The sound installation PAUSE is made of 5 hammocks connected to each other at the center by a system of springs. Any movement caused by the presence of a visitor is transmitted to the other hammocks.

When a visitor sit in a hammock or leave it, s/he causes rocking movements which are detected by sensors. The information influences in real time the audio-tactile events transmitted by 9 loudspeakers distributed in the hammocks. The sounds become really audible only for spectators who lie in the hammock and press the hands on their ears. The mechanical vibrations resulting from the transmission of the sounds in the loudspeakers become perceptible on the body itself and the sounds are retransmitted in the inner ear by bone conduction. Each loudspeaker has its own channel so that the sounds, and the vibrations they cause, can move on the body from one source to another. The spectator is thus confronted with different types of movements: the swinging of the hammocks, the vibration of the loudspeakers and the movement of the sounds and their vibrations from one speaker to another.

By Lynn Pook (see also A Fleur de Peau)

Pause is part of the Festival Emergences, in La Vilette (close to Paris), Sept. 24 – Oct. 2.

Related: Hammock of electricity.