David Letellier & LAb[au] - Tessel, Kinetic Sound Installation 2010

A kinetic sound installation investigating the perception of sound and space. Tessel is constituted of a suspended and articulated topography of 4 x 2 m, subdivided into forty triangles. Twelve of them are fitted with motors and eight are equipped with audio transducers, which transform the surface into a dynamic sonic space. A dialogue between space and sound is created through this sculptural “choreography“. Our perception is altered, as the surface slowly modifies its shape. From Tinguely’s poetic machines to Alexander Calder’s mobiles or Buckminster Fuller’s synergetics, Tessel combines influences that question the link between geometry, movement and chaos, thus continuing the quest for beauty in the synesthetic perception of sound and spatial phenomenons. Its name is derived from “tessellation“, a term applied to the geometric subdivision of a surface into plane figures, also known as “tiling“. It also describes a software technique that allows calculation