en, sur et face

2023-25

related publication [design research society]

art installation, post-participatory, rematerialization, polysensory interactions

team
brice ammar-khodja
jean-michaël celerier

En, Sur, et Face is an immersive installation that explores the imperceptible presence of metallic contaminants and magnetic residues in urban soils. This research-creation project is rooted in a study carried out at Champ des Possibles, a post-industrial site in Montreal that has successively become an extraction quarry, a landfill, a marshalling yard and finally an unreclaimed natural space. In this context, the project focused on the dynamics of coexistence between human and more-than-human communities in contaminated urban environments.

Through the deployment of in situ interventions carried out with local communities, the aim was to experiment with new forms of sensory visualization of soil contamination through art and design.

En, Sur, et Face seeks to rematerialize and relocate the socio-material and environmental elements of the interventions carried out at Champ des Possibles in a gallery setting. As an augmented documentary experience, the installation offers a multisensory journey orchestrated by the arrangement of materials collected on site, as well as audiovisual documentations of the research process.

en, sur et face, perte-de-signal
— montreal, canada (2024)

The installation is made up of tubes containing metal residues, arranged around a surface of earth on which projections of contaminated landscapes blend into one another. Each tube, equipped with a system generating magnetic fields, animates the collected materials, while an integrated sound device captures and amplifies the murmurs of the moving residues.

An olfactory device, alternating between metallic, ozonic and earthy fragrances, forges a sensory link with the site’s metallic pollutants, underscoring the invisible yet tangible existence of these materials. Together, these elements contribute to the retranscription and reinterpretation of research data into an active, dynamic archive.