Calebasses Labs is a 32-channel low-tech sound installation that explores low-intensity yet highly articulated sound fields through a multi-scale approach, creating a sound space as voluminous as it is hushed which can be discovered through close listening sessions.
Calebasses Labs: A low-tech sound installation
Calebasses Labs is a 32-channel low-tech sound installation mainly made of South American calabash bowls and piezoelectric transducers. Sensitive to the issue of noise pollution, the installation explores low-intensity sound fields yet highly articulated through a multi-scale approach, both in space and in time, resulting in a sound environment that is as dense as it is quiet.
Near-field listening
Given that the sound diffusion level operates at the lower threshold of the decibel scale, the installation necessitates near-field listening.
Composition
The music is created using an object-oriented programming language (Supercollider), with which a large number of figures of varying sizes are composed. These figures are defined as finite sequences of events through the formalization of diverse patterns [3]. Through a reference model, the installation reveals a network of interconnected and autonomous figures unfolding across multiple spatio-temporal scales.
Sound excerpts from the composition
Please note: these are stereo reductions played back through your own sound system. In that sense, the excerpts are only partially representative of the installation.
Dimensions
The size of the unfolded installation varies according to the available space. It has been designed to be ideally deployed on 255 x 98 inches. The installation is con-nected to a portable sound system with a maximum 393 inches multipair cable. The calabashes are placed directly on the floor on black paper, but they can also be ar-ranged on a low platform approximately 4 inches high (not provided).
Bi-frontal arrangement
The audience is seated in a bi-frontal or quadrifrontal arrangement facing the installation, across two rows.
Concerts with the installation
De Bell Labs à Calebasses Labs
Furthermore, the installation also seeks to surpass the conventional paradigms of ‘mediation’, ‘transparency’ or ‘sound quality’ dictated by the recording and audio diffusion industries [4], enabling an empirical and artistic investigation of the acous-tic output generated by each calabash. Accordingly, as the composition’s sound writ-ing and diffusion are intrinsically linked processes, the installation operates neither as a traditional instrument nor as a reproduction device. It is what it is: a singularity.
Initial tests
Calebasses Labs was created thanks to French government aid program: “Aide à l’écriture d’une œuvre musicale originale du Ministère de la Culture/Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d’Île-de-France, 2024”
Calebasses Labs CMRR 2025 submission
Others works
Guitare classique et électroacoustique
Installation sonore