An exhibition that illuminates the invisible. This is the successful bet of “Pulse”, the new installation of the Gaîté Lyrique, visible until July 13, 2025. In this Parisian center of culture, the 1024 Architecture agency immerses visitors in another world, where all the senses are involved. This immersive and interactive experience pays homage to a whole section of “club culture” and electronic music. Here, the architecture sublimates the music.
“The whole body is engaged in this exhibition designed by 1024 Architecture, whose founders originally come from the world of architecture and construction. Today, sound and light are their materials“, indicates Vincent Cavaroc, curator of this exhibition and artistic director of the Gaîté Lyrique, during a press presentation.
The trained architects regularly work with recognized artists from the French electro scene, and have imagined the scenography for performances by Etienne de Crécy and Vitalic.
Architecture and sound
From small objects to monumental installations, they explore the notion of space through the prism of geometry, light, sound and movement. Their work, between art and architecture, is the sum of physical and digital audiovisual creations.
“In our youth and while we were at architecture school (in Strasbourg and Marne-la-Vallée), rave parties, the first computers and electronic media shook up our way of thinking“, says Pier Schneider, architect, artist and co-founder of 1024 Architecture, a firm that invented the Madmapper mapping software.
“Light becomes space”
The exhibition, fun and educational, is divided into eight sections and covers 20 years of the agency's creation. She is particularly interested in man's relationship with the living, and invites visitors to “play, contemplate or dance“in front of the facilities.”It is a place of life, emotion and sensation, which is aimed at all audiences, especially children.“, presents Pier Schneider.”Sound becomes light, light becomes space.”
The exhibition oscillates between living and digital worlds. Black and white visuals show a series of microarchitectures”utopian“performed digitally and”inspired by the 1970s“.
Next to it, photos of their agency's installations are on display. “Many works take public space as their setting and showcase multiple urban fabrics. Their most recent work emancipates itself from large metropolises to make nature a creative medium. They reveal the power of the landscape and invite us to rethink our view of the environment“, declares Vincent Cavaroc.
From techno to video games
Further away, “the sound generates the image of the work and vice versa“Like a scanner, the object called “Volume” takes its materiality from a layer of digital images.”It echoes intestines escaping their own physical volumes. We inject living behaviors into digital art“, continues Pier Schneider.
Two representatives of the French touch, Laurent Garnier and Vitalic, take pride of place in “Pulse”. The work “Core” lights up to the rhythm of a six-hour musical selection, imagined by one of the greatest French techno producers, Laurent Garnier.
; "Pulse Gaîté Lyrique exhibition")
The 1024 Architecture agency also has fun diverting the world of video games by connecting joysticks (controllers) to its art objects, and even offers a machine to compose your own non-alcoholic cocktail. In total, 18 installations delight the eyes and ears of visitors, who enter a parallel world where “let go“.
