Les Automates de Descartes. Concertino

…when looking from a window and saying I see men who pass in the street,
I really do not see them, but infer that what I see is men (…).
And yet what do I see from the window but hats and coats
which may cover automatic machines?

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, II

Rather than a string quartet, this is a piece for solo cello with three more string players hidden elsewhere, and equipped with portable devices. The special arrangement in space makes it difficult to render in a recording. The piece is based on the acousmatic experience of listening where the source of sound is not always visible or imaginable.