Pali Meursault

Since the early 2000s, my work has been shaped around sound, explored both as a phenomenon, as a material, and as a medium. Understood in an expansive way, the field of sound extends, for me, to the inaudible dimensions of its energetic manifestations: infrasound and ultrasound, but also the radiations of electromagnetic phenomena.

Through processes of recording, production, manipulation, and dissemination, my research seeks to unfold beyond the purely acoustic or electroacoustic aspects of sound, in order to engage with the social and political dimensions it reveals. It therefore involves paying broader attention both to the social contexts in which a sound emerges and to the ways it operates within new cultural contexts, to the bodies that produce it and its effects on bodies.

Microphones and loudspeakers have become my primary tools and instruments, within a practice situated at the intersection of visual arts and performance, electroacoustic music, sensory anthropology, and documentary approaches. Through the possibilities of the medium and the uses of media, this research develops in relation to environments approached as problematic “fields.” For over twenty years, I have carried my microphones and antennas through abandoned factories, active workplaces, and tropical forests; I have examined the movements of Alpine glaciers, the songs of insects, and electromagnetic fields; I have captured radio transmissions and social uprisings.

A large part of my work is collaborative: with anthropologists Jonathan Larcher and Sophie Houdart (L’Île, a project currently in development), with glaciologists Lucas Davaze and Antoine Rabatel (Melt*), with collectives such as TT-Node and Ici-Même, with sound artists Thomas Tilly (Nix*, Melt*, Radio Glaces), Frédéric Nogray and Lee Patterson (FANT^MS), and Nicolas Montgermont (Feral Bands), as well as with artists and filmmakers Naïs Van Laer (Chroniques d’un dégel, Orage), Lili Reynaud-Dewar (Gruppo Petrolio), and Camille Llobet (Monstre Pente, Terrain)…

Alongside these activities, I also occasionally teach, coordinate projects, and write on sound cultures. In particular, I edited the anthology Tetsuo Kogawa: Radio-Art (Éditions UV) and was invited curator of the exhibition Donner forme à l’éther at Espace Multimédia Gantner.