Signature work
ILAM
- Sound, light and interactive installation
- Perte de Signal · Montreal
- 23 October → 1 December 2018
- 2018
MALI in the mirror
ILAM is MALI reversed and made legible in a mirror. Regional maps of the country are suspended in space, while an interactive map is projected onto the floor.
When a visitor stands on a region, the corresponding suspended map lights up through video mapping. The activated region is then projected on its own onto the wall, while the soundscape of that locality is heard.
The installation turns the map into a constellation of images, reflections and sounds. The territories remain distinct, yet their shared presence symbolically reconstructs Mali.
Artistic & technical details
- Concept & creation
- Aboubacar Bablé Draba
- Artistic form
- Sound, light and interactive installation
- Technologies
- TouchDesigner · Resolume · Kinect
- Mentorship
- Danny Perreault
- Programme
- RUSTINES|LAB
- Host
- Perte de Signal
- Location
- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Dates
- 23 October — 1 December 2018
- Support
- Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
The body as interface
The visitor does not remain outside the work: their movement triggers the transition from one region to another. Their body becomes the interface connecting the floor projection, the suspended elements, the wall projection and the soundscape.
Developed as a tribute to Mali, the work evokes the country’s unity through the plurality of its territories. Each fragment becomes a surface of memory activated by a human presence.
The ILAM / MALI reversal places the mirror at the heart of the project, both as material and symbolic gesture. In Perte de Signal’s presentation, the artist invites Malians to “look at themselves in the mirror” in order to find Mali again.