Today, we are continuing the interview with UK-based interdisciplinary artist, ⁠Adrien Châtelain⁠, whose practice is focused on audio production, music, audiovisual installation, analogue photography, poetry, sculpture and software. In terms of themes, they investigate the climate crisis, interactions between humans and nature; decay; gender; and the impact of technology, with an emphasis on texture.

Artist Statement:

I am an interdisciplinary artist working in audio production, music, audiovisual installation, analogue photography, poetry, sculpture and software. My audio works range from natural field recordings and soundscapes to complex, textural musical pieces blending orchestration with electronic sounds. My practice focuses on the climate crisis, interactions between humans and nature; decay; gender; and the impact of technology, with an emphasis on texture.

I feel that my practice is particularly relevant to the podcast, as much of it centers climate change. My current exhibition, The Grey Shape of the City is an immersive audiovisual installation combining analog photographs with spatialised field recordings captured in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, focusing on nature’s reclamation of synthetic structures, giving visitors a glimpse into a post-human landscape. The project engages with the role of the natural world in the face of damage caused by human habitation and radiation. Visitors are prompted to consider their actions long term effects, both individually and as humans, challenging our anthropocentrism.

I am currently in residence with Metal as part of their New Artist Residency, developing Degrade, an audio arts installation centred around the degradation of analogue tape loops, using them to explores the relationship between consumption and environmental damage, drawing particular attention to damaging cycles. Degrade also interrogates the boundaries between artist and participant, by handing over control of the experience and the outcome to the viewer. Through the tangible loss of fidelity caused by physically damaging the loops, Degrade is designed to prompt viewers to consider the destructive effects of their own actions in a broader context.

I also engage with the climate emergency in my music - for example, 4LN, from my upcoming record. The concept underpinning the track is the climate crisis, and the anxiety, alienation, and overall fear that we have failed and abandoned our future generations that accompanies that. 4LN blends soundscaping, foley, complex spatialised textures, synthesis and orchestral elements with unusual vocal effects and an eclectic arrangement structure in order to support the song’s theme.

THE GREY SHAPE OF THE CITY

Documenting Decay and Growth in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone