CONCEPT

"In the field of science and technology that built the Western world there are only machines which accelerates. Whoever invents a machine to slow down will be considered as an absurd man" Paul Virilio, 1991

Dromos is an allegory of the "Dromology concept" as developed by French philosopher and architect Paul Virilio so as to explore the meaning of today's world. As he becomes aware of the essential part that Speed plays in the organization of our societies and territories, and of its ongoing acceleration, he predicts an "integral" accident.

When increasing the speed, you augment impatience

Dromos is a metaphoric AV Performance that takes its concept from the philosophical work of P. Virilo who is mostly known for founding the idea of Dromology (science of speed). Dromos invites audience to a criticism experience of the ’peed’ role that impacts all aspects of our daily lives. During 40mns, it focuses people attention on this essential factor that shapes our world. With its message, Dromos invites you to wonder about your relationship with progress. It’s an unconventional work with an original sensorial approach, placing the audience inside an immersive environment. For 40 minutes attendees are plunged into a 360-degree immersive universe where minimal and experimental sound textures converge and synchronize with sleek, dynamic visuals invoking the aesthetic of speed. The audience experiences a destabilizing environment where the media's flux evolves little by little and the time curve is gradually deconstructed to the point of complete inertia.

ENVIRONMENT

DROMOS has an immersive architecture made of 2 Performers, a 360 degrees Video projection, a 39.1 sound system and a LED Structure, the public is invited to sit down on some pillows placed at the middle of the room. The audience finds itself in the center of a subtle interaction between sounds, lights and visuals in an ephemeral ceremony. The light flow runs on a circular movement with the speed of the BPM and synchronized with the sound spatialization.

Visuals are manipulated at real time in a 3D environment and synchronized with the position of the sound and reacting to the sound analysis such as the bass, beats and others sound effects. The result is a virtual architecture that can be simultaneously expand and contract, bend, and distort in response to the evolution of the performance (Curve tempo Time based). Therefore, each showing will present an entirely new visual and sonic exploration.

IMAGES

DROMOS images series meet Paul Virilio’s statement: Our life stories timeline frame in universal time playground defined as the instant.

Meaning our contemporary society splits distance sizes and removes time scales to keep only the tiniest time, the instant. During the performance, DROMOS proposes to the audience a visual trip, aiming at translating the esthetic of the speed into images; from the high velocity to the lowest tempo, the audience will see the decomposition of the time through a myriad of speed visual variations: among others, 3D Mesh Morphing and superposition effects are used. The expression of the velocity will enable the audience to get closer to the unreachable moment, the decomposition of the instant. From large scale complex architecture and reduction of space, compression or rest of a peaceful moment, to asphyxia feeling and sensation of losing control, the audience will experiment different time scales and their related decomposition.

The event story Telling of DROMOS is set in 8 Chapters

3D REALTIME ENVIRONMENT

In order to perform visuals in a spherical environment, there is the need of manipulating 3d elements at real time taking into consideration its synchronization with other medias. (sound/light).

All Content has been produced generatively using the software Touch Designer from Derivative.

SOUND

DROMOS sound universe has a rich and complex architecture. It depends as the other installation’s elements on the tempo curve (see scheme) that works like a basic rules for the whole installation. It is broadcasted on a 20.1 sound system that immerges audience and allowed high quality dynamic spatial effect (96khz).

The artist makes progressively evolved extreme processed textures that crosses abstract minimal noises and beats along a live which constantly interplays with other medias (lights and images). Different rhythmic phases are developed such as sound transitions that spread out into the performance space toward a lower lever of sound simplification. While the beginning opens on a fast slowdown of surround percussive beat and drone, it shifts frequently then according to the tempo. Variations are combined slowly and result in new sound atmosphere.

The artist who performs live provokes spatial imbalances while playing on the 20 available channels, reinforcing hypnosis feeling for the beginning of the act, and decomposition for the end. Soundscape is smoothly live sculpted, and makes the audience traveling into a 35mn swirl of sound and rhythm mutations.

Mathieu Le Sourd (maotik), is a Digital Artist based in Montreal. Graduated from the London Institute, He completes a Master degree in Digital Arts at the IUA Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona in 2004. His passion for sound and digital art leads him to the production of generative visuals for interactive installation and multimedia performances.

His career starts in 2005 with the conception of an interactive visual system for a performing art company. After a South-American tour, Mathieu returns to Barcelona where he joins the Advanced Processing workshop directed by Casey Reas, Ben Fry and Golan Levin. At the same time, he produces Airport an audio-visual installation presented at the Sonar Festival a few months later.

In 2007, Mathieu moves to Asia and works as an Art director on interactive installations for world famous brands such as Chanel (Tokyo), Chivas (Hong-Kong) and Omega (Bangkok) as well as museums and galleries. At the same time, he performs as resident visual artist in Bed Supper Club, one of the major clubs in South-East Asia . In 2010, he is awarded a grant from the CNC-DICREAM for the production of the multimedia immersive environment performance DROMOS. The piece was presented last year during Mutek Festival and received a large succes and a glowing response from viewers and the media.

In parallel, his restless search for new artistic challenges in a most stimulating technical domain has led him to pursue his career in Montreal, the digital arts capital. Since then, Mathieu collaborates with multimedia studios such as Moment Factory, organizes workshops at the Societed des arts technologique and works on immersive interactive installations, such as OBE, a living digital organism system recently shown in the satosphere.

Fraction is Eric Raynaud, a french electronic music producer and sound plastician currently living in Paris (France). After a 10 years carrier as an indie rock band leader, he ditched in his guitar and her pedal distortion while living in Boston (USA) for a laptop and his virtual tools then began kicking out the jams in 2005 under the name of FRACTION.

Entertaining and challenging at the same time FRACTION's music glitches and bubbles and speaks and breaks and cuts, all while maintaining an engaging melodic conversation with its listeners, keeping bodies stable so the minds feel free to wander. Fraction is often playful, transitioning from the aforementioned well-calculated noise to an enterprising structure of beat and melody in clever and seamless motions. He frst appears on the famous Berlin based imprint Shitkatapult in 2006, then releases two albums on french net label PlastiQPASSION. He signed with record label Infne in 2008, and release a frst record and several remixes under the name of Fraction then lately in 2011 a new album with Composer (The Edges of The world).

In the same he creates a digital arts collectif with visual artist Maotik, where he synthesizes a pronounced liking for experimentations spurred on by meetings and collaborations. He produced with Maotik multimedia surround installation DROMOS and received grant and support of CNC (French National Center of Cinematography). He is now producing new album and preparing new art installation.

Mathieu Le Sourd
Montreal
mail@maotik.com
+1 514 576 8760

Eric Raynaud
Paris
fraction_sound@msn.com
+33 6 83 68 36 76