Lambert Segura (he/they)
To Arlette, Gisele, and the victims of the Feyzin disaster
I would like to be(.) not here, but this border layer of the ether: where ground, ceiling, left and right meet but never touch. For I envisage the serene anxiety and the deafening silence of a Land without land nor temporality (;) to apprehend the fractures of continua that leave their immediate past and features to die(,) in the abruptness with which I am teared away from them.
Lambert Segura is an interactive and sound artist whose work explores machines’ and environment’s autonomous creative agency, their animism, and bridging both Human and Artificial Intelligence. It involves the design of custom tools to enhance performers’ intuition through haptic interfaces and the development of autonomous creative artificial systems. Lambert’s academic research focus on acoustics with an emphasis on our perception of space through spatialisation, and our environment through acoustic ecology. In proposing to consider sound (and by extension any media) as a malleable ‘plastic’ matter, he aims to challenge the traditional visual and fine art paradigms in expanding and defining a lexicon inclusive of emerging and ambivalent practices.
Homoheliotropism, noun, protologism:
from the genus Homo – to which all human beings belong; and Heliotropism: 1. the directional growth of a plant in response to sunlight. 2. The tendency of an animal to move towards light.
This corpus of work explores the agency of the Sun as a form of computation, migratory and spatial occupation, deity and grounding marker of evolution. In analysing its course over the horizon I attempted to delimit a physical space, a complex heterotopia to inhabit: a ‘juxtaposition in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible’, ‘foreign’ or ‘contradictory’, an ephemeral and ‘mythic’ space as Michel Foucault theorised in 1967 with Of Other Spaces. This heterotopia is delimited by the movement of my body within the geography and the topography in direct relation to the Sun’s cycle over the horizon. It is a transcendentalist approach to the Sun as a pulling and regulating force, dictating our lives and our noise pollution, that is of awaken society. Literal etched pathways of (homo)heliotrope movements, this heterotopia solely exists as a by-product of its performative, computational and poetic layering, offering new approaches and instances to apprehend the geographic-volume, the corporal-humanist and the material-plastic.
Quiet Sand Suffer
The focus of my attention had been to meet the Sun at the horizon. While I stumbled on the disappointing inability to reach him, a logged heliotrope itinerary through the streets of Glasgow was filling the intrinsically volatile leap of the ether by materialising a silver lining within the architecture, within the city itself, separating light and shade by giving its outline with my body. For each road intersection walked by, a unique three-word-identifier was collected with the help of the geocode application what3words, each representing a physical square of 3m2 with a tangible spatial coordinate. Each grouping of words was paired to three distinct voices, as though three people were walking down the streets. Each change of cardinal direction rearranged the order of words in the (person’s) voice they were attributed. Quiet Sand Suffer provides a ‘diacritical’ reading of the particular and intrinsically fluid spatiotemporal outlines of this other (u)topia it informs. This three-part poem computationally worded appears as a prayer to the pulling force(s), an ode to the sun, tinted of computational naturalism.
Project Links
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As a body intermediating architectural and celestial spatiality, I ought to interconnect the geographical coordinates to the sun’s direct action. In other words, physically interpolating both the geographical coordinates, and these with the sun’s gamut of (recorded) positions.
Seeking to quantify the cyclical and ephemeral light emission that is inducing the apparition, disappearance, and variations within the heterotopia, and to determine the corporal meeting point where harmony appears, I fabricated and installed two solargraphs: a fix and a mobile, an analog and a digital, on my balcony and to travel inside my bag. I developed and programmed an autonomous and weatherproof digital solagraph, with a battery life capable to record a full twelve-hour-sun-cycle. Hosted inside a clear food container, the micro-computer (Raspberry Pi 3B+) stores the sun’s course data over the horizon, effectively capturing the brightest pixel’s coordinates on the video feed over time. This pixel detection at the core of the technology constitutes a fertile ground for further detection of (sky’s) objects, such as vapour trails, birds or other particles and fragments. After recording, the datasets for each three phases of the cycle – sunrise, daytime, sunset – were then verified and cleaned to process. First rendered to vector lines, they were pen plotted on drawing paper – allowing size and placement calibration – and tracing paper for the interplay of opacity as mockup for both physical installation and material selection for future paper publication. These lines were finally laser engraved on clear transparent acrylic, allowing the spectator to superpose the natural background or the other prints to the observed dataset. The material is a further reminder of the transparent spatial layer we inhabit – that is delimited by the horizon that surrounds us –, our scalp tingled by the sun or the laser beam, like walking under high voltage electrical wires. Their slim but rigid profile offers the possibility for double sided free standing mounting while remaining weatherproof.
Tidal Marker
This monument crystallises a geographical and topographical constant to situate visceral experiences and spontaneous motor relationships within our bodies. It is a landmark to the hyper-sensitivity of the imperception, acting as an incentive to regain or take consciousness of our environment, our body and act to redefine our interpersonal relationships. For the narrative we choose to own or fabricate is intimately shaped by the conditions of the space we inhabit.
Views from the exhibition ‘Routing’ at Glasgow University Wildlife Garden, open from June 5th to June 9th.
