supported by Faulhaber Drive Systems

Under the label Cod.Act, André and Michel Décosterd combine their know-how: the former is a musician, composer and sound designer, the latter is an architect and visual artist. Together, they develop artistic productions such as performances and interactive installations. The basis of their approach is a reflection on sound and movement, and their possible interaction.

Since 1999, the two visual artists have produced complex, lean and functional devices that evoke the industrial world. Marked by rationality, even radical in nature, their devices are at the core of their production, but are not its primary artistic aim. The intended work is actually musical, stored in encoded form in the device. The latent work is revealed when the device is operated, whether by the public, in the case of interactive installations, or by the artists, in the case of performances. The duo’s devices do not produce a unique and predefined content, but rather combine and organize information according to variable parameters. Random, ephemeral, and multidimensional, the work is revealed each time in a myriad of different ways.

πTon/2 is a sound installation that intervenes in the continuity of Cod.Act’s researches into mechanical and sound organicity. It is the outcome of an experiment with the deformation of an elastic form and how it impacts on the evolution of a musical work. The object is a flexible ring closed onto itself, operated by torsion motors located inside its body. Twisting and turning on its own, πTon moves in a very natural and unforeseeable way.

The origin of the music created by πTon is the deep sound of a bass clarinet. It evolves according to its movements and is broadcast by speakers located within its body. When πTon is moving slowly, its contractions and dilations produce sensual sounds that evolve like deep breathing. When it is moving quickly, nervously and brutally, the creature develops an acidic and sharp song along the tube, like a nervous flow.