La Force de l'Art 02 - Nicolas Fenouillat

Nicolas Fenouillat

For L.F.D.A. 02.

For La Force de l’Art 02, experimental sound and visual artist Nicolas Fenouillat has created a work that materialises sound. Partition 01 is a wooden sculpture forming a wall measuring 4m50x3mx0.80m, created by translating a sound sequence lasting 9 minutes and 53 seconds, and a recorded heartbeat, into a 3D image. Fenouillat began by composing a drum solo which he performed in the nave of the Grand Palais on the day of the US presidential election in 2008, based on the curve of estimated votes for Barack Obama. His performance was recorded, together with his own heartbeat while playing the drums. The two sound curves were then preserved and vectorised to create a three-dimensional “score” – the physical imprint of a unique experience, a sound landscape fixed in space and time.

This new work explores the limits of the phenomenon of sound. Where does the physical act of producing and executing sound begin and end ? What happens to a fixed sound in a shifting sound environment, when confronted by the spectactor’s gaze ? In what way is the physical effort of the performer represented, in relation to his instrument ? Is his heartbeat and cardiac rhythm the same as the rhythm and pace of the score ? In Partition 01 a real news event, the election of the American president, becomes a kind of mold, out of which the artist creates an ephemeral, sensitive and sensory experience, conceptualised and transformed in its turn, into a work of visual art.
[V.Th.]

Nicolas Fenouillat

Nicolas Fenouillat is an artist, drummer for the group NED, and a member of an alternative group welcoming and organizing concerts in Lyon. In his concerts, games, performances or installations, this polyvalent young artist uses all kinds of tools and media to explore themes such as distress, shifts or the spirit of discovery, while being concerned with the issue of the spectator's participation and his place in the exhibition space. [V. Th.]

Nicolas Fenouillat was born in 1978 in Grenoble.
He lives and works in Lyon.