Totem sonique (Montreal)

Totem sonique (Sonic Totem) is an interactive sound installation created by Martin Leduc as part of his Master’s in Interactive Media at l’UQÀM. Totem, designed to be touched and played, invites visitors to explore and experience an innovative sound universe by activating metal strips grouped together into four keyboards around a vertical water-filled glass sounding-box, radiating light and reflections that move with the frequencies. Totem sonique, at once an invented instrument and a sound-processing automaton, is an invitation to the free expression of personal and collective creative potential. The water column houses an underwater broadcasting and receiving system, producing "aquafeedback” that the automaton controls. If undisturbed, the automaton arranges and generates its own compositions. When visitors are present, it modulates the sound matter produced by the play of both visitors and automaton. A human/machine dialogue springs from the encounter, intertwining mutual object-subject influences.

Totem sonique’s user-friendliness and the sound organization born from the exchange allow the focus to remain on play and listening, replacing the traditional paradigm of the performer with one focused on perception and discovery. The automaton enhances the proposed structures and transforms the aesthetic and the space from the shadows. Instantly, the human being no longer triggers the sequence nor activates the sensors, but participates in a physical and intentional communication unfurling in a universe of sound in a constant state of metamorphosis (Martin Leduc, April 2004).

The aesthetic and technological choices behind Totem sonique are unique in that the sound matter is provided exclusively by the play of installation visitors. Nothing is pre-recorded or synth-generated, and the structure provided is flexible and unpredictable. This relational and communicational sound organization fluctuates based on play, manifesting in the mutual influence that the visitors and Totem have on each other.