Installation / Concept : Romain Tardy
Music Composition / Sound Direction : Squeaky Lobster a.k.a Loran Delforge
Production : Antivj | Proyecta Festival

The Ark is an ephemeral, site-specific audiovisual installation that took place in the ethnobotanical garden of Oaxaca, Mexico, during the first edition of Proyecta Oaxaca, a new festival dedicated to digital art.

Exceptionnaly, the garden was open at night, and the visitors were invited to walk down the narrow paths that led to the cactus grove standing at its very heart.

In a poetic approach, The Ark gives voice to the plants which are turned into abstract characters: an unpredictable choir, and the beating heart of the garden.

Telling their story and revealing their imaginary nature, The Ark is a mise en abîme of the course. Loosely inspired by the myth of the Great flood, this audiovisual installation in three parts unfolds like a movie projected into space, where the spectator’s motion serves as a camera.

About The Music :

The whole soundtrack was composed as an 8 independent channels ambiophonic piece. The spatial composition was made on location to ensure the most immersive sonic experience possible.

The Ark was created especially for this location and was written as a path through Oaxaca’s Garden, divided in three different parts. A first trail was leading and progressively immersing the walkers into the core of the piece. Shapes of light and whispering sounds were slowly drawing the way to the main scene. The very setting was responding to the inherent nature of the place. Its architecture drawn by cactus, which separates the space in two involuntary chambers of contemplation, allowed the installation to be seen with different perspectives in different angles.

The idea to play with a multi-sided space became a thread in the narrative construction of the piece. The particularity of the location and its direct influence on the piece itself, make the existence of “The Ark” directly related to Oaxaca’s Gardens and difficult to transfer to another context. Working with nature and using plants as a visual prop, gave us the idea not to use their presences only as a projection surface but also as living beings embodying at some point an individual presence. Visually and sonically.

Seeing nature as a whole, consisting of multiple living entities organized under their own rules, obviously led the writing of the piece and its different phases.