Paris Sounds collection — 6 Artworks in 2 Series by Arnaud Quercy

Paris Sounds

What happens when a city noise is asked to hold a chord, or to give a shape?

Recordings made in Paris: ice cubes stirred on a café terrace, a bus announcing its destination, a train pulling into a station, two women laughing at the next table, a river-boat commentary sliding from Spanish to Mandarin, a station announcement about pickpockets. None of it is musical. A terrace has no key; an engine has no shape.

A rule assigns them one anyway. It is fixed before listening, it applies without exception, and it does not change from one fragment to the next. This is what ideamorphism calls a codex — not a key that would explain the sound, but a rule posed between two domains with nothing in common, executed to the end, after which one looks at what it has produced.

Two rules divide these works. Field Harmonies holds the paintings: the fragment yields a chord, and the chord a colour. Field Forms holds the sculptures: the fragment yields a sequence of curves, and the sequence a volume.

What the rule does not decide, the artist decides. It returns a fundamental, never a chord; a sequence of curves, never a volume. The gap between what it prescribes and what is finally painted or carved is not a flaw in the device — it is where the work stands.

The rules used are published, with their parameters and the attempts set aside along the way.