Alexis Choplain
Having made electricity the main material of his creations, Alexis Choplain explores a form of machinic poetry aimed at altering our usual perception of things. After graduating from the École Supérieure des Arts Visuels de Mons in 2017, he moved to Creuse and then Caen, where he continues his research into sound, analog and digital electronics, water and image.
In his projects, sound is used as a material to explore matter, space and electrical phenomena in the broadest sense, through vibrations that are both sonic and mechanical. As essential tools in his research, the synthesizers he has been building since 2019 occupy different positions within his installations, manifesting in a variety of ways all the electrical choreographies that form the fabric of his projects.
Hydroscope
It’s an electrical quest that begins with the iridescence of skin at electrostatic moments, with the green beam of the oscilloscope traveling towards the anode diverted by frequency redundancy. A vision of electronic wave propagations through the vibrancy of diodes, oscillations that capture motionless aquatic tableaux following one another without the eye being able to grasp the intervals.
Pressurized on both sides of the structure, the water transits through space, memorizing the signal sculpted by the synthesis engine. The water’s relationship with the wavefront pulsed by the membrane is revealed, and finally the signal is plucked from its copper track.
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Hydroscope is the result of a research project begun in 2015. This process, which has given shape to several installations, finds its final form here, synthesizing all the discoveries made around the association of two antagonistic materials, water and electricity.
The experimental aspect of Hydroscope bears witness to an autonomous learning process of trial-and-error over time, in terms of both electronics and hydraulics. The phenomena at play, based on water and the vibratory properties of sound, unfold here from simple technical elements left partly visible: each of them performs elementary actions, but paradoxically produce a range of events that are inexplicable once arranged: expressing this contrast remains essential for the artist, who seeks to produce the unexpected by combining the existing, in various ways.
Hydroscope is a Station Mir production, with support from Oblique/s and DRAC Normandie.
