Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is a French artist and composer who creates large-scale acoustic installations and environments which draw upon laws of nature and the rhythms of everyday life to produce new forms of art and music. In clinamen white porcelain bowls float on the surface of an intensely blue pool. Circulating gently, swept along by submarine currents, the floating crockery acts as a percussive instrument, creating a resonant, chiming acoustic soundscape marked by complexity, hidden patterns and chance compositions.
Encompassing sculptural, performative and avant-garde music traditions, Boursier-Mougenot’s installation promotes chance and indeterminacy in musical composition through the use of unorthodox musical instruments. In its unification of colour, sound and space, clinamen encourages a form of multisensory or ‘synaesthetic’ engagement, while also creating a social space for reflection and contemplation.