Playing an Invisible Field

Artist Talk

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“I set out to build a tree. What I have is an antenna.”

This talk covers mapping in computer music, more precisely in the context of the complex geometries that electromagnetic fields can yield. The talk is centred on Overengineered, the sound sculpture seen above, built from PVC pipe and speaker cable. Four separate circuits run through its branches, each carrying its own sine tone, and each radiating an electromagnetic field into the space immediately around the wires.

Visitors hold electromagnetic pickups and move them through that field. What they hear is the structure of the field itself being read out, continuously, from wherever they happen to decide to listen and at what angle. Because the cable is coiled and the routes through the tree are unplanned and overlapping, the field turns and folds in ways that change with angle as much as with distance, and that generate constructive as well as destructive interference. Up to four people can play at once, each of the four pickups is attached to its own sound engine.

Benefits for the Students

• Students get fifteen minutes with their hands inside an invisible instrument, first alone, then three or four at once, so the ensemble behaviour appears. The field cannot be memorised, only explored, and no recording can substite for standing in the field.
• Students can see inside the patch, how the sculpture works technically on a granular level.
• Students get an insight of how Overengineered was designed, including a report on design questions and answers, as well as a report on the failed attempts.

The Talk

Ninety minutes, with the sculpture in the room throughout.

An overview of my practice and of interaction models (20 min). Sensors and interfaces as a medium rather than as tooling: how people interact with objects is audible in the sound result. Set against reference points from the repertoire — Lucier, Tudor, Waisvisz, Sonami, Rokeby — and against other works of mine.

Conception and design decisions (20 min). How a tree became an antenna: the material dead ends, the shift to PVC, the loops that fabrication forced rather than design chose. Then the decisions that followed — colour and material as argument, and the deliberate refusal to transmit music through the cables, but rather control signal.

What is actually mapped (30 min). The claim the piece rests on: the gesture is not what is being mapped, it is what performs the mapping. What is mapped is the geometry of the structure itself, in real time. The signal chain is presented as evidence — and with it the consequences, that the sound belongs to the object rather than the player, and that players do not disturb one another.

Hands in the field, and questions (20 min). Students play, solo and then in groups. Questions are taken with the field still live, so answers can be demonstrated on the object rather than described.

Sessions are given in German, English or French.

Video Demonstration

Röstibrücke Symposium 2026, Art is Science, or the other way around

Technical Details

Needed from the hosts

• Seminar Room with at least ~2m x 2m x 2m space for the sculpture
• Setup: 2 hours incl. sound check
• Power: 1 Socket 230 V, 10 A
• 1-4 Speakers (Output 1-4x TRS ¼”)

Über Sébastien Vaillancourt

Sébastien Vaillancourt is a Basel-based composer-performer and sound artist whose practice centers on transduction: using electronics and sensing to translate physical gestures into sound and light, and in doing so, to reveal aspects of the world that might otherwise remain imperceptible. Working across acoustic and electronic media, he creates performances and interactive systems in which plants, antennas, motion sensors used on the body, and other unconventional interfaces become instruments. His live-electronics practice explores how these technologies can extend perception, drawing attention to subtle relationships between bodies, materials, and environments.

His work has been commissioned by Ensemble Proton Bern, the Akademie der Künste Berlin, Klangwerkstatt Berlin, the Max Steiner Ensemble Vienna, and solo performers such as Jeanne Larouturou and Malin Sieberns. He has performed solo and in collaborative contexts at festivals such as Maerzmusik (Berlin), KONTAKTE (Berlin), Mise-En (New York), Decibels (Riga), and the Röstibrücke Electroacoustic Cabaret (Geneva). He has also designed live-electronics systems for productions at the Münchner Biennale, Donaueschinger Musiktage, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, and Maerzmusik, collaborating with composers and performers including Thomas Kessler, Luxa Martin Schüttler, Anda Kryeziu, and Håkon Stene.

He has taught live electronics and programming in higher-education music institutions. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and the Université de Montréal, has been supported by Pro Helvetia, and was an artist-in-residence with the Mise-En Ensemble in New York. He has released two albums, with a third forthcoming in 2027.

Contact

Web Site
Instagram
seb.vaillancourt@tuta.com
+41 77 809 56 26
Download CV here