Basile Richon with Rémy Bender

Rainfall, 2025

B. RICHON-BENDER

The sound installation is adapted from earlier versions exhibited in alpine environments. It interacts closely with its environment. Powered solely by the rainwater it collects and stores, it is composed of identical modules using a hydropneumatic system to produce whistling sounds and generate a new sound ecosystem. Linked to the remains of the hydroelectric power station, it presents itself both as a futuristic reconstitution of a lost sonic biotope and as a contemporary ritual, a distant echo of ancient chants invoking the rain. The mechanism sings to summon the rain, while depending on it to function, underlining, with a certain absurdity, the fragility of our resources and the precariousness of the gestures we invent to respond to them.

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Reminiscence of a sea, 2024

Convoluta Rescoffensis is a worm. At high tide, it hides in the sand to avoid being swept away. At low tide, it feeds in the sun on sugars and amino acids produced by an alga. Extirpated from their environment, worms take up this cosmic choreography, a ghostly trace of the vanishing tides. Basile Richon transposes this fact. The movements of a tide were recorded at four points on aluminum disks on the North Sea coast. A quadraphonic playback device interprets the amplitude of the tide in sound frequencies, like a memorial song in four voices, giving voice to the vestiges of a bygone tide.

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Basile Richon

Born in 1990
Based in Brussels

Basile Richon explores movement, sound and landscape through mechanical and sound devices. His work is characterized by the use of sculptural mechanical devices to inscribe, transcribe or imitate variations in the environment, often influenced by human activities. He is developing a cross-disciplinary artistic practice at the intersection of the visual arts, performance art, contemporary music, cinema and science. He is particularly interested in the instruments that enable us to understand the world around us.

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Rémy Bender

Born in 1988
Based in Valais

Visual artist and graphic designer. He questions our relationship with the land, from an anthropological perspective, by creating hybrid devices activated by natural elements such as wind, water, sun or erosion. In 2023, his project Perspective du Creux, developed in the high-altitude geological depression of the Grand Cor, was exhibited at Kunsthaus Langenthal as part of the New Heads series. His installation Sédiments sonores wins the Audience Prize at the 75ᵉ Biennale d'art de La Chaux-de-Fonds. He co-founded the Collectif Facteur. His duo work with Basile Richon, under the name Richon-Bender, was notably presented by the Sonandes sound biennial in La Paz.