SUMMER GARDENS
In collaboration with COAL and Ircam

The plants that surround us are equipped with complex communication systems that remain imperceptible to human senses.

To withstand insect attacks, exchange nutrients, and access environmental resources, they rely on gaseous, electrical, aquatic, and underground signals that travel from rhizome to rhizome, leaf to leaf, plant to plant, and grove to grove, beyond the reach of our eyes and ears.

Created by sound designer Paul Guionie in collaboration with the students of Class 2nde 8 at Lycée Condorcet, the sound piece Phytorumori invites listeners to hear these invisible murmurs. Through elemental metaphors, air, electricity, earth, and water, and audible sonic trajectories, this communication network traces a new map of the landscape, shaped by constant movement and exchange, challenging the apparent stillness of plant life.

Futuretum is a landscaped environment where futures take root. Upon entering Futuretum, temporal anomalies randomly transport listeners into speculative soundscapes, offering glimpses into possible futures of the Parc de la Villette.

Through a complete creative process—from writing and field recording to sound design and editing—the students of the Landscape Design program at École Du Breuil, together with sound designer Julia Griner, create sonic scenes in which unknown languages and cultures intersect with undiscovered animals and technological objects. Drawing inspiration from science fiction, they transform the familiar garden into a series of unprecedented environments.

Futuretum is a patchwork of possibilities, where each sonic fragment opens a window onto a divergent future trajectory.

Garden Story is a subjective exploration of the immediate environment of a class of high school students from Aubervilliers, paying close attention to the often unnoticed details of everyday life.

Conceived as a listening journey, the installation created by composer Manon Lepauvre and the students of the AGORA vocational program at Lycée d’Alembert unfolds as a gradual shift: from a naturalistic approach to the landscape and the sounds that surround us, toward transformed, almost abstract forms, before returning to a tangible presence of reality.

The installation offers an acoustic promenade in which familiar sounds are transformed, revealing the richness of a territory through the subjective perspective and sonic imagination of its young creators. It invites audiences to reconsider their sonic environment, oscillating between recognition and disorientation, memory and invention.