There’s a dark room with all the walls painted black. On the ground, there are small motors attached to thin pale pieces of wood. There are hundreds of them spread across the floor, creating a haze on top of the inky floor. Each stick clatters and bounces as the motor rotates. Noise engulfs the dark room, and it is loud and uncomfortable at first, raising the hairs on your arms. But then, with time, the coarse noise settles and patterns emerge from each piece of wood tapping its tune. If you listen long enough, waves start to crash at the edges of the room and the rain patters on the floor.

[600 prepared dc-motors, 58 kg wood, 2017.]

Zimoun, a Swiss artist, is the mechanic behind these captivating sculptures — sound sculptures, they are called. Each sound sculpture is an immersive experience, revealing the endless possibilities of what art can be. Zimoun’s work is minimalist, deftly composed, and ethereal. Each room he shapes is confounding; they may seem dark and bare of life, but the sculptures he crafts breathe life into the room. He fills simple spaces with everyday objects that, in their barest sense, don’t have intrinsic beauty associated with them (some of his pieces include chimes hanging from floor to ceiling, brown boxes piled on top of each other, or paper bags attached to the walls). However, the beauty of his work comes from how his sculptures are organized. They’re methodical and calculated; each object is intentionally placed. In every sculpture, there is a beautiful engineering that, without a focused eye, can be lost in the initial plainness of it all. Zimoun has calculated the entire environment that the sculpture resides in: the wind rushing in, the strength of the motors, and the material of the sculpture. He is the master puppeteer of it all, and seeing his compositions come to life is breathtaking.

Discovering Zimoun’s artwork has left me fascinated by all that art can encompass. Especially since performance and interactive art have always been of interest to me. Zimoun expertly creates an atmosphere –something that activates all the senses and utilizes natural resources– by utilizing all elements of his piece, whether that be recycled materials from his objects or the endogenous acoustics of a room. To me, this ability is magical. His work pulls me away into another world, another dimension, where simple concepts –bags rustling or wind blowing– represent the calmness that I strive to feel. The echoes of his work remain in my mind long after I stopped listening.

The goal of performance art has never felt passive or comfortable, with its origins in the Dada and Futurist art movements. There is something defiant and incredibly radical about the way that performance artists send messages to their audiences.  Impermanence and identity are especially in no shortage when referring to performance art. Zimoun’s artwork embodies what it means to take found objects and give them purpose. While they may not last forever, as is the case with organic material, the transient nature of his work is why it is so important to experience.

Zimoun uses sound as well as visual aesthetics to create living art, going beyond the traditional boundaries of just music or visual art. Zimoun’s art has tonal and visual intention; he composes the sounds of the objects based on what they sound like naturally and scales those sounds up until they create something more complex. Despite the large amount of objects involved in his sound sculptures, when observing his work there isn’t a moment where I feel overwhelmed. Knowing how meticulously each aspect of the sculpture has been thought through brings a new reverence to me, the viewer. As I have been diving deeper into Zimoun’s portfolio, I will first try to understand as many of the visual patterns as I can.  Then natural inclination for me is to close my eyes and feel as much of the music he is creating. His work radiates calmness and serenity that I believe are most potent when left with one’s thoughts. As a result, Zimoun’s pieces are intimate; they face inward and push the viewer to feel more deeply. They carry a weight to them that feels private and not meant for many eyes.

I don’t think I appreciated what performance art had to offer until recently. There’s always a conversation around contemporary and performance art that boils down to:

I could do this myself… It’s not that interesting… I don’t get it…

To that, I say:

Not understanding is one of the best parts of experiencing art.

The unknowns and discomforts of performance art provides space to think and feel things that the messiness of our everyday lives prevents. The stories, history, and intention behind artists like Zimoun, like Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, and Harry Bertotia (another sound sculpture artist) are palpable. All of them take the idea of “food for thought” and run with it, making bodies of work that allow me the space to question what my definition of art is, to take time to relax, to understand important social injustices, and at the core of it all, to be more human. Therefore, I think the art and media that are most meaningful to me are the ones that make me feel like I am a part of something bigger, like I am a part of a great artist’s vision, like I am just at the tip of all that their creativity has to offer. For that reason, Zimoun’s pieces are nothing short of incredible. How wonderful it is to see chaos organized so precisely. How wonderful it is to see objects from the everyday transform.

How wonderful it is to experience newness, in sound and art.

Zimoun’s art portfolio - https://zimoun.net/installations/