beyond6281 : electro-acoustic installation
©2004 artificiel (burton, lakatos, roy) + pascale malaterre

beyond6281 is an electro-acoustic installation that explores the light bulb as sound source. By feeding processed audio signals in powerful amplifiers, it is possible to bring the coil of large (1000W) light bulbs in an excited state, producing an acoustic, audible vibration. The sonorities are strange, the tungsten and glass materials of the bulbs acting like rich but band-limited filters. Sometimes understandable whispers, other times purely synthetic tones, the bulbs are telling their story in five moments.

This installation is a derivation of the condemned_bulbs (2003), a large installation based on 64 lights bulbs. After exploring the visual impact of a light grid deployed in a vast space, we were interested in pushing the sound work in order to bring in a more introvert, almost tactile setting. Here, light is a consequence of sound, but the sound is articulated in order to bring out a meaningful, intimate visual resonance.

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Created at 6281 St-Dominique (Montréal) in December 2004 by artificiel, with the collaboration of Pascale Malaterre as writer and narrator.

Presented at TransitioMX festival (Mexico, MX 2005), Waves06 festival (Riga, LV 2006), Arborescence festival (Aix-en-provence, FR 2006), and/or gallery (Dallas, US 2006), Mutek/Buenos Aires festival (Argentina, 2006), killyourtimidnotion festival (Dundee, UK 2007).

This project has been supported by the Canada Arts Council.