Yann Robin
Symétriades / Extension - Performance - 2017
presented as part of the exhibition panorama 19
Performance
Symétriades/Extension takes the form of an
audio, visual and performative piece. The poetic
universe of this project is borrowed directly from
Solaris, a science fiction novel by Stanislas Lem.
Solaris is a planet orbiting a pair of suns
whose surface is entirely covered by an ocean
of protoplasmic matter that constitutes an
impenetrable enigma for the scientists who have
been studying it for almost a century.
The ocean surface throws up gigantic formations
the scientists baptise according to their shape
or characteristics: Longus, Mimoids, Agilus,
Vertebrids, Symetriads, Asymetriads…
Symétriades/Extension is the fruit of a
collaboration between Nicolas Crosse (double
bass player), Alain Fleischer (visual artist), and
Yann Robin (composer).
Our intention with this work is to give rise to a
gigantic, organic, “living” creature whose every
component is interdependent and whose nerve
centre whose vital organ is constituted by the
double bass player and his instrument.
The soloist and the double bass will be positioned
on a structure placed in the middle of the
“playing” space. The instrumentalist’s body,
the double bass, as well as the structure,
will act as surfaces on which various visual
dimensions will come to life.
By extension, this visual entity, whatever
its forms, will extend and proliferate in the
architectural space hosting the performance.
The plan is to produce the project in the large
hall at Le Fresnoy.
This space would make an ideal set into which
the double bass player, the epicentre of the
events, would be thrown as into an arena to
be observed from balconies overhanging the
“playing” surface.
The sound of the solo instrument will be
transformed in real time by algorithms and
relayed (spatialised) through an arrangement
of loudspeakers and subwoofers laid out around,
above and below the audience.
The combined effect of both the visual and the
audio will be like plunging the audience into
an immersive experience of engulfment. The
audiovisuals will be correlated by the soloist’s
gestures with his instrument; that is,
the reactions of the digital equipment (visual
and audio) will depend on the physical action
of the double bass player and the energy he
transmits through his instrument.
The aim of what is inevitably an interaction,
a fusion between the worlds of the seen and
the heard, is the invention, the creation of an
Unindentified Visiomusical Object rooted
solely in perceptual, sensory experience…
