Monochromes is a hybrid project at the intersection of music, light and colour, a collaboration between visual artist Yannick Jacquet and composer/double bassist Otto Lindholm.

At the heart of Monochromes is a series of 12 unique compositions for double bass and looper, each lasting a fixed 5 minutes. Each composition focuses on a specific note of the musical scale, to which is freely associated a luminous hue, thought of as a sound colour. The result is a chromatic alphabet – the 12 semitones of Western music – that questions our relationship with representations.

Inspired by EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, a cognitive therapy using eye movements) techniques, the artists weave a dialogue between music, colour and light, exploring their influences on our mental state. Monochromes invites to slow down and take in the sensations that can emerge from its coloured circular stimuli.

The main installation, formed by an ellipse of screens, presents six of the twelve sound monochromes. The artists are also seeking to manipulate colour more precisely and work with it in greater depth. Here, they are exhibiting an initial prototype of this research in an isolated monolith.

In the animal world there is an infinite variety of eyes and vision systems, some capable of distinguishing types of light invisible to the human eye, while others can only see in black and white; still others can detect prey running miles away, while others struggle to distinguish their immediate environment accurately or are only sensitive to movement. So each species develops a visual interface with reality that is perfectly suited to its survival.
But how do machines look at us, at a time when the proliferation of cameras in an ever-increasing variety of devices is associated with the rapid development of computer vision, commonly known as ‘computer vision’?

Computer vision is an artificial intelligence technique for analysing images captured by equipment such as cameras. For many, computer vision is the AI equivalent of the human eye and our brain’s ability to process and analyse perceived images.
The neural networks generated by computer vision algorithms learn to link language and the world together, and as they learn they create identifiable patterns, areas of interest in images, and a whole series of criteria and characteristics that enable them to understand the world passing before their eyes.

The installation An eye is an eye is an eye is an eye hijacks the images generated by these ‘observing’ machines to turn them into the medium of a visual and poetic narrative, written in real time, questioning our ability to make sense of the visible, our perception of reality and our relationship to the imaginary.