The first exhibition Sirènes Sylvestres brought to life

Sirènes Sylvestres is a night-time interactive installation opening progressive light passages through the forest.

This first version was presented during the Nuit Verte of the panOramas Festival. It was co-produced by Média-Cité.

Warm thanks to Rabah, Ben, Tam and Média-Cité team, panOrama team, Lab212 and friends for their precious help.

Preparing the exhibition The production rush

The interactive light installation Sirènes Sylvestres was planned to be exhibited near Bordeaux. Its lights were designed in Berlin, to be produced in-situ.

With the great help of Ben’s family, in Bordeaux, in 3 days, we managed to produce a fair amount of lamp-shades.

Those lanterns where build out of heat-resistant confetti, and were big enough to host the light blocks. But after some tests and a couple of unexpected issues, we had to give up on using those blocks. We used instead classic halogen light bulbs, easier to attach and to plug. Here is how it looked like:

Lamp-shade made out of heat-resistant confetti, litten by an halogen bulb.

Lamp-shade made out of heat-resistant confetti, litten by an halogen bulb.

Came the time to go to the woods! The nice part was to find interesting spots for the lights to guide the visitors, but most of the time and efforts was spent on cutting and connecting cables to the lights and sensors. More than 200 meters of electric cable were running in the forest, next to the path. I’d like to warmly thank Rabah, Ben, Tam, Média-Cité team, panOrama team, Lab212 friends, Léna and her friends for their precious help.

Preparing lights and sensor.

Preparing lights and sensor.

Shortly before the opening of the event, half of the path encountered a short circuit, but the main part of the path was ready for the first exhibition of Sirènes Sylvestres!

Call for Proposal Carte blanche for an exhibition in Bordeaux

Média-Cité contacted our collective Lab212 to be part of the festival PanOrama, and more specifically the Nuit Verte (Green Night), happening in a park near Bordeaux. The goal of this festival was to highlight the many parks on the east shore of the Garonne river. The Nuit Verte was a special event happening on one night, in the parc de l’Hermitage. It was an art event, where dozens of performances, projections and interactive art works were programmed.

Map of the parc de l'Hermitage, where the event happenned.

Map of the parc de l’Hermitage, where the event was going to happen.

The possibility to work on an interactive installation for a park, at night, was exciting. It brought back childhood memories. Deer bellow in autumn, stories told at night in the middle of the woods, like the legend of Thibaud “the Cheater”, who was damned after chopping a priest’s head, to chase a dear he could never catch…

Roe-deer eating bushes in the garden of my childhood house.

Roe-deer eating bushes in my parent’s garden.

I decided to use this opportunity to bring people away from the main paths of the park.

*cover image: View of Bordeaux and the Garonne river from the parc de l’Hermitage, picture by Jamé Decentrois