emilie payeur {----- interdisciplinary artist
GOD
Installation
2022
Eisode, Montreal
To visit (until November 10 2022) :
« But at that former time they saw beauty shining in brightness, when, with a blessed company they saw the blessed sight and vision and were initiated into that which is rightly called the most blessed of Mysteries, which we celebrated in a state of perfection, when we were without experience of the evils which awaited us in the time to come, being permitted as initiates to the sight of perfect and simple and calm and happy apparitions, which we saw in the pure light, being ourselves pure and not entombed in this which we carry about with us and call the body, in which we are imprisoned like an oyster in its shell. Beauty shone in brilliance among those visions. » -Platon
« Ils furent incapables de décrire ce qu’ils avaient vécu. Ils gardèrent dans leur cœur, une profonde expérience. »
This project explores hidden potentials of the electrical activity of a mycelium in order to control sound material. Considered a "neurological network of nature", the mycelium serves as a medium by linking the trees together and allowing the exchange of information between the different species. Émilie Payeur wants to connect herself to the mycelium so she can exchange with it inside a closed electrical circuit. This inter-species communication based on electrical variations is translated into sounds to make it perceivable. By using acupuncture needles inserted into the mycelium and connected to a module processing information, the artist captures electrical variations and uses them to control sounds generated by modular synthesis. The device is inspired by an electronic musical instrument developed by Finnish inventor Erkki Kurenniemi, the Sexophone (1972).