Commissioned by luxury Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet, the installation was composed over multiple visits to the Vallée de Joux’s forest and lake region during many different seasons (All photos: Audemars Piguet)
In a poetic meld of haute horlogerie and art, Audemars Piguet presents a site-specific sound installation by Norwegian artist Jana Winderen at Art Basel in Basel, in its lounge designed by Brooklyn-based Fernando Mastrangelo (pictured). Winderen’s composition takes visitors on an acoustic journey across the Vallée de Joux, the Swiss watchmaker’s home and, together with Mastrangelo, offers a sensory experience of the Jura Mountains.
Winderen’s artwork amplifies the sounds of our environment and empathetically connects listeners to the fragility of our global ecosystems. Her latest composition, Du Petit Risoud aux profondeurs du Lac de Joux, focuses on sounds that are both accessible and inaccessible to the human ear, encompassing various layers of the Vallée de Joux, from the 300-year-old slow-growing spruce trees of the Risoud forest to the sounds made by the fish in the depths of the Lac de Joux.
Amplifying sounds from the ecosystems through high-definition recordings, Winderen highlights unique ways of seeing, listening and interacting with our immediate surroundings while exploring how sounds from the forest and the land are affected by human activity.
Inspired by the manufacture’s origins, Mastrangelo’s design was first unveiled at Art Basel in Hong Kong earlier this year and will continue its evolution in Miami Beach until 2020. The design element making its debut in Basel is a chandelier made of crushed glass, referencing the limestone stalactites in the Swiss Vallorbe Caves, which will be suspended above the watchmaker’s desk.
