VOLTA Yann Leguay 2019

The past few years, Yann Leguay’s works focused on various media and interfaces using mechanical sound as a musical instrument. As technology evolves, mechanics are disappearing and replaced by miniaturized electronic components and electric charges. The project Volta addresses this change and explores the potential of the electricity itself, as a source. Using the technique of a plasma speaker, the installation consists of a pure electrical arc producing the sound on its own. A sound file is sent into the high voltage and a voice emerges from the arc. The text comes from a radio residency done with the ∏-node collective, the words are the translation of the noise of the internet network processed with a speech-to-text software then read by Jean-François Blanquet. The result becomes an oracle roaming between present and future, between identification and materiality.