During their residency at Qo2, Diane will expand on their instrument building and mimicry research, pursuing a very old line of interrogations: how do we know an owl is an owl, a flute is a flute, and a storm is a storm? Looking for voices and forms at the intersection of the synthetic and the organic, they will explore prototypes of hybrid sound instruments that combine acoustic design for aerophones, resonators and membranes with DIY electronics and photosonic synthesis. Half installation, half performance, the project creates an evolving ecosystem of composite beings that do not exist in this world, but sound like they might.

Diane Barbé explores the intersections of ecology and experimental music, working with field recording as much as with additive synthesis and wind instruments. Her work delves into the manifold practices of musicking: crafting flutes, globular whistles and percussion instruments from salvaged materials, developing practices of collective music ensembles with her project « The Alien Kin », and kneading the relationship of sound and time through live looping, stretching and alterations. Her last album, Musiques Tourbes, comes out on Forms of Minutiae in the autumn 2024, unravelling a mixture of field recordings and additive analog synthesis, building together a swampy universe of little critters. Diane collaborates with Laure Boer on the radical improvisation duo Arbore that opens onto drone, noise, lullabies, and technoid evocations of witchcraft with an album, Aboyer au mauvais arbre (Somewhere Press, 2025). She also performs solo in experimental music festivals and venues across Europe, builds sound installations and instruments, and recently composed an acousmatic piece, Signe Singe, for the GRM in Paris, played back on their acousmonium multichannel system.