Les plans des ondes stationnaires

Produced on the occasion of a residency at Atelier expérimental, Villa les Vallières, in Clans during the summer of 2021, the leaflet Les plans des ondes stationnaires (The plans of standing waves) was conceived at the crossing of two elements.

On the one hand, the importance of the plan as a graphic form in the documentation surrounding the activities of the place: retrospective plan inventorying the works « taken » in the architecture, made by guest artists over the last twenty years; prospective plan of an extension project, left in suspense since the political reversal of the region; tapestry plan on the first floor of the Villa; architectural plan; animated online map; but also, beyond that, the maps of a brochure present on site, listing the hikes in the surroundings and for the most part inaccessible since the Alex storm of autumn 2020.

On the other hand, a ghost story accompanied my arrival on the site, this one having undergone an « energetic cleaning » a few days before… What were these ghosts? Were these plans, by crossing them, their map?

The leaflet Les plans des ondes stationnaires uses the first plan designed for the villa, the one of its construction in 1973. All space measurements have been erased and replaced by the corresponding standing wave frequencies. The phenomenon of standing waves has often been associated with the presence of supposed ghosts. As « standing sounds » in a space, otherwise possibly inaudible, these waves have indeed the particularity of having fixed pressure points, which can affect the bodies and objects that meet them. But in return, other sounds emitted simultaneously, especially if their frequency is close, are likely to alter the propagation of these waves, their suspended state suddenly starting to spin. This leaflet proposes an inventory of these potential standing waves, that of ghosts waiting for the spinning that will be produced by the encounter of an otherness, however close it may be.

Each artist in residence leaving on site a work conceived during his stay, a copy of this plan erased in the form of a leaflet is inserted in the library.