Une généalogie des grandes oreilles is the result of an iconographic research conducted by artist Lauren Tortil over the past three years on what she calls “Big Ears”: these military surveillance devices that call upon mediated listening – an increased listening through a mediator, such as a tool, an instrument, an architecture, a system, etc.—and that the modern man has relentlessly improved with the purpose of anticipating potential dangers.
This genealogy, at first glance technical, reaches beyond the principle of lineage. In 460 images across 88 iconographic plates, the artist articulates her thoughts about sound through material from various registers: paintings, film extracts, technical drawings, photographic archives, etc.
The reading is accompanied by an inserted booklet comprising three unpublished texts and captioned pictures annotated by the artist. Exhausting, recontextualizing and shifting its subject beyond the initial military territory, this book reminds us—like Sound Studies—that the figure of a man on the lookout and listening practices are deeply intra-connected to politics, science, medicine and art.
Lauren Tortil (born 1986 in La Roche-sur-Yon, France) is a French sound and visual artist. Influenced by sound studies, media archaeology and political philosophy, she is interested in the processes of listening through the prism of sound technologies, and in the interactions that exist between these media, humans and their sound environment. This approach takes the form of both iconographic and theoretical research, which feeds into her artistic practice (printed objects, installations, performances and workshops). For several years, she has also been developing experimental methods of teaching sound through workshops. Since 2021, she has been running the online editorial project [woːks], which consists of interviews and co-creations with artists about sound art, with the support of *Duuu Radio.
