Ground Noise

Photographer Céline Clanet takes interest in this little-known and rarely shown underworld. Her series, in black and white, mixes landscape shots with microscopic photographs of organic elements, both taken in various French forests. In her exploration of the Earth surface, the artist blurs the scale of her images, immersing the viewer into a universe that seems both strange and familiar.

In electrical and electronic systems, a ground noise is a sound interference, a stray noise considered as disturbance. Like a flying insect trapped in a lamp, it is a continuous rustle, a vibration that seeks to escape. Its presence is considered annoying, therefore one usually seeks to get rid of it.

Insects and arthropods trigger atavistic reactions in us. Even dead and pinned under glass, a spider will be able to frighten, even for a moment, an adult human being. Admittedly, we have somehow tamed our fears towards them, through admiration (“the incredible work of ants”, “the beauty of butterflies”) or recognition (“the bees, our so useful nurturers”), but this teeming fauna remains nonetheless mysterious, obscure, even unsettling.

This work is extended by a conversation between Céline Clanet and eco-acoustician Jérôme Sueur, a specialist of the “melody of insects”.