Scenocosme's Kymapetra

The title Kymapetra is a combination of two ancient Greek words, kyma meaning a wave or vibration, and petra, which means stone. Every stone is forged by time—broken, polished, composite, or fossilized—and each has a natural history and vibration. In the interactive installation Kymapetra, five stones surround a bowl filled with water. When a visitor to the installation places their hand on one of the stones, it creates sonorous vibrations on the water’s surface, geometrical impressions consisting of small waves, varying in relation to the intensity of the contact between the spectator and each stone. Lasserre and met den Ancxt have chosen each stone in the installation with this in mind and they invite the spectators of Kymapetra to touch and enter into resonance with the stones, rendering the resultant sound visible on the water's surface.

 

Gregory Lasserre and Anaïs met den Ancxt work together as the duo Scenocosme. Through their work’s engagement with natural elements, they invite visitors to think about their relationship to the environment, suggesting that they interact with the installation to generate sound and to feel elements of reality that are invisible or that they are insensitive to. Through their works, the pair invent sonorous and/or visual languages in order to mediate exchanges between living things and between humans and their environment. Sensations are augmented when they are materialized. Scenocosme’s artworks react to human electrostatic energy in such a way that the body itself becomes a continuous sensorial interface with the world. Thus, the duo creates the opportunity for different physical approaches to generate sonorous reactions between stones, plants, and humans.

 

Read more in the print edition.

 

Image by: Robert Szkolnicki