Losonnante is a bone conduction listening device that has been developed in AAU-Cresson and Pacte laboratories in Grenoble in 2019 and 2020, by Sébastien De Pertat, geographer and musician, and Thomas Bonnenfant, architect and plastic artist.
Following, among others, artists such as Laurie Anderson, Marcus Kison or Pascale Criton, the idea of this installation was to challenge our perception of sound by listening through the solids, using our elbows, arms and hands as headphones. This device is also meant to investigate about and to question our relations to public spaces and living environments through sound and listening.
One of the best experiences with this device was to use it to listen to the sound legacy by Knud Viktor. He was a Danish artist who lived in the south of France for several years until the end of his life in 2013 and he was recording all kinds of details in his sonic environment (insects, animals, elements...). Through Losonnante we gave a new ear to those pieces while totally shifting the listening experience: it was a way to go closer and deeper into the movements of the sounds created by Knud Viktor (the small drop of the water, the rumble of the falling rocks, the humming of a bee...).
In April 2021 we set up an exhibition “Soundpainter Knud Viktor” in ARoS Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, one of the leading art museums in Northern Europe. The exhibition featured two other installations alongside Losonnante: 1/ A human-sized owl nest, playing a Knud Viktor piece about a small owl called "Le petit Duc"; 2/ The Bamboos, a sound installation from Knud Viktor himself that he displayed on "the planetary garden" exhibition (le jardin planétaire) from Gilles Clément in La Villette (Paris, 1999). One of the special features of the exhibition were designated time slots for groups of children as visitors to the exhibition, so they could discover the "sounds of nature" the way Knud Viktor intended, and to experience different modes of listening.
Last but not least, this work on sound found a particular resonance with the Cresson Winterschool, organised in 2021 and 2022 on the topic of “listening and vulnerability”, the last edition of which focused more specifically on listening through bone conduction. This presentation recalls the different actions carried out so far with Losonnante. After completing a maturation programme with Satt Linksium between 2019 and 2020, the Losonnante project – a bone conduction listening installation – has been supported by the European B-Air project to be presented in Denmark in spring and summer 2021. It was part of the exhibition “Soundpainter Knud Viktor” at the ARoS Museum in Aarhus. The device has been improved to fix some technical issues with the tactile sensors and the actuator and the exhibition offered a long time period in a public space recognised as being one of the largest art museums in Northern Europe. Finally, this work on sound has found a particular resonance with the Cresson Winterschool, organised in 2021 and 2022 on the theme “listening and vulnerability”, the last edition of which focused more specifically on listening through bone conduction. This presentation recalls the different actions carried out so far with Losonnante.
