Essaim | Swarm

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Swarm sound installation is composed by 250 small speakers, each one reproducing the sound of a flying bee. Suspended in the exhibition space, those sonic devices offer us several listening experiences ranging from the group to the individual. The visitor is invited to approach those small beings and become part of the swarm, in an immersive sonic experience with the bees. It’s then possible to listen to those voices as many individual testimonies by these workers that tend to get unnoticed. We listen to their singing, their screaming or their chatting, in the way of an aerial choir. 

The bees have been recorded with a sound recording studio specifically designed for them. We’ve been able to record their flight while they were foraging inside.

Exhibitions: Jeanne Barret (Marseille, Fr, 2021), Domaine de Kerguéhennec (Vannes, Fr, 2021), Festival Maintenant! (Rennes, Fr, 2021), Wilde Westen (Kortrijk, Be, 2021), Biennale Une 5ème Saison (Aix en Provence, Fr, 2022), Hear Here (Leuven, Be, 2022), Musée Réattu (Arles, Fr, 2022), Campo Base Festival (Val d’Ossola, It, 2022), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam, Nl, 2022),  Donau Festival (Krems, Au, 2023), Sonic Protest (Paris, Fr, 2023), Abbaye de l’Escaladieu (Tarbes, Fr, 2023), Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (Tallinn, Ee, 2023), LaVallée – Semaine du Son (Brussels, Be, 2024), Théâtre Privas (Ardèche, Fr, 2024), Les Rencontres Internationales Traverse (Toulouse, Fr, 2024), Espace Multimédia Gantner (Belfort, Fr, 2024), Le Kiosque (Mayenne, Fr, 2024), Manifesta 15 (Barcelona, Es, 2024),  Laboratorio Arte Alameda (Mx, 2024), Kino Beat Festival (Porto Alegre, Br, 2024), Pinacoteca do Ceará (Fortaleza, Br, 2024), Novas Frequencias (Rio de Janeiro, Br, 2024), MAIF Social Club (Paris, Fr, 2025),

Press: Point Contemporain (Fr), Anonymal TV (Fr), Radio Canal B Rennes (Fr), Meeting with Félix Blume during Maintenant festival at Rennes (Fr), Swarm presented in Kortrijk during the exhibition Sound Art in Public Spaces (Be), We Make Money Not Art (En), Immédiats (Fr), Contemporanéité de l’Art (Fr), Neo2 (Es), Dans La Nature (Fr),

Recording process and design of the recording studio

Production: D.D.A Contemporary Art (Constance Juliette Meffre)
Co-production: M2F Créations / Lab Gamerz, Domaine de Kerguéhennec & Musée Reáttu
Participation of DICRéAM (CNC)
Collaboration with beekeeper Dominique Hardouin and 250 bees
Conception of the recording studio and the sonic devices: Grégoire Lauvin
Conception of the sonic devices version 2: Guillaume Stagnaro
Conception of the sonic devices version 3: Wesley Lee
Assistant: Arthur Thomas
Assistant for the installation: Louis-Marie Ropars and Félix Neumann
Post-Production Assistants: César González, Alejandro Díaz
Coordination and technical riders: Ana Medina
Many thanks to Luce Moreau, Paul Destieu, Sara Lana, Cleo Verstrepen, Andres Blume, Marie-Christine Cabanas, Guillaume Stagnaro, Thomas Hardouin, Lucas Compagnoni, Louis-Marie Ropars, Eric Mezan and Yoav Yaron.
Pictures: Yoav Yaron, Constance Juliette Meffre, Luce Moreau, Arthur Thomas, Louis-Marie Ropars and Félix Blume.

The recordings of each bee, used for the installation, are available on Freesound here.

This project was realized in 2021 in Marseille and Le Thoronet (France).