A live performance for living plants and electronics
The Performance
Touch a plant, and for once, it touches back.
La révolte botanique (The Botanical Revolt) is a solo performance where living plants stand at the center of the stage, wired into a system of capacitive touch sensors and LEDs. As the performer interacts with the plants, the boundary between playing and being played gradually disappears: conductivity changes with moisture, contact, and the plant’s own restless state, and those modulations drive sharp pulses and heavy synth textures. The vegetation stirs, responds, and asserts a will of its own. What began as the simple act of touching a plant becomes something closer to an uprising. Part concert, part ritual, part insurrection, the work imagines a moment when the plant world stops being scenery and initiates a revolt — performer and plants rising together.
The result is a live improvisation, roughly 25 minutes, that moves between dense, dynamic surges and steady drones depending entirely on how the plants behave that night. No two performances are identical. Sound ranges from sharp, granular pulses to massive, noise-adjacent synth layers; the plants are simultaneously the sonic controller, the light source, and the visual center of the piece.
La révolte botanique was premiered at Röstibrücke – Electroacoustic Cabaret 2024 (Cave12, Geneva).
Format
- Solo improvised
- Duration: ~25 min.
- Possible to extend with a workshop and/or a talk about the concept and technical elements
Technical Needs
- Stage area: ~2 × 3 m
- Power: min. 3 sockets (230–240 V, 10 A)
- Artist outputs: 2× balanced ¼” TRS, or Dante
- Setup time: 30 min.
- Lighting: adaptable on site
- Artist provides: plants, sensors, and live-electronics setup
- Organizer provides: 1 x 1 x 1 m table, 1 x 2 m table with adjustable height
Photos
Mise-En Festival 2026, New York
Röstibrücke – Electroacoustic Cabaret 2024
The Artist
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 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.
Booking & Enquiries
Sébastien Vaillancourt
Basel, Switzerland
seb.vaillancourt@tuta.com
+41 77 809 56 26
Available for European touring in 2027