Victor Villafagne is a visual artist who creates sculptures integrating forces and energies, always in close connection with sound. His works invite viewers to interact through perceptive, psycho-acoustic effects and cognitive biases. He builds sculpture-instruments such as the PPPSSS (Personal Power Plant Safety Sound System - 2019) case. Victor Villafagne graduated from Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains in 2023, where he completed two projects: Near Life Experience and You have the right to remain silent. His work has been presented at the Palais des Beaux-arts in Paris in 2021, the Creux de l'enfer in Thiers in 2020 and the Centre tchèque in Paris in 2019 and 2020. In collaboration with Flora Bouteille, he has developed sound projects at Les Subsistances in Lyon and at the Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon in 2019; at the Salon d'art contemporaine de Montrouge in 2019, as well as the radio series The Hermetic Palace of Memory the first episode of which was presented at the Ars Electronica festival (Austria). His film Unfake will be shown at the Biennale d'art et d'architecture de Vierzon in 2022. Since 2021, he has been working with artist Marine Leleu and the association Travail et Culture in the Haut-Montreuillois area.
Recipient of a Résidence Tremplin, Victor Villafagne takes advantage of this opportunity at Art Zoyd Studios to enrich the sound dimension of his sculptures and explore new musical approaches, particularly in the field of electroacoustic music.
In 2023, at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Victor Villafgne created the installation You have the right to remain silent, an imposing, disquieting sphere of speakers with a fascistic aesthetic. This work explores the links between new technologies, culture and war, and more specifically the use of artificial intelligence in current and future armed conflicts. He has collected a range of techniques from military use, which have then been transformed into tools for sound creation.
As part of his Tremplin residency, he intends to develop patches for manipulating this complex system, while furthering the use of artificial intelligence as a compositional tool. This system, named S.P.E.C.T.R.E, will be used to spatialize an ancient convent in a work about iconophages - those who devour images, gobble up sculptures, and feed on sound.
