After Dance Dance Dance, Aller Retours (2013) and Architectural Sonarworks with Romain Dubois (2016), visual artist and performer Cédric Brandilly returns to the festival with this installation linking earth and sky, drawing on a mix of new technologies and musical experiments. Using flight plans instantly available on our smartphones, Cédric Brandilly creates a strange real-time choreography based on the destinations of planes flying over the city. From above! is an interactive, smart and stationary journey in which air travel becomes a musical programme and opportunity for social representation.
This one-of-a-kind DJ will be installed on the balcony of the Opera House for the day with his eyes on the sky and the tell-tale white trails left by planes. Aeroplane data will be collected in real time as sounds and music from overseas invade the pedestrianised area. Cédric Brandilly’s latest installation will let us see and hear the hub of aerial activity that the Rennes sky has become.
Using real-time data now available on smartphones with information on the planes flying overhead (destination, speed, aircraft type, altitude, airline), the artist and performer develops a playlist of music and sounds. Like a kind of flag semaphore, watchtower, control tower or urban lighthouse, From above! simultaneously resonates with all aircraft locations and destinations to propose a real-time on-the-ground sound choreography that goes beyond borders. From London to New York, Mexico to Rio, but seen from Place de la Mairie, this aerial jukebox draws on this two-dimensional moment when the aircraft and spectators on the ground share the same geographical coordinates, helping us to listen to the sky in real time and explore.
This is a harmonious and stationary journey for passers-by and listeners, bringing together the imagination of some with the mobility of others, the intensity of contemporary communication, and the cultural, social and geographical melting-pot of modern-day life
BIOGRAPHY
This visual artist and performer was born in 1984. He first studied Arts and Architecture in Rennes, before continuing his training in the first class to graduate from the Museo Reina Sofia national art centre’s university department in Madrid. His first project (Urne 2012) was presented at the Grand Palais in Lille during the European Contemporary Art Fair (2012). Philosopher and academic Michel Serres took an interest in his work and became a patron. Cédric Brandilly’s art currently consists of Canadian situationist performance practices and Fluxus, questioning new forms of representing social space (a notion developed with the sound and aerial performance From above! created in 2018 for Les Tombées de la Nuit). The Architectural SonarWorks project, co-produced by Les Tombées de la Nuit, was included in the 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress.
He is currently working on a film entitled A la recherche de Collignon.
DISTRIBUTION
Design and performance: Cédric Brandilly.
With the support of 
