Inspired by Edison’s necrophone, this installation project aims at staging a very intrusive relationship to death in a hyper-mediated society. In what could be seen as somewhat of a digital grave, the body is no longer physically stored, but rather encoded — along with an exhaustive library of personal details — into a single cylinder of marble.
In a first phase, the memory storage cylinder is set to rotate while being read by a moving arm carrying a light sensor. Once enough data has been collected, a second phase starts where a sample of personal information — may it be biometric, or a memory — is recompiled into an audio-visual stream. The installation then turns back again into “read-mode”, and loops through the data.
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/8mmtgnhfhbpngw1024fmtjpg.jpg)
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Fresnoy_Digital_Necrophonie3.png)
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/mlavenne-application-export-image1-copie2-copie-1024x641.jpeg)
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/e_metalic_r-1024x640.jpg)
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/MLavenne_Artefact-digital-necrophony2-1024x642.jpeg)
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Mathilde-Lavenne_Artefact-0-Digital-Necrophony_2016_Installation_Marmor-Sensor-algorithmische-Komposition-Video_Detail_Foto-Henning-Krause-RVB2-scaled-1-1024x683.jpeg)
![](https://normalfutu.re/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Edison_and_phonograph_edit1-238x300.jpeg)
Production
Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains
In Collaboration with
l’IRCAM, Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique du Centre Georges Pompidou
Fabricarium de l’institut Polytech, lille
EDM, Européenne du marbre à Paris
Project Manager
Elodie Wattiaux
Lead Artist
Sound Design
Product Design, Visual Design & Development
N O R M A L S
Light & Arduino
Programming
Etienne Landon
Hardware Production
Christophe Gregorio
Assistant
Guillaume Gravina
ESA-Art / images
Robin Labriaud
Lina Qi
Photography
Frank Kleinbach