Nabaz'mob

Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction Digital Musics 2009



Nabaz'mob, opera for 100 smart rabbits
by Antoine Schmitt and Jean-Jacques Birgé

100 Nabaztag smart rabbits play together an opera specially composed by Antoine Schmitt et Jean-Jacques Birgé.

Evoking John Cage, Steve Reich, Conlon Nancarrow and György Ligeti, this musical and choreographic score in three movements, transmitted via wi-fi, plays on the tension between the orchestral ensemble and the individual voices to create a strong and involved showpiece. This opera questions the issues of working together, organization, decision and control, which are increasingly central and difficult in our contemporary world.

Schmitt and Birgé have chosen to twist the industrial object into an artwork in which the choreography of the ears, the play of light and the hundred small loudspeakers hidden in the stomachs of each rabbit create a composition with three voices built on time delay and repetition, programming and disrespect for rules.


Choreography and music by Antoine Schmitt and Jean-Jacques Birgé
with the help of
Violet, after an idea by Guylaine Monnier (Web Flash Festival)

FILM by Françoise Romand (English subtitles, 3mn40s)
Flash Version of the creation at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, May 27 2006
Mirrors : YouTube - DailyMotion - Vimeo
The rabbits were originally brought by their owners in the same spirit of the flashmobs
4 other films:
New York Making of 2006 (film, 2mn06s)
Linz Ars Eletronica Celebration 2009 (film, 7mn58s)
Paris Rabbit New Year 2010 (film, 3mn08s)
Lille EuraTechnologies 2010 (film, 3mn21s)

The sound comes out the belly of each rabbit !

Pictures (click for 300dpi) - Audio (extracts)

Press (newspapers, magazines, TV & radio extracts, sites)

Details (concept & technical information)
TechRider
(technical pages)

Free Download of Machiavel (1998), an interactive video scratch by Birgé and Schmitt

Version française