Transformer designed to utilize small wasted energies

#3 Ventilator - Resistor - Bipolar switch

Sound performance / 2025

This performance is part of a broader body of research based on a text by Marcel Duchamp, “Transformer designed to utilize small wasted energies,” in which the recycling of bodily excess into sonic energy is explored. Through unlikely body–machine assemblages, the work seeks to present a gallery of living and loudspeaking ready-mades operating with a low energy efficiency.

40mn
Conception, staging, sound composition and devices : Camille Lacroix
With Marie Bénédicte Cazeneuve, Camille Lacroix and Sig Valax


Production : SILEX
Coproduction : La Muse en Circuit - CNCM, Ici l'Onde - CNCM
Residencies : La Muse en Circuit - CNCM, le 104, Ici l'Onde - CNCM, GMEM - CNCM, la Ménagerie de Verre, Scène de Recherche - ENS Paris Saclay.
Supports : Maison de la Musique Contemporaine, Association Beaumarchais-SACD, DRAC Ile-de-France.

Shows :
February 7, 2026 - Festival Souffle, Ici l'Onde CNCM, Dijon
October 25, 2025 - Biennale Son, Sion (Suisse)
October 10, 2025 - Festival Frasq, Le Générateur, Gentilly
October 5, 2025 - Festival Pour les Oiseaux, au Muma, Le Havre

Transformer designed to utilize small wasted energies

#2 Ventilator

Sound performance / 2024

Ventilator: A device driven by a swirling, obsessive energy, designed to release and disperse into the surrounding atmosphere flows of excess particles within the body of the apparatus. In a closed environment, the outgoing air masses are cyclically re-injected into the ventilation intake before being expelled again. The concentration of energetic particles suspended in the air thus gradually increases. When the saturation threshold is reached, a phenomenon of hyperventilation generates zones of atmospheric pressure and low pressure, whose random movements locally lead to the emergence of microclimates.

This performance is part of a broader body of research based on a text by Marcel Duchamp, “Transformer designed to utilize small wasted energies,” in which the recycling of bodily excess into sonic energy is explored. Through unlikely body–machine assemblages, the work seeks to present a gallery of living and loudspeaking ready-mades operating with a low energy efficiency.

15mn
By and with Camille Lacroix

Residencies : La Muse en Circuit, Arthouse Jersey

Shows :
May 9, 2025 - Plateforme, festival Résurgences, Paris
May 3, 2025 - Topographie de l'Art, Paris
July 18, 2024 - ArtHouse Jersey (UK)
March 7, 2024 - Galerie Michel Journiac

Video excerpt >>

Transformer designed to utilize small wasted energies

#1 Voltage Generator

Performance sonore / 2023

Voltage Generator: A dipole capable of imposing tensions, through plantar stimulation, across the terminals of a bipod. The massive influx of negative charges through reflex zones inhibits energetic circulation by saturating the meridians, resulting in a lasting disruption of homeostatic mechanisms. The generated tensions are reinterpreted as liminal, quasi-subliminal yet persistent sound forms. The listener’s psychic resistance is thus put to the test through a subtly abusive form of acoustic pressure.

This performance is part of a broader body of research based on a text by Marcel Duchamp, “Transformer designed to utilize small wasted energies,” in which the recycling of bodily excess into sonic energy is explored. Through unlikely body–machine assemblages, the work seeks to present a gallery of living and loudspeaking ready-mades operating with a low energy efficiency.

25 minutes
Created and performed by Camille Lacroix

Co-produced by Château Éphémère and Biennale Mars à l’Ouest
Residencies: Château Éphémère, Point Éphémère, GMEM

Shows :
July 18, 2024 - Jersey ArtHouse (UK)
May 4, 2024 - INACT festival, Strasbourg
February 22, 2024 - La Muse en Circuit, Alfortville
December 8, 2023 - Café de Paris, Paris
September 16, 2023 - ICE festival, Plougasnou
May 11, 2023 - Le Générateur, Gentilly
October 21, 2022 - Château Ephémère, Carrière-sous-Poissy

Video excerpt >>