Nicole L’Huillier

The Rehearsal Room is a space of resonance – a portal between waking life and dream realities, where attunement, improvisation and call-and-response form the foundations of a dynamic and relational society. Through the vibrational logics of resonance and relationality, Rehearsal Room invites us to dream and confabulate new models of togetherness, where listening is the basis of collective attunement and dialogue.

Conceived in collaboration with the neuroscientist and artist Dr Adam Haar Horowitz and AI researcher and artist Manaswi Mishra, the installation integrates an ever-evolving sonic space that originates from dream reports, and drum-like sculptures that articulate physical, digital and AI systems to create hybrid instruments that both listen and respond to sounds around them. These sounds are attuned to frequencies known to influence cognitive processes and well-being, providing a space to explore collective attunement and shared states of consciousness.

At the heart of the Rehearsal Room is the drum – a resonant membrane, a threshold between worlds, a portal that connects sonic, social and other vibrational spaces. Drums are, at their core, membranes that both separate and connect, translating movement into sound and sound into movement. These Dream-Drums are instruments of sonic dialogue, but also instruments of navigation and a key to our dreams. They are activated by the sonic and tactile input of visitors (such as touching, singing, whispering and percussing), generating new oscillatory spaces that function as sonic bridges between realities.

Visitors interacting with the Dream-Drum instruments shape the sonic environment in real time. Sounds generated in the space are digitally processed to resonate with brainwave patterns associated with relaxation, meditation and dreaming, such as Theta waves (4–8 Hz) that bridge wakefulness and sleep, and Alpha waves (8–13 Hz) that promote calm awareness. The result is a feedback loop between the resonant membranes of human bodies, instruments and space, an emergent field of listening and elastic becoming.

Rehearsal Room, 2025, is co-produced with the Schering Stiftung, Berlin, where it will be presented as part of a solo exhibition by Nicole L’Huillier (24 April–12 July 2026).