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Emile Demerliac - Pipes have their ways

Pipes have their ways is an installation and sound machine which brings the public in a playful, civic ritual centered around the creation of soundscapes which relate to the architecture environment. By mixing ancient pipe organ making technics and the use of modern DIY methods, this work honors the history of techniques as much as our intelligence in freely recomposing from it.

The installation is an infrastructure for air and sound. Parts such as bellows, wood structures and sounding instruments made of PVC pipes are connected through hoses and pipes which allow the air to travel through
the interrelated elements. Between them are interactive objects which function like “gates” to let the air flow or not into the sound instruments. Working like drawers, those objects inspire a playful way of making sound with air as they can be easily manipulated by a simple push or pull gesture.

Due to his long experience of opera singing, the role of the body in Emile Demerliac’s design practice is central. Alike his body, Pipes have their ways turns the air into sound. The installation is made of common construction materials such as PVC pipes, hoses, venting hoods and venting fans. Emile Demerliac suggests, we can consider those materials are like the insides of the buildings we live, like their guts. The mechanical and industrial aspect of this work is turned alive thanks to the air, the pneuma in ancient Greek, which means both air, breath and spirit. The pneuma-tic system of Pipes have their ways made by and for the people, therefore reconciliate industrial environments and bodies. This is especially true the moment of activation in which the public also reveals itself as a body, and moreover as a social body.

During his journey, Emile Demerliac came across a book written by a French organ builder of the 18th century, which describes precisely every step of how to build a pipe organ “from scratch”. This book gave him fundamental keys to build his project. Written in the tradition of the Enlightenment, roughly at the same time as the Encyclopedia, this book, such as Pipes have their ways, embodies the essential democratic ambition of sharing knowledge.

With his work, Emile Demerliac looks forward not only to make a tribute to everything he owes to past builders and thinkers but moreover to ambitiously propose something more engaging, accessible and open-source as he’s convinced that this work is only one iteration of the spirit of Homo Faber, defined by the drive to create and share. In this sense, it is also a beginning—one that will evolve through collective effort, with each of us continuing and sharing in our unique ways.