The aim of ELEMENTA is to reintroduce nature into the city and raise public awareness of environmental issues. Geometric modules in the form of monoliths, with surfaces reactive to touch, will be installed around the Bab El Bhar arch. The monoliths act as doorways for dialogue between the public and the monument, transforming it into a luminous and sonorous object. The greater the involvement, the greater the intensity of the sounds, and the denser the organization, the greater the intensity of the lights.
As the preparation of the in situ installation is envisaged as a workshop involving local residents (artists, art students, young people, etc.), the sound creation will be composed of recordings made by the participants around the theme of the environment. Visible from all over the city, intense beams of light will be projected skywards, interacting with sounds recorded on natural sites, as if to communicate a state of emergency.
In addition to ecological tension, the disappearance of these natural sounds in the city also means the disappearance of a link, of the possibility of what Michel Hulin calls « wild mysticism »: finding ourselves confronted with a natural element beyond our control, over which our control seems extremely limited (the sea, seen from a beach, on a mountain hike).
Our aim is not so much to recreate an experience of « wild mysticism » (the lights, the soundtrack, are merely a representation, not produced by nature) as to question the rupture that the city makes with potential experiences of wild mysticism. `
In dialogue with this questioning, the installation raises the issue of the individual’s place in the city. By reacting according to the number of people touching the monoliths, the work, akin to a luminous heart, puts the idea of the collective back at the heart of the necessities of urban living. The individual’s responsibility to his or her environment becomes palpable. Moreover, in contrast to a city made of stone and set in stone, the idea of an organic, living and fragile city is proposed by the installation. It is the involvement of individuals that gives rise to a collective vitality within the urban space.
ElementaIntercal: 2016 Edition
from October 13th to October 14th, 2016