During my Tremplin residency at Art Zoyd Studios, I was able to benefit from the expertise of the Réalisateur en Informatique Musicale (RIM) to improve, deepen and develop digital and sound tools, while training in Max MSP, which we used throughout the process. I arrived at the studios with a project realized and produced thanks to Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains: You have the right to remain silent is a multi-channel sound installation, controlled by a Max MSP patch, and using a panoply of sensors (cameras, radar, etc.) to modulate in real time the sound generated by the RAVE AI, developed by IRCAM. 

This piece explores the links between culture, new technologies and war. The diffusion system I designed is based on a sphere made up of 64 loudspeakers distributed over 32 distinct audio channels, enabling sound to be spatialized on the object or to move through space. The system is conceived in the opposite way to acousmonium-type spatialization: instead of moving through a complex acoustic space made up of a set of loudspeakers, it is the acoustic space that is projected into the room, "stimulating" the space. The system is designed to be played like an instrument.

The first thing we did with Oudom (RIM) was to create a patch to reuse an old, obsolete USB controller. We transformed it into a physical control surface for the sound system: adjustment of input and output volumes, spatialization of sounds, sound generators, etc. This tool can now be used to interact with the installation and compose new sounds. This tool can now be used to interact with the installation and compose music in situ.

Secondly, I introduced an experimental instrument I'd been working on, based on two plasma enclosures used to transform sound. A plasma enclosure is an electric arc generator producing a constant 5000 V arc, modulated by the sound signal: the plasma then vibrates and acts like a speaker membrane. Magnetic microphones capture the raw sound of the arc, which can then be mixed like a traditional instrument. The sound emitted by the arcs is both heard and transformed - distorted, dynamically compressed - according to their impedance. To drive this system, I designed a device containing two 15-band equalizers with feedback loops, making the system oscillatory and sound-generating. It can be used to filter input or output sound, add resonance or completely transform the sound behavior of the arcs. 

With Oudom, we developed a Max patch dedicated to this instrument in order to produce a piece presented in concert at the end of the residency. This patch was used to control the back-and-forth movement of sound between the bows and the speakers. We also tried to reproduce the behavior of an integrated circuit - the CMOS CD4040 - commonly used in "Lunettas" synthesizers. These synthesizers exploit a variety of CMOS chips whose legs are directly patched to the front panel, enabling the user to generate a whole range of "pseudo-digital" sounds. Here, instead of adding harmonics as in additive synthesis, subharmonics are superimposed, generating rhythmic beats. The patch thus enables the sound to be modulated independently on both arcs, producing a wealth of beats and variations. The sonic result is raw, intense, but also satisfying and complex." 

Victor Villafagne, May 2025