By Sara Barnes on June 19, 2025
These floating ceramic bowls generate “melodious and incantatory sounds,” all without human intervention.
Artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot explores sound and movement in an expansive installation now on view at Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection in Paris. Titled clinamen, the multisensory experience features an 18-meter (59-foot) diameter pool in the museum’s Rotunda filled with water that reflects the sky through its dome. The bright blue basin is a veritable ocean as a fleet of porcelain bowls is set in motion by a gentle current. The resulting movement generates “melodious and incantatory sounds,” all without human intervention.
Sound is a vital component of clinamen. At its core, the installation highlights the symphony created from the movement of simply existing. There are no planned compositions or orchestras. Rather, sound is produced by happenstance as the bowls inevitably collide.
While sound is one focus, so is form. The piece’s title is inspired by Epicurean physics, which posited that the entire universe consisted of two things: matter and void. Matter comprises atoms, which move in random paths. We can think of the porcelain bowls as Boursier-Mougenot’s of atoms; they similarly glide in haphazard ways. This makes unpredictability central to the overall experience of clinamen.
“If in the moment before two porcelain bowls collide you try to anticipate the resulting note or timbre,” Boursier-Mougenot explains, “most of the time your expectation will be foiled by the sound of the collision.” Thus, every showing of clinamen is unique. […]
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