Amongst the new artistic research residencies that started in 2024, one led by an atypical duo explores the concept of ‘acousmatic massage’ – a project that walks the line between artistic performance and therapeutic practice.
Presented by Vincent Isnard, Laurent Corvalán Callegos
As part of this residency, a perceptual experiment will be conducted, involving approximately sixty participants (who will be divided into two even groups: the first made up of people already familiar with this kind of artistic practices, and the second of people who are new to it). The goal of this experiment is first to collect their impressions: do they consider the acousmatic massage to be a kind of music or sound performance, or a relaxation technique or a similar practice that can have a beneficial influence on their state of consciousness? Then, this experiment can help refine the protocol and identify what works and what does not depending on the sound object that is used, their trajectory within the space, the way the experiment has been introduced to the participants and in which social context, etc. It also helps to identify the relevant perceptual parameters, in view of constituting a corpus of spatialized sounds that are conducive to the creation of this kind of sound environment, by the end of their research project.
The term ‘massage’ refers to the body and the way it is treated, in a therapeutic perspective or at least one of well-being (without necessarily making a connection to the well-known concept of ‘sound massages’), while the term ‘acousmatic’ refers to its etymological sense: a sound that is heard without an originating cause being seen.
With the emergence of this concept came the necessity to refine its definition and protocol and to explore all its possibilities: this is what led us to undertake this artistic research residency.
Finally, a series of standardized, rigorous and scientifically precise surveys will be distributed to the participants in order to assess the extent to which this kind of massages can be considered as a therapeutic practice as well as the beneficial effects they can have on our mental states and emotional reactions.
This residency offers the opportunity for an interesting convergence between art and scientific research in the field of sound perception…
