clinamen

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is a French artist who started out as an avant-garde composer before he turned to making long-duration large-scale acoustic installations like he’s been doing for the last two years. His most well known work might be From hear to ear, in which birds fly around the exhibition space, and plugged-in guitars serve as perches for the birds. A lot of his work showcases chance and indeterminacy in highly controlled environments.

With clinamen, one can see this fascination for chance in composition, as well as his interest in creating musical sounds with objects which are not primarily meant for that task (the porcelain ceramics).

Undercurrent in the water makes the porcelain float across, the clinking of the ceramics makes for a composition with aleatory form.

clinamen is currently on display at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France until the end of September.