babel ritournelle

BABEL RITOURNELLE is an installation conceived as a language generator, exploring the sonic and musical dimensions of speech. The system combines nearly 400 phonemes drawn from different languages, producing ever-changing sequences situated at the threshold between meaning and pure sound.

The program is based on a database provided by the ICP (Institute of Spoken Communication) at the Grenoble Institute of Technology, composed of recordings of languages from around the world. From this material, the installation proposes a non-linguistic approach to language: no longer to understand, but to listen — to move through phonetic flows, to perceive rhythms, accents, and vocal textures.

The viewer interacts with the piece through a simple interface: by moving the mouse pointer, real-time combinations of phonemes are generated. This navigation produces a constantly shifting sonic space in which the “musics” of heterogeneous languages intermingle, following a logic close to the refrain or ritournelle — repetition, variation, and ephemeral territorialization.

The project questions the possibility of a language without stable syntax, founded instead on fluid assemblages where the boundaries between languages dissolve into sonic continuity.

Today, BABEL RITOURNELLE can only be presented on older computer systems. The technologies used at the time of its creation have since become obsolete, making migration to contemporary environments complex and uncertain. The work is therefore inscribed within a specific technological temporality, suspended between persistence and disappearance.

Presented at:
— 2001: Monade Nomade, Galerie de l’École Supérieure d’Art de Grenoble

Voice: Michelle Revol