Unforeseen Spaces

In Unforeseen Spaces, the territory refuses to stay still: it constantly reshapes itself, vibrating to the rhythm of presences that are not always seen, but often heard. Permanently connected to the surrounding park, the experience captures birdsong — brief calls, insistent trills, suspended silences — that, like a breath, activate the floating images of a world still in the making. These are immense, diaphanous veils, like living membranes, where feathers merge with skin, and human and animal pulses intertwine. Marie Lelouche doesn’t offer a space to be inhabited, but rather a sensory ecology — unstable, porous, and open — where the rules of interaction remain to be uncovered. Drawing from recent research in interspecies ethology, she crafts a language of whispers and gestures, of tentative approaches and fleeting contacts. Here, everything seems to hinge on a deep attentiveness to the other — whether bird, human, or image. Immersed in this shifting cartography, the viewer gradually uncovers a fragmented narrative, where the imagination takes root through listening. A world that exists only insofar as it is sung, crossed, and felt. And in this world where nothing is fixed, it is the very relation to the other that seems to define new possibilities — new ways of being, sensing, and belonging. _

A production of the Les Tanneries Contemporary Art Center of National Interest
Supported by DICRéAM, a funding program for multimedia and digital artistic creation, managed by the CNC – French National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image.
This virtual reality installation incorporates BirdNET and BirdNET-Pi technologies and is based on recordings from Xeno-Canto, all shared under Creative Commons licenses.

The Director

Marie Lelouche is a French artist whose work explores the intersections of space through counter-intuitive experiences. Born in 1984 in Saint-Junien, France, she holds a degree from Ensba Paris, a Master’s in Visual Arts Research from the Sorbonne, and completed advanced studies at Le Fresnoy with highest honors. In 2025, she earned a PhD in research/creation jointly from UQAM (Montreal) and Le Fresnoy. Her vibrant and multidisciplinary practice has been featured in solo exhibitions at Galerie Mazzoli (Berlin), Spazio Insitu (Rome), Galerie Alberta Pane (Venice), Les Tanneries Contemporary Art Center (France), and Jeu de Paume (Paris). Her work has also been shown at international fairs including Drawing Now (Paris), ArtBrussels, and Artissima (Turin), as well as in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Studio National of Contemporary Art (Seoul), Cyan Museum of Art (South Korea), A.dition Gallery (Seoul), Mirage Festival (Lyon), Cité du Design (Saint-Étienne, France), Musée Lam (Lille, France), and the Francesco Fabbri Foundation (Treviso, Italy). Focusing on the evolution of forms in their techno-cultural contexts, with an emphasis on remix culture and extended reality (XR), she is a recipient of the DICRéAM grant, the Pictanovo Interactive Experience Fund, ISEA2023, and received a special mention for the Adagp Digital Art Revelation Award. She is also a finalist for the Opline and Siemens Ingenious prizes. Marie Lelouche is represented by Galerie Alberta Pane (Paris/Venice).

General Information

Director: Marie Lelouche
Production Company : Les Tanneries Contemporary Art Center of National Interest
Year of Creation: 2021
Awards: ISEA 2023
Minimum Age: no minimum age

Technical Information

Format: Apk.
Number of participants per session: 1 per VR headset
Device: Meta Quest 2 or 3.
Set-up Time: Endless. 10 minutes recommanded.
Surface area: minimum space : 200 m2 / min height : 280 cm / (The installation can be scaled down to a smaller size, to be discussed with the artist).
Internet Connection: yes

Contact

mariehcuolel@gmail.com

Trailer