From sound design to sound art: the same gesture, another freedom.
Sound design starts from a use, a space, a need. Sound art starts from a question — about perception, about emotion, about what sound can make visible of the invisible. Both approaches draw on the same knowledge: psychoacoustics, architectural acoustics, mastery of playback systems, composition. But sound art releases the functional constraint to keep only the essential — the experience, and what it leaves behind.
With Laurent Sauvagnac, we have formed for more than twenty years the creative duo at the heart of hého design. Together we imagine and design the immersive sound installations — drawing on our technical expertise to make the technique disappear, and put the artistic gesture first.
Our approach to sound art is inseparable from the space that hosts it. Each installation is designed in situ — in dialogue with the architecture, the light, the materials, the natural acoustics of the place. It is not about depositing sonic content in a space, but about making the space itself resonate, revealing what it carries.
When artistic creation serves the brand or the place.
Sound art is not reserved for cultural institutions. Certain prestige brands, certain architects, certain exceptional places understand that a sound installation can say what no text can — and create an experience the visitor carries away with them. This is not communication. It is presence.
For a luxury house, a sound installation at a launch can turn an event into a memorable experience — not because it was spectacular, but because it was right. For an architectural place, a permanent or temporary installation can reveal sensory dimensions that architecture alone cannot reach.
A space always has an acoustic — even when nobody decided it. Materials, volumes, flows of people create an involuntary sonic signature. An installation designed in dialogue with this natural acoustic does not fight the space — it amplifies it, reveals it, transforms it.
This is why we always work with the architects and scenographers from the earliest design phases. The spatialisation of sound, the choice and placement of sources, the handling of reflections and natural reverberation are artistic decisions as much as technical ones.
A few installations
Poetic intoxication
Sound installation for the launch of a YSL fragrance. Ultra-directional loudspeakers broadcast fragments of poems that reverberated off mirrors arranged around the bottle — creating a sensation of happy, poetic intoxication. Sound as the olfactory extension of the object, the voice as sculptural material in space.
The Salon of Sounds
In partnership with the Jouin-Manku duo, sound and acoustic design of an installation presented at AD Intérieurs 2016 on the theme of "the collector's universe". A cabinet of sculptural objects, each encapsulating a different sound — the rustle of the wind, a child's song — played through a Devialet system integrated into the structure. A place of repose where sonic memories are shared, as one once did with films or photographs.
First installations, early 2000s
From the founding of hého, electroacoustic installations for prestigious houses were the founding ground of exploration — before architectural sound design took over. These first experiences forged our conviction: technical mastery is only worth anything if it is placed entirely at the service of the artistic intention.
Bespoke installations — from intention to sounding.
We design immersive sound installations for a wide range of contexts: brand events (launches, exhibitions, flagship stores), cultural places (museums, foundations, heritage spaces), architectural programmes (hotels, reception spaces, living places).
Our role covers the entirety of the artistic gesture: imagining the work, defining its perceptual intentions, designing it in its relationship to the space, creating the sounds — or choosing silence, for an installation can be entirely acoustic, without electronics. The composition, the spatialisation, the choice of sonic materials and silences are artistic decisions we take alone.
The technical realisation — playback system engineering, technology integration, on-site installation — is entrusted to our circle of trusted experts and partners, chosen according to the specifics of each project. We steer the whole and remain present until delivery.
The final stage is irreplaceable: commissioning and tuning in situ, by ear. It is in the real space, with its materials, its living acoustics and its actual listening conditions, that the work finds — or not — its right sonic presence. These final adjustments, we always make ourselves.
- Yves Saint Laurent — Immersive sound installation
- Patrick Jouin & Sanjit Manku — The Salon of Sounds · AD Intérieurs 2016
- Dior · Ruinart — Electroacoustic installations
- Monnaie de Paris · Cité du Design
To explore the diversity of projects — see the portfolio.