Video trailer, 2022

Phosphène
Audiovisual performance, 30min, 2022
Video & light projection on audience with closed eyes, multichannel audio setup, motorised directional loudspeakers.

ENG
Phosphene is a film for closed eyes and spatial sound. It uses a projection on the audience’s eyelids, a multichannel sound setup and motorised directional loudspeakers.

Inspired by dreams, neurosciences and hypnosis, the project aims to explore varieties of inner spaces.
It is an attempt to reach those territories we might tend to forget or deny, between the surface of the senses and our interpretation of reality, in the depths of imagination, illusions and doubts.

The experience invites to co-create a subjective film made by the setup's signals and their understanding by the viewer. The composition triggers sensorial phenomenon (psycho-physic) and activates mechanics of our perceptive system which tries to decipher a coherent reality. In a bidirectional dialogue of projection and injection, the viewer filters, transform and apply its own inner intimates materials (memories, imagination) on the signals that reaches him. The performance invites to collectively dive into those inner meanders and to reconsider our reality making processes.

Phosphene has been developed at the ArtScience Interfaculty (The Hague, NL), laureate of the "Digital Arts, Sound Art & New Writings" residency at Château Éphémère (FR), and received the "Technology & Society Award" by Waag Future Lab (Amsterdam, NL)
The project has been showed in various contexts and fields such as expanded cinema (Venice Art Biennale, OFNI Poitiers), experimental music (Vortex Geneva), digital arts (36 degrés Paris ; Le Cube Garges) and Art Science (Waag Amsterdam). It has been presented in relation to topics of immersion, human psyche, alternative mode of visions (non-anthropocentric, untutored eyes, impaired) and has been created in parallel of a research on dreams, human perception and political implications of our meaning making processes.

FR
Phosphène est un film pour paupières closes et son spatial. Son dispositif consiste en une vidéo-projection sur les yeux fermés du public, d'un système sonore multicanal et de haut-parleurs hyperdirectifs motorisés.

Inspiré par les champs du rêve, des neurosciences et de l'hypnose, le projet explore une variété d'espaces intérieurs. C'est une proposition d'accès à ces territoires que nous pourrions avoir tendances à délaisser ou nier, entre la surface des sens et notre interprétation du réel, dans les profondeurs de l'imagination, des illusions et doutes.

L'expérience proposée est celle de la co-création d'un film subjectif, réalisé à la fois par les signaux émis par le dispositif, ainsi que par leurs lectures par le spectateur. La composition audiovisuelle s'adresse aux sens et active les mécaniques du système perceptif qui tente d'en déduire une réalité cohérente. Dans un jeu d'injections et de projections, le spectateur filtre, transforme et applique ses propres matériaux intimes (vécu, souvenirs, imagination) sur ces stimuli qui lui parviennent. La performance invite à plonger collectivement dans nos méandres intérieurs et à re-considérer nos façons d'appréhender le réel.

Phosphène à été développé au sein de la ArtScience Interfaculty (La Haye, NL), lauréat de la résidence "Arts numériques, art sonore et nouvelles écritures" du Château Éphémère (FR) et à reçu l'award "Technology & Society" du Waag Future Lab (Amsterdam, NL).
Le projet a été présenté lors de différents contextes appartenant autant au mondes de l'Art-Science (Waag, Amsterdam), du cinéma étendu (Venice Art Biennale, OFNI Poitiers), de la musique expérimentale (Vortex Genève), et des arts numériques (36 degrés Paris, Le Cube Garges). Il a été mis en relations avec les notions d'arts immersifs, de psyché humaine, de modes de visions alternatifs (non anthropocentré, mal-voyance, oeil non-éduqué) et s'est fait en parallèle d'une recherche sur le rêve, la perception humaine et les implications politiques de nos processus de création de sens et de réalité.

Phosphène, live at Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR. Pic by Frank Farre.

Verbatim, audience feedback:
J: "I didn't know there was so much space between my eyes and my eyelids."
V: “At some point I didn’t know if it was my mind, seeing something, or if it was actually a projection. And it was… very comforting and very unsettling at the same time”
J: "I was trying to imagine the space"
C: "I could feel the warm of the brightness"
J: "I was trying not to see"
V: “When it’s dark you feel like “something might happen”, you don’t know what to expect”
J: "I wanted to open my eyes to see what was approaching me"
C: "I wanted to open my eyes like when we want a dream to end"
V: “It was so oversaturated at some point that we were not really free of any thoughts and some other times that was the opposite.”
R: “I really liked the differences in the eyes because, then your mind starts trying to piece that together.”
A: “When I had different things in my two eyes I really felt “Is there something moving really close to my face?”"
X: "It was a projection straight into my unconscious"
X: "I had never seen my own eyes"

Waag Future Lab "Technology & Society Award":
"Phosphene is cinema for experiencing and observation of our inner world, our inner self, which is a great finding in the context of immersive media, not using sophisticated VR technology but projection on the audience’s eyelids, combined with immersive sound. Just because in a world wherein more and more consumer media screens and applications push their endless audio-visual streams towards us, Phosphene represents a media work that does the opposite. It directs attention back towards ourselves, yet by simultaneously remaining abstract it makes us experience being approached, being left, being thrown back onto ourselves. It may be a stretch to relate this experience of inner observation to that of opposite direction, but it may train us not only to look better inside, but also outward. Senses, sharpened from both ends, in and outside to understand our world and what we do in it and do to it." (Jury report, Waag Future Lab "Technology & Society Award", Amsterdam, NL)

Support & Award
. Waag Future Lab "Technology & Society Award", Amsterdam, NL. Jury report
. Château Éphémère, "Digital Arts, Sound Art & New Writings", research residency, FR.
. Dreieck Interference, cooperative of sonic thoughts.

Agenda
2025
May: Phosphene tour - FR, CH, IT, HR - currently looking for more dates
May 24th: tba, Phosphene, CH
2024
Nov 23rd: Phosphene at Venice Art Biennale, Bestiari's closing, Catalan Pavillon, IT
Nov 19th: Phosphene live & Workshop, Fabrica, Treviso, IT. link
May 25th: Phosphene, organised by l'ensemble Vortex, Fonderie Kluger, Geneva, CH. (link)
May 24th: Phosphene, DNA Festival, Arcan, Grenoble, FR. (link)
2023
Dec 13th: Phosphène, exposition cerveau-machine, Le Cube, Garges-lès-Gonesse, FR (link)
July 6th: Phosphene, Waag Future Lab, Amsterdam, NL (link)
June 16th: Phosphène, Exposition Psych.e, 36 degrés & Galerie Charlot, Paris, FR (link)
2022
Nov. 10th: Phosphene @ Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, FR
Nov. 4th: Phosphene @ Novembre Numérique, Alliance Française de Rotterdam, NL
July 24th: Les Habité.e.s festival, Stimultania, Strasbourg, FR
July 1-5th: KABK, Den Haag, NL
May 13-15th: ArtScience Chronic Now, Den Haag, NL
April 8th : ArtScience Shortcut, Spring Festival, Amare, Institute of Sonology, Den Haag, NL
Feb 18th: Live at Château Ephémère, FR.
Feb. : Research residency "Digital Arts, Sound Art & New Writings" at Château Ephémère, FR

Full performance (video documentation):

Documention, full performance: Phosphene, Live at Spring Festival, Amare, Institute of Sonology, Den Haag, NL, 2022

Pictures:

Phosphène, live at Chronic Now exhibition, The Hague, NL, 2022. © Myles Merkel & Finn Stevenhagen

Phosphène, live at Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR. Pic by Frank Farre.

Phosphène, live at Festival OFNI, Jazz à Poitiers, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR. Pic by Frank Farre.

Phosphène, audiovisual performance, residency at Château Éphémère, FR.

Phosphene, live at Venice Art Biennale, Bestiari's closing program, Catalan Pavillon, 2024

Phosphene, Live at Fabrica, Treviso, IT., 2024

Phosphène, live at Psych.e exhibition, 36 degrés & Galerie Charlot, Paris, 2023. Pic by Quentin Chevrier.

Phosphène, live at Psych.e exhibition, 36 degrés & Galerie Charlot, Paris, 2023. Pic by Quentin Chevrier.

Phosphène, live at Psych.e exhibition, 36 degrés & Galerie Charlot, Paris, 2023. Pic by Quentin Chevrier.

Phosphene at KABK, Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag, 2022. Pic by Charlotte Brand.

Phosphène, live at Psych.e exhibition, 36 degrés & Galerie Charlot, Paris, 2023. Pic by Quentin Chevrier.

Phosphène, live at Chronic Now exhibition, The Hague, NL, 2022. © Myles Merkel & Finn Stevenhagen

Phosphene, live at Venice Art Biennale, Bestiari's closing program, Catalan Pavillon, 2024

More:

Phosphene, graphical score, 2022

Phosphene has been developed in parallel with the thesis -> We Fall and then We Dream, on connections between neurosciences, dreams & political imaginaries.

keywords: expanded cinema, retina film, closed eye movie, subjective cinema, inner projection.

For organizers:
Tech Rider:
armandlesecq_phosphene_tech-rider
Full performance documentation:
https://vimeo.com/748099297
Video file:
https://filmfreeway.com/projects/3005915