Pierre Bastien
:Installations:

: QUATUOR DE BECS (2002) :

This is an ornithological chamber music orchestra. Four waders (they are fake, but realistic) have their beaks clicking in rhythm: the two herons on a fast and sharp tempo; the flamingo and the stork with some more gravity. As if these big birds were suddenly possessed by a kind of human musical will.

: MUSIQUE DES EMANGLONS (2001) :

Musique des Emanglons is using long pieces of tracing paper hanged on the wall and covering the floor. They are activated by some ventilators that make the paper rustling in a quiet and instable percussion.

: PAPER ORGANS (2000) :

This installation has six blowers playing chords and clusters while six sheets of tracing paper are waving and clicking in the airflow.

: MECANOLOGIE (1997) :

This ensemble is based on the same principle as Mecanium. But instead of music instruments, the robots make daily life objects sounding - a teapot, a comb, some toothbrushes, a saw, an ashtray, some scissors, a letter-scale and a hammer.

: PHONOLOGIE PORTATIVE (1996) :

An ensemble of eight transformed record players. Visually far from the previous orchestra, it favours again rhythms and loops by picking short parts of the groove from eight 7 inches records.

: MECANIUM (since 1977) :

A sixty-pieces orchestra made of Meccano parts, electro-motors and acoustic instruments from all over the world. According to the type of instrument that is included, each automaton plays a short melody, a rhythm or some harmony repeated in a loop.