio, sculptural and kinetic installation. It is a sculptural piece since it incorporates a cylinder of significant size that levitates in the middle of the exhibition space. Taking the form of a space capsule, the sculpture is covered with a strange material of a colour verging on black and whose thickness and texture make it doubtful as to whether it is organic or mineral. Comparable to a “black hole,” the nature of this volume is at once visual and acoustic, as the cylinder also conceals four loudspeakers together with two subwoofers arranged in a cross and directed towards the exterior. These both simulate and reveal the acoustics of the architecture, eliciting sensations of motion in the visitor’s body. As it unfolds, the experiment generates a series of destructurations of the visitor's spatialtemporal references. The piece is also kinetic in that it revolves on itself, relatively slowly like an orbiting satellite, distorting the formal relationship of the work to the structure housing it. And it is generative, in that the operations of the apparatus alternate synchronization and de-synchronization between fluxes of sound and light produced in accordance with a flexible 24-hour cycle inspired by the chronobiological rhythms that govern life on Earth. Occasionally, at unpredictable intervals, the machine starts to race and its gyrations accelerate, while the light and sound it emits seem to compress time, inducing in visitors sensations of kinesthesis and loss of balance or a feeling of aspiration/ repulsion.
