SCINTILLEMENTS

In the darkness, LEDs flash.

An immersive sound environment lets you hear glaciers cracking and icebergs melting.

Can sound say something about the changing world?

The project in brief:

Scintillements is a sound journey to the heart of glaciers composed from recordings made by the artist at Jökulsarlòn at the foot of the Vatnajökull in Iceland and on various alpine glaciers (Glaciers of Glaciers, Tour and Girose).

The installation, which is also illuminated, causes a flash to appear each time the world’s glaciers permanently lose a volume of ice equivalent to the overall volume of the place in which the work is exhibited. 

The sound composition consists of the thuds produced when the seracs fall, the heavy cracking of the friction between the ice mass and the earth due to the movement of the glaciers, and the fizzing of the air bubbles released into the air under the water as the ice melts.

For this work, Gaëtan Gromer, whose most recent works make use of sonification* (Lorette, Enapolis), uses light this time to evoke the 23.45 million litres that glaciers lose every second.

NB: This work is part of the cycle Demain c’est loin, it can be exhibited with the four other creations: Unedo, Sans faire de vagues…, Enapolis, Printemps Silencieux

Credits

Artistic direction: Gaëtan Gromer

Technical director: Benoit Jester

Gaëtan Gromer was associate artist of the Espace Django in Strasbourg for the year 2019. The work was created within this framework.