Envolée Lyrique – Philomène Longpré

ENVOLÉE LYRIQUE, Responsive Art System. Combining robotic art, video, light, and interactivity, Envolée Lyrique is an installation inspired by the migration of greater snow geese. The work evokes their flight, the beating of their wings, their group movements, and the sky in which they travel.

Longpré studied snow geese, which travel more than 4,000 km in spring and fall between their nesting place and the territory where they spend the winter. She documented their migration and flight formations by visiting several of their resting areas, from Cap-Tourmente near Quebec to the Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri to Beaudet Reservoir Park in Victoriaville. Nourished by this research and the study of this exceptional phenomenon, she imagined a large- scale installation work to highlight the images and sensations collected in the field.

Envolée Lyrique is composed of robotic sculptures representing geese in flight. Fabricated by the artist, the structures of the mechanical birds are made of stainless steel and aluminum, while their wings, articulated by motors, present photographs taken during her observations. As the video projection shows days passing in the sky, the automaton sculptures, attached to concrete surfaces and forming a sailboat, slowly flap their wings in response to their environment. Suggesting the notion of passage specific to the lifestyle of these fascinating birds, Envolée Lyrique invites visitors to become privileged observers of these extraordinary migrators. The reactive dramaturgy of the work brings out an unusual poetry that speaks of the living and the nature that surrounds us, forcefully expressing the bond that unites us there.