ECHORDA III

Sound Art Installation for an upright piano, a baby grand piano, tubes and glockenspiels
By Florent Naulin, POL and Goodbye Ivan

The movement, the importance given to percussive dynamics, the heterogeneous hybridizations, the recycling (the upright piano of Echorda III is an antique from the 1930s, the baby grand was saved from being dismantled). There is undeniably something which, in the work of Goodbye Ivan, Florent Naulin and POL, recalls Jean Tinguely's work, and the din of his infernal backfiring machines. According to its three designers, if Echorda is not to be considered as a tribute in the strict sense, nor as the result of a conscious and assumed influence, there is indeed what in biology is called a phenomenon of convergent evolution. But this work fits into different premises, which are those of a search for the unexpected in musicality. Echorda is a diversion machine, a complex and virtuoso exoskeleton whose function is to make artefacts resonate outside and beyond their primary functions.

A robot engineered by Florent Naulin is actioning sixty-four solenoid hammers playing compositions written by POL and Goodbye Ivan.

Presented at Galerie Halle Nord, Geneva Switzerland
January 20 - February 12, 2022

https://halle-nord.ch/event/echorda