L’Allumette qui cache la forêt

Sound artist Yann Leguay develops devices which produce different sounds depending on the energy powering them. With L’Allumette qui cache la forêt, he explores pre-electrical ways of generating energy — steam power, spring-driven motors, gravitational energy, flywheels aka Peltier effect — to activate electronic circuits. The project was developed during a residency in Sankt Georgen in the Black Forest, a major centre for mechanical music in the nineteenth century, and sets autonomous, interdependent systems in motion, just like an archaic modular synthesizer would. Situated between sculpture and experimentation, it questions the notion of efficiency while turning the gaps between technical systems and their environment into sound.