As part of La Fête du Ruisseau
"Invisible Rivers" is part of the "Rivières*" regional project, led by GMEM and OSU-Pythéas, the Observatory of Universe Sciences. This collaboration has given rise to a shared goal: to make Marseille’s rivers—the Huveaune, the Jarret, and the Aygalades—visible and tangible once again.
The Rivières project brings together an artistic team and a scientific team to explore, experiment with, and imagine new forms of expression at the intersection of scientific knowledge and experimental sound creation.
In this context, the*Invisible Rivers* project offers a contemporary interpretation of these waterways through a mixed-media sound improvisation combining percussion and electronic music. Sound thus becomes a space for exploration and resonance, allowing us to hear these rivers—their histories, their transformations, and the landscapes they flow through—in a new light.
*Following *Sans Nom Dit*, *Pétrole*, *Les Pupitres de la Cayolle *, and *Sonord*, theGMEM presents its new regional art project:*Rivières*.
Partnership
Collectif des Gammares;GR 2013 Guides Office
Rivières Project:
Co-production
GMEM—National Center for Musical Creation; OSU Pythéas (Observatory of Sciences of the Universe): AMU/CNRS/INRAE/IRD; IMBE (Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Marine and Continental Ecology): CNRS/IRD; EcoComplex-Biodiv Thematic School.
Support
PEPR ICCARE—priority research program and equipment dedicated to the cultural and creative industries, led by the CNRS.





This work received government funding administered by the National Research Agency under the France 2030 program, grant number ANR-23-PEIC-0001.
His career is a crossing of musical genres: jazz, learned music, traditional or innovative, written or improvised.
Christian Sebille
Composer
Appointed in 2011 as director of the GMEM, the National Center for Musical Creation in Marseille, Christian Sebille serves in the dual roles of director and composer.
Beginning in 1983, he devoted himself to electroacoustic music, which he studied with Jean Schwartz (Gennevilliers Conservatory) and Philippe Prévost (IRCAM), and then, in 1987, to mixed media music at La Muse en Circuit with Luc Ferrari.
In 1993, he founded Césaré in Reims, which became the National Center for Musical Creation in 2006 and whose artistic direction is focused on openness and the convergence of artistic disciplines and styles.
Christian Sebille’s catalog includes more than seventy vocal, instrumental, electroacoustic, and mixed-media works. Beginning in 1998, he developed computer-based instrument design, which allowed him to explore the fields of improvisation and real-time performance both in France and abroad. (Alex Grillo, Philippe Foch, Matt Bourne, Miquèu Montanaro…). From 2002 to 2013, he created a large-scale series of musical installationstitled *Les 13 miniatures*, in which he explored the concepts of space and landscape—elements that have since characterized and defined his artistic practice.
Since 2009, a series titled*Les concerts radiophoniques* has involved staging performances in which all electroacoustic elements (interviews, sound recordings, real-time processing, sound effects) are combined with the presence of musicians to create a live radio production. The most recent ones, created with Philippe Foch (percussion), juxtaposed the two industrial sites of Donges (Pays de Loire) and Martigues (Étang de Berre). The most recent piece was commissioned and presented as part of the DigitIZMir festival (Izmir, Turkey) in 2024.
Since 2018, Christian Sebille, in residence at CIRVA (International Center for Research on Glass and Art), has been working onthe project*Paysage de Propagations*, a series of projects that takes on a wide variety of presentation formats, such as installations, performances, and concerts.
Since 2022, he has been creating a series of performed electronic pieces. The first was commissioned by the Chaillol Cultural Center (Le chant des cimes); the second, *Embrasser un arbre embrasserle temps* (2022–2025), is a landscape performance with choreographer Emmanuelle Huynh in which the question of landscape and space remains central.
In 2025, Christian Sebille will create *En voiture, une Musique-Fiction* (a series for an ambient sound installation—IRCAM-Centre Pompidou) based on an original text by Olivia Rosenthal.
Thierry Tatoni
Professor at Aix-Marseille University; After establishing and leading a team in “landscape ecology and conservation biology,” then serving as director of the Mediterranean Institute of Ecology and Paleoecology from 2004 to 2011, he founded and directed the Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Marine and Continental Ecology (UMR CNRS / IRD / Aix-Marseille University / University of Avignon) from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a CNRS project manager for the Partnership Program in Ecology and the Environment (DiPEE) in the South region. His research focuses on ecological vulnerability, as well as ecological functions and a holistic approach to the services provided by biodiversity. As he is deeply committed to transferring knowledge to biodiversity managers and land-use planners, he serves on several scientific advisory boards for protected natural areas (notably as chair of the scientific advisory boards for the Calanques National Park, the Luberon Regional Nature Park, and the Sainte-Baume Regional Nature Park), as a member of the CORP of the Federation of Regional Nature Parks, the scientific advisory board of the Conservatoire du Littoral, the SRADDET, and the PACA Regional Biodiversity Committee.
Hugo Maurer
Ph.D. candidate in environmental sciences at IMBE - Aix-Marseille University. Head of Strategy and Project Management at Néo-Eco.
City of Street Arts
225 Ibrahim Ali Ave.13015
Marseille
Duration
—Ongoing
Open to the public; no reservation required
Artistic team
, featuring
, Alex Grillo
, percussion
Christian Sebille
electronics
, Thierry Botti
, Thierry Tatoni
, Jean-Marc Layet
, Hugo Maurer
, readings