French Pavillon - Osaka World's Fair - 2025
Production, mixing, and spatialization of the sound content for the permanent exhibition spaces of the French Pavilion during the World Expo.
Opened on April 13, 2025, the World Expo returns to Japan in the city that hosted it 55 years ago. Among the countries investing in Yumeshima, the artificial island created to host the exhibition pavilions, is France.
The pavilion offers a tour highlighting craftsmanship and artistic creation through eight tableaux—visual, sculptural, and sonic—woven together into a single narrative thread.
This narrative thread is carried by the soundscape, with each space in the French Pavilion pulsing to the rhythm of its own three-and-a-half-minute adaptive and immersive sound tableau. All synchronized to the same tempo, the exhibition is experienced as a single, continuous, and evolving journey.
Une visite virtuelle de l’exposition est disponible, avec une écoute en audio binaural sur : https://franceosaka2025-tour.fr/
Avec L’IRCAM, Yann s’est vu confier la réalisation des contenus sonores de l’exposition. Travail de longue haleine, il s’est décliné en trois étapes :
The creation of the sound diffusion system, en partenariat avec NEXO. Environ 250 enceintes sont disposées dans le pavillon, développant un système unique propre à chaque salle de l’exposition, s’adaptant à la scénographie des lieux et proposant un parcours à l’échelle des espaces partenaires comme à l’échelle de l’exposition.
The composition of the content, while customized for each space, had to remain coherent with all other content in the pavilion, following a three-and-a-half-minute structure and a single tempo to ensure the uniqueness of the experience. This did not prevent each space from having its own contrasts and musical personality. Visitors move through an outdoor garden, encounter creations from French fashion workshops, immersive films, and a light show, all accompanied continuously by the Pavilion’s ever-changing melody. Pierrick Pedron (https://bleubruit.com/) was responsible for composing this sound design on a building-wide scale.
The spatialization and mixing of the spacesinitially began in IRCAM’s studios. Having designed the speaker systems in advance with the COFREX and NEXO teams, the pavilion spaces were virtualized in the studio to pre-spatialize the sound compositions and work as close to reality as possible in advance. However, it was on-site that theory was confronted with the reality of a building, needing to pulse at the same rhythm while accommodating several thousand visitors per hour.
The calibration of each multichannel system, the integration of the sound creations—sometimes interactive—and their mixing had to be carried out with meticulous care to ensure coherence and an enjoyable experience for visitors discovering the exhibition. This overall realization had to be synchronized with every element present in all the original scenographies of the pavilion, aligning with the lights, videos, and interactive sculptures in each partner space. This blending of media, the scenography, and the overall narrative thread were conceived by the pavilion’s artistic director Justine Emard, with GSM.
For the occasion, Yann and IRCAM developed a specific system to ensure the stable synchronous playback across the pavilion’s 250 speakers of a perfect three-and-a-half-minute loop throughout the six-month exhibition.
- Construction work and direction : COFREX
- Artistic director : Justine Emard
- Museography : Justine Emard - GSM
- Sound Design : Pierrick Pedron
- Musical Score : Rone – Pierrick Pedron
- Sound Direction – spatialization – mix : Yann Brecy, Luca Bagnoli
- System Design : Clément Cerles
- Speakers and installation : NEXO - Noctambule
