Earlier this year, Audemars Piguet found a way to help people better experience just what it means to be them: who they are, where they are, what they do, and most of all, what they sound like. They didn’t release a watch or start a collection; instead, they contacted sound artist Surkin, also known in this project as Gener8ion. What he did was to capture hundreds of sounds from in and around the Le Brassus workshops and the surrounding area, and then sculpt them into a series of four audio pieces that carry the listener into and around Audemars Piguet. The videos are currently available on YouTube, and I think you will find that they are worth your time. It’s fascinating to see this interpretation of a place and time.
The pieces are meant to capture the mood and tone of a day in Le Brassus. In making them, Surkin took the sounds of the natural woodlands and the surrounding forest, but also the sounds of the manufacturers at work. You may not be able to identify every individual sound, but they are mixed together into a progression of sound, from various times of the day. The titles reveal this: simple time designations, nothing more. “6h03” represents the start of the day, with the accompanying video showing mist over the fields and the sun rising. A watch movement ticks away within the orchestra of tones. But “10h45” is different, as the machine noises and handheld tools ring, scrape and hammer within the workshop halls. A blowtorch, surprisingly unrecognizable, hisses away.
And Gener8ion did not hesitate to place the workshops within the larger context of the Le Brassus environment. “There’s a brutal contrast between the hostile surroundings and the calm you encounter in the workshops. While gigantism rules on the outside, attention to the smallest details prevails inside.”
Audemar Piguet’s Royal Oak Concept Supersonnerie strikes the time to begin each video, and rounds out the last one, “22h17” as it slides into the hours of the night.
You might expect these to be haunting, Enya-like sound performances, but they’re surprisingly driving. They’re almost techno-like, club music for the horological crowd. Gener8ion has been mixing music for 15 years, and club music was part of that, so maybe it isn’t that surprising after all. But either way, I suggest you give it a look and a listen. The videos aren’t long, less than two minutes each, and they’re worth it. Probably one of the best parts is when they identify the sounds being used, because you never really heard a polishing machine used quite that way before.
