André Ourednik
Polyharmonies
Edition
Dance of the five geometric shapes
The desire to reassure ourselves about the complexity of nature and to grasp it through the artifice of numbers and geometry remains a determining factor in the age of machine learning. It goes back at least as far as the written records we have of the Babylonians, and became systematic with the Pythagoreans, who hoped to find the numerical keys to a harmony of reality. The astronomer Johannes Kepler was still looking for these keys in the 17th century, in his book Harmonices Mundi, in which each Platonic solid corresponds to an element: earth-cube, water-icosahedron, air-octahedron, fire-tetrahedron, ether-dodecahedron. The ratios of the volumes of these bodies also correspond, for him, to the ratios between the radii of the planets' orbits, as well as to the ratios of the frequencies between the different notes of a Pythagorean scale.
In this 180° audiovisual installation, the spectator uses a joystick to hear these variations in frequencies between the 5 Keplerian polyhedra, emitted by 4 loudspeakers located in the corners of the room. The joystick can also be used to centre the polyhedra or distribute them in space, so that you can hear and feel the vibrations of a cosmic chord, just as Johannes Kepler might have imagined. Above all, it's about questioning the rational limits of a geometric model of nature, in order to rediscover its poetic richness.
Es ruft zu dir
Inside the cube at the centre of the Polyharmonies installation, the viewer will find the video Es ruft zu dir, which experiments with wave frequencies and reflects on notions of centre and periphery, and the geocentric or allocentric position of the human being.
Bios
André Ourednik is a writer, essayist and geographer who teaches at the Collège des Humanités at the EPFL and at the University of Neuchâtel. His publications include Wikitractatus (hypertextual essay, Hélice Hélas, 2014), as well as the essays Hypertopie : de l'utopie à l'omniscience (La Baconnière, 2019) and Robopoïèses : les intelligences artificielles de la nature (La Baconnière, 2021). He is also the author of performances and urban installations.
Conceptual consultation and sound implementation by Daniel Maszkowicz
Cube enclosure construction by Stefan Dey
In this 180° audiovisual installation, the spectator uses a joystick to hear these variations in frequencies between the 5 Keplerian polyhedra, emitted by 4 loudspeakers located in the corners of the room. The joystick can also be used to centre the polyhedra or distribute them in space, so that you can hear and feel the vibrations of a cosmic chord, just as Johannes Kepler might have imagined. Above all, it's about questioning the rational limits of a geometric model of nature, in order to rediscover its poetic richness.
Es ruft zu dir
Inside the cube at the centre of the Polyharmonies installation, the viewer will find the video Es ruft zu dir, which experiments with wave frequencies and reflects on notions of centre and periphery, and the geocentric or allocentric position of the human being.
Bios
André Ourednik is a writer, essayist and geographer who teaches at the Collège des Humanités at the EPFL and at the University of Neuchâtel. His publications include Wikitractatus (hypertextual essay, Hélice Hélas, 2014), as well as the essays Hypertopie : de l'utopie à l'omniscience (La Baconnière, 2019) and Robopoïèses : les intelligences artificielles de la nature (La Baconnière, 2021). He is also the author of performances and urban installations.
Conceptual consultation and sound implementation by Daniel Maszkowicz
Cube enclosure construction by Stefan Dey