In 2020, C-LAB’s Taiwan Sound Lab and Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM), France initiated their first co-produced work. LuxuryLogico, an artist collective from Taiwan, and Italian composer Andrea CERA integrated mobile light devices and music in a mechanized installation entitled The Insomnia Sketchbook. This project also received support and funding from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture. In March, the collective and composer will participate in the online IRCAM Forum Workshops, revealing the details of the creative process at various stages to the public for the first time.
The internationally renowned IRCAM Forum is an online platform for innovative techniques in sound and music fields. Every March, the IRCAM Forum Workshops are held in Paris to present the latest music and multimedia sound technologies and applications. This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the event is held online and LuxuryLogico members Llunc LIN, CHEN Chih-Chien, and CHANG Geng-Hwa, as well as Andrea CERA are invited to talk about the creative process.
This collaboration came about following a visit by Frank MADLENER, the director of IRCAM, to a number of Taiwan’s creative teams working in various disciplines in 2019. MADLENER was especially impressed by LuxuryLogico’s mobile light device-based works. From this group’s past cross-disciplinary collaborations including dance and installations, he saw the potential for the combination of mobile light devices, sound and music. IRCAM recommended CERA for sound creation due to his expertise in the use of moving lights, while IRCAM provided sound field design and technological support.
The Insomnia Sketchbook marks the first international co-production for LuxuryLogico in its 10-year history. This is also its first time to co-create with a composer. The collective made use of media parameter conversions and matching ratios to describe emotions and exhibit abstract feelings in a concrete manner. Amid darkness, this work presents sound fields of realization, clumsiness, purity, dance, conflict and destruction as short stories detailed in a sketchbook. It simulates the state between dreaming and consciousness as a spark of light leads audiences in the exploration of illusions related to dreams and reality.
Exchanges among the creators in the preparation of this project were moved online in early 2020. LuxuryLogico built a central control system to enable exchanges and work to be carried out in a virtual environment. In addition, simulation and testing were conducted in a physical space at the National Taiwan Science Education Center in the hopes that the presentation would bring audiences the sense the poetry and experiences of light and music in the dark.
The online forum for this project takes place between 17:00 and 18:00 Taiwan time on March 18. The two sides will share how they communicated, made adjustments, and carried out testing during the co-production of this cross-disciplinary work, including the development of remote collaborative methods and approaches. All are welcome to register and make payment online to view the live broadcast and other activities of IRCAM Forum Workshops.
The Insomnia Sketchbook is to be presented during IRCAM ManiFeste in June and the C-LAB Sound Festival in November. This schedule is subject to change if coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions are in place in France.