PIXELS WAVE 2015

Experimental and multidisciplinarian, Miguel Chevalier comes to Malta with a new commission – Pixels Wave 2015, a generative and interactive virtual reality installation with a giant carpet of moving lights that will fill Republic Street at City Gate, in front of Malta’s New Parliament Building designed by the architect Renzo Piano. Various “multicolored graphic scenes,” following one upon another in random fashion, that are composed of such symbolic motifs from the digital universe as pixels, 0s and 1s (symbolic representations of binary code), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. «Pixels Wave” also incorporates fragments of Malta’s history . This fluid universe reacts to the motion of visitors. Their movements amplify the pixel distortions under their feet. Through the digital prism, these patterns expand to an urban scale, come alive, form and deform to infinity, and evolve to create an ever-changing universe. This new creative work harks back to the idea of the trompe l’oeil technique in art, disturbing the perceptions of visitors while creating the sensation of a shifting floor that loses its shape and moves. The reference here is to such Kinetic Art and Op Art artists (Jesús Rafael Soto, Julio Le Parc, Victor Vasarely ...) who conducted research into movement and optical illusion and prefigured digital art. Like a giant kaleidoscope, this world of colors and shapes in motion leads us on an imaginary and poetic journey of optical illusion and play.  A film by Claude Mossessian. Miguel CHEVALIER: Pixels Wave 2015 Generative and interactive virtual-reality installation. Music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi. Voxels Productions: Nicolas Gaudelet, Emilie Lesne, Samuel Twidale Softwares: Cyrille Henry / Antoine Villeret.  Malta International Arts Festival 2015 City Gate, Valletta, Malta 10 - 26 July 2015 

“Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.” Heiligenstadt Testament, Ludwig van Beethoven, October 6, 1802: one of the most heartbreakingly poignant and personal, penned by a composer. Taking this as our fundamental inspiration and trying to get deep into the mind of a composer who is losing the one sense that should be more perfect than any others – his hearing – this interdisciplinary project reflects the essence of “isolation”, through sound, light, movement, internal emotion and word. What do we experience when we read this – perhaps even more particularly now, when we are all in “isolation”? Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the composer, we have explored different interpretations of isolation or solitude: Alone but not lonely; Alone within one’s thoughts; Alone and isolated; Alone and in despair; Cocooned within oneself; Alone in a crowd; Blank face; Deceived by hope; Another world inside; A journey to find oneself; Discovery? What does it evoke to you?