Category: Non classé

Les voix du soir EN

Les voix du soir
sound performance with 2 speakers
1992/…

for a theater, concert hall, or any other venue
durée 20, 30 ou 45 minutes

This performance, presented to an audience seated in the darkness of a theater or concert hall facing two speakers, weaves together short sound pieces composed of voices, speech, sounds, musical atmospheres, and silences.
The selected pieces—both old and new—
are presented in a narrative and formal order that is not chronological; their underlying thread is suggested by certain transitions, temporal markers, and the recurring presence
of the same voices.
The program features a succession of soliloquies, mock dialogues, reminiscences, descriptions, hints of catastrophe, symptoms, daydreams, exhalations, miniature landscapes,
and other possible narratives. This session is structured
by silences—both within the pieces and between them—
which serve as links and give the whole the temporary
status of a single, long piece.

différents visuels d’annonce (extraits transcription)

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(sélection)
Nuit de la lecture, Médiathèque-Théâtre municipal de Fontainebleau, 2025
Festival Les yeux grand fermés, Théâtre Saint-Gervais, Genève, 2019
Bibliothèque François Villon, Paris, 2019
Festival Densités, Fresnes-en-Woëvre, 2017
Festival Immersion, L’onde, Velizy-Villacoublay, 2017
Cinéma Vidéodrome 2 et Cinéma Gyptis, Marseille
Le BAL, Paris, 2016
Festival Musique Action, CCAM- Scène Nationale, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, 2016
Phonon #1, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg
FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon, 2015
Auditorium, MUDAM, Luxembourg, 2013
Festival Courtisane, Gand, 2010
Sons de plateaux, GRIM, Montevideo, Marseille, 2009
Festival Cinéma du réel, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2009
Festival Ritournelles, Permanences de la littérature, Bordeaux, 2007
Festival Cinéma pour l’oreille, L’Arsenic, Lausanne, 2007
Festival Kino-Eye, MuHKA_media, Anvers, 2007
Festival Côté Court, Transat Vidéo, Ciné 104, Pantin, 2007
Cycle Multiphonies, INA-GRM, Maison de la Radio, Paris, 2007
La Force de l’art, Grand Palais, Paris, 2006
Théâtre Royal, Namur, 2005
Festival Musiques Volantes, Metz, 2005
Issue Project Room, New York, 2005
Le Lion d’or, Montréal, 2005
Teatro Eikon, e/static, Turin, 2004
Planétarium, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, 2004
Festival Ici, d’ailleurs…, Café de la Danse, Paris, 2004
La Guinguette Pirate, Paris, 2003
Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, 2003
Festival Ce qui fait manifeste, Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, 2002
Festival Roma-Europa, Batofar, Rome, 2002
Sonic Square, Kaaitheaterstudio, Bruxelles, 2001
Scratch projection, Centre de Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, 2001
Point Ligne Plan, La Fémis, Paris, 2000
Festival Nemo, Forum des images, Paris, 2000
Festival Les Nuits Botaniques – L’île électrique, Jardin Botanique, Bruxelles, 2000
Soirées Nomades, Printemps de Cahors, 1999
Festival Jamais 2 sans 3, carte blanche à Dominique A, L’Olympic, Nantes, 1999
Festival Nouvelles Scènes, Dijon, 1998
Festival Mettre en scène, TNB, L’Aire Libre, Rennes, 1998
Link Project, Bologne, 1997
Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Bruxellles, 1997
Festival Staaplaat, Volksbühne, Berlin, 1997
Cinéma Spoutnik, L’usine, Genève, 1997
Beursschouwburg, Bruxelles, 1997
Dark/Noir, Forum des images, Paris, 1994
Festival Musique Action, CCAM-Scène Nationale, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, 1994

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Les voix blanches EN

Les voix blanches
set of 3 sound installations, 3 x 8 speakers
2018

solo exhibition Les voix blanches, T2G-Théâtre de Gennevilliers
(guest artist for the theater season 2018/2019, in partnership with l’EMBA-galerie Édouard Manet, Gennevilliers)

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Following a joint invitation from the Édouard Manet Gallery
and the Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Les voix blanches is a series of 3 installations that, throughout the season, inhabited, haunted,
and unsettled several high-traffic areas of the theater:
the stairwell, the exhibition hall, the lounge, and the large walkway.

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1
in the stairwell and the showroom
sentences

The first installation consists of a series of short phrases—chopped up, frayed, and stuttered—that move across 8 speakers mounted on the walls at various heights in the stairwell and the small exhibition room.
A plurality of voices—anonymous and of various ages—accompanies visitors as they ascend, descend, and pass through the space, following linear, pointillist trajectories
as sharp as arrows. A dotted line of speech, punctuated
by very long silences.
The fragments are cut at the level of the sentence, the word, and the syllable ; It is this scale that determines the rhythm and cadence of the sound appearances, the shifts across successive speakers, and the sections of the journey.
The work, presented in this way, is a long, open narrative
—a possible fiction—that seems infinite, with no apparent beginning or end, and which, through the random capture
of fragments and subjective states, evokes allusions to the difficulty of memorization or speech, to falling asleep, to waking, to light, to mental and spatial journeys, to inaction, to falling, and to potential catastrophe.

excerpt 1

extrait

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photos Marc Domage

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2
in the area known as the “salon”
syllables

The same voices can be heard in the lounge area, for the second installation along the tour. A listening lounge, featuring a more focused piece, for a more immersive listening experience.
This time, the breakdown occurs at the level of the individual syllable: a set of syllables (drawn from the same sentences heard earlier), scattered, fragmented, and broadcast in a circular pattern
—zigzagging and bouncing—across the 8 speakers mounted
on the four walls.
The work presents a syntax-free sequence—bordering on abstraction, whose logic may elude us—of atomized, dislocated, suspended, orphaned, or yet-to-be-recomposed words, as if awaiting meaning and new combinations.
For those in search of meaning, a miracle can occur when a few syllables collide and create a novel combination—familiar ground,
a semblance of a word, a stammering syntax—for a possible, embryonic, and intimate narrative.

excerpt 2

extrait

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photos Marc Domage

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3
in the large ambulatory corridor
exhalations

In the third stage of the journey, the same voices reappear in the large ambulatory corridor leading to the terrace and the terraces. But here, these voices are wordless, without text—as if mute. The work consists of a range of vocal gestures; linked to different states, emotions, and manifestations of a minimal human presence.
Someone—a man or a woman—humms, coughs, breathes, calls out, laughs, sighs, shouts. And all the indefinite, indefinable exhalations. The sound composition draws on the vast length of the space and the sheer height of the wall, creating a relationship and tension—across the 8 speakers mounted at varying heights—between a set
of lines and curves (for sustained, prolonged voices: humming, shouts, strained breaths) and points (short, punctuated voices: breaths, coughs, laughter, calls).
A chorus of emotions and presences, on the edge of music.

excerpt 3

extrait

hiuhuu

photos Marc Domage

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document

4 double-pages, carte blanche in the seasonal brochure 2018/2019 of T2G

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Les deux paysages EN

Les deux paysages
sound piece and book
2022

exhibition LBO centre d’art, Ehpad Les Blés d’Or, Saint-Baldoph, 2022 (cur. Mohamed El Khatib, Valérie Mréjen)
coproduction Malraux scène nationale Chambéry Savoie/Ehpad Les Blés d’Or/Compagnie Zirlib
a project carried out as part of a program to support artistic creation Mondes Nouveaux
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The project Les deux paysages is tied to the context of the exhibition
at the Ephad Les Blés d’Or and is intended, first and foremost,
for the people who live or work there, and secondarily, for visitors.  
It consists of two works: a landscape to listen to and a landscape to read.
These two works share the same theme—stories of landscapes—
but are independent of one another; they have no direct connection
in terms of materials or creative processes, and are meant to be
experienced separately.

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Il y a (panorama)
sound piece
2002/2022

standing in front of a landscape and listening through headphones

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On the second floor of the building, at the end of a hallway and facing
the mountain, there is a slightly secluded spot—a potential place for contemplation and listening. On a small shelf next to a chair specially placed facing the window, an audio player and headphones are provided for listening (voluntarily and alone) to a vocal, landscape-inspired, musical, and silent composition. 

Il y a (panorama) is a composition originally created in 2002, remixed, expanded, and set to music in 2022 as a new version. In this reimagining, a child’s voice—the narrative’s guiding thread—describes, fragment
by fragment, various aspects and details of a landscape.
We do not know whether this landscape is real or imaginary, unique or composite, present, remembered, or invented. The voice is set against scenic backdrops, whose shifting and varied geography—evoked by a few sounds and noises—cannot be precisely pinpointed. A few musical elements punctuate the narrative, giving it its rhythm and breathing space.

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preliminary sketch of a first design option with speakers

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excerpt

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set design Louise Sari / photos 1-3-4-5 D.P. / 2 Yohanne Lamoulère

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Un paysage
book
2022

freely accessible on-site

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Landscape to read: a long collective landscape poem.
During visits to the nursing home, a few residents opened their doors to us. We talked, and some of the conversations were recorded
(in collaboration with Charlotte Imbault) to serve as the material
—not for a sound composition, but for a transcription and then a written piece.

The conversations centered on the concept of landscape. Several attempts at description brought to light a number of landscapes—both present and past—that had been traversed, inhabited, recalled, dreamed of, or imagined. From these recorded and subsequently transcribed accounts, certain words and phrases were selected
and isolated to be incorporated into a long, written, landscape-inspired, and collaborative composition.

Black & White
105 x 148 mm
28 pages
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photos D.P.

about

– catalogue of the exhibition, text by Dominique Petitgand, Atelier EXB, 2023, Fr.
– audio-guide for the visit of the exhibition, created by Camille Nauffray, with the voice of Frédéric Pierrot, 2022, Fr.

Regardez ce ciel EN

Regardez ce ciel
set of 5 sound installations with 1 speaker
2025

solo exhibition, Jardin Botanique Jean-Marie Pelt, Villers-les-Nancy, 2025
production CCAM-Scène Nationale Vandœuvre-les-Nancy (thanks to Florent Prévoteaux and Média Sonic)
with the support of DRAC Grand Est – Aide Individuelle à la Création 2024

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sound installations for a garden

Behind the landscape we see lies a landscape we hear and imagine: a possible projection into a poetic fiction brought to life
by sound.

For this outdoor sound installation, scattered throughout the botanical garden along a self-guided path, five listening points
are situated at select vantage points. Visitors strolling through
the garden are invited to pause and take a step back from their walk, to sit down near a speaker, for a moment of their own, whether to listen casually or intently.

Each speaker, mounted on a micro-architecture, plays a composition created specifically for each location: five long, fragmented, and open-ended narratives featuring multiple voices from different generations, a few words, a few sounds, musical elements, and silences. These sound elements do not originate from the garden itself but are superimposed upon it, drawn from other sources, from another time or from afar. These broadcast sequences suggest an alternative, invented, ethereal landscape, offering a mental geography and a reverie unique to each interpretation—one that may resonate with, engage in dialogue with, or contrast against the landscape before our eyes, like an imaginary duplicate of the existing landscape.

Set within or facing the landscape, the sound installation—divided into five listening points—is site-specific (tailored to each location), intimate, modest in scale, freely accessible, with no fixed duration, and environmentally friendly (the technical equipment is solar-powered).

Some of the voices—featured in the project with Les Blés d’Or
in 2022: Ginette Ejarque, Geneviève Gandy, Odette Chazot,
Clarisse Bouvret, Raymond Brachet, Andrée Perrin and Charles Second—were recorded in collaboration with Charlotte Imbault.

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the 5 listening stations scattered throughout the garden

excerpt 1

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listening station 1 (garden shed “potager”) – photos 1-3-4 D.P. / photo 2 Lucas Charliquart

excerpt 2

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listening station 2 (garden shed “verger”) – photos 1-2-4 Lucas Charliquart / photo 3 D.P.

excerpt 3

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listening station 3 (garden shed “Japon”) – photos 1-4 D.P. / photos 2-3 Lucas Charliquart

excerpt 4

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listening station 4 (garden shed “bambous”) – photos 1-3-4 Lucas Charliquart / photo 2 D.P.

–excerpt 5

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listening station 5 (garden shed “tipi”) – photos 1-2-3 Lucas Charliquart / photo 4 D.P.

with the support
of DRAC Grand Est
Aide Individuelle à la Création 2024

en ligne La voix mobile EN

La voix mobile
binaural radio creation
2018

duration: 1 hour
Atelier de Création Radiophonique – Création on air, France Culture
published online on March 1, 2018
to listen (preferably with headphones)

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La voix mobile is a studio-scale recreation of some of the sound installations I have been creating for several years, featuring voices, sounds, a few musical elements, and silences.
It features an interview with Irène Omélianenko and was composed as a work in its own right, recorded and broadcast in binaural sound (best listened to with headphones to fully appreciate the spatial effects).
Several anonymous voices, of different ages, each in its own world; various modes of speech (choppy, paused, or relaxed) or simple sounds (breaths, exhalations, whistles)—these sounds probe the void, inhabit the space, tell their own stories, and make an attempt, from the farthest reaches to the very nearest, to reach our innermost selves, our thoughts. This work brings to life a series of disorienting listening experiences in which voices, sounds, and musical elements intertwine, combine, or interact from a distance to construct a long, open-ended, and fragmented narrative.
It unfolds a miniature geography of vocal gestures, wordplay, fragmented words, monologues, distant dialogues, dotted melodies, drafts, and brief openings onto the outside world. And silence, a recurring motif, plays its role as a pause, a connecting link, and a breath.

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created in January 2018, using sound installations and music originally composed and performed between 1997 and 2017

with the voices of Bénédicte Petitgand, Liza Maria Riveros, Dominique Ané, Paoulo Riveros, Colin Auvy, Camille Auvy, Marie-Henriette Petitgand and Irène Omélianenko (interview) and with the participations of Christine Ott on Ondes Martenot and of Antoine Carolus on guitar and violin

audio recording of the interview: Clémence Bonfils
binaural recording in the studio and mixing: Delphine Baudet
radio production: Nathalie Salles
coordination: Irène Omélianenko

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different configurations of the 8 speakers during binaural studio recordings – photos D.P.

livre Sommeil léger EN

Sommeil léger
book
2014

published by Le Gac Press
collection écrits/faux raccord directed by Judith Abensour and Thomas Bauer
6 € + port
to order: contact or to buy directly online (secure payment)

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French
book, 80 pages
format 10 x 15 cm

transcriptions, notes and texts by Dominique Petitgand
presentation by Judith Abensour
graphic design by Christophe Le Gac and Dominique Petitgand

co-édition EPCC ESBA TALM site d’Angers
distribution Les Belles Lettres
ISBN : 978-2-36409-053-8

The textual material from Sommeil léger is comparable to the one found in Dominique Petitgand’s various catalogs, but here the writing takes on a life
of its own.
It breaks free from its documentary function in relation to visual art: transcriptions of sound pieces, installation descriptions, voices, notes, and texts displayed on screens give rise to a unique and specific process of editing and layout.
While Dominique Petitgand’s film sequences without images or his mental landscapes can be adapted to various modes of sound presentation (record, radio, concert, installation), his work has never before been presented so freely within the space of a book.

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excerpts

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about

– radio broadcast Si je perdais mes oreilles je deviendrais aveugle, Vizir Radio, by Marie Limoujoux, 2020, Fr.
– radio broadcast, interview with Thomas Baumgartner, L’atelier du son, France Culture, 2014, Fr.
– texte de Pascal Mouneyres, press article syntone.fr, novembre 2014, Fr.

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Les cordes vocales EN

Les cordes vocales
sound installation for a sound system
2024

exhibition Une clameur, Fort L’Écluse, Pays de Gex, 2024 (cur. ateliers bermuda: Max Bondu, Bénédicte Le Pimpec, Guillaume Robert)
first version: exhibition Art en chapelles, church of Métabief, 2016

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The sound piece serves as a guard of honor accompanying everyone on their way to the Fort.

Located on the slope leading to the drawbridge and the entrance gate, the installation makes use of the existing sound system—usually used for sound-and-light shows—and plays on the disparity created by the sheer scale of the sound system and the intimate proximity of the recordings being played.
6 speakers and 4 subwoofers—large and positioned on either side of the path—play a long series of spoken and musical segments on a loop.

Les cordes vocales bring together a collective of voices—of different ages and genders—with brief, restrained, and then slightly expanded phrases; mini-stories sometimes emerge, carried by a few musical elements. The voices form a threshold, a vestibule; they welcome us, and then we set off with them as we leave the Fort.

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excerpt

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Fort L’Écluse, Pays de Gex, 2024 – photos 1 D.P. / 2 Guillaume Robert

first version, with voices only

Inside the church, the sound piece is played through the venue’s sound system via 4 speakers mounted high on the walls and facing the pews.
A long, dotted sound suggests a series of spoken words interspersed with silences, in a succession of short sequences, implicit stories, soliloquies, mock dialogues, and exhalations that lie somewhere between a cry and a song, unfolding various states of the voice and the narrative. Several voices, interwoven with one another, evoke in turn a sense of rhythm, a few instructions, sleep, an obstacle, a hesitation, a daydream, a transformation, and a departure.
The fragmented form of the work—which can be perceived as a series of miniatures as well as a long, polyphonic phrase with no beginning or end—gives us the freedom to stay and listen for as long as we like.

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church of Métabief, 2016 – photos D.P.

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La voix en attente EN

La voix en attente
documents and works available for review
1992/2018

solo exhibition La voix en attente, gb agency, Paris, 2018

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Various documents and works are available for review.
In a listening room-style space, on headphones: Diffusion presqu’intégrale.
On the walls: interphone Elle me parle, pages with writings Le fil conducteur, mute video with the subtitles translated in English and in Greek of the work
À la merci / At the mercy.
On a table under a glass top: special publications, excerpts from the book Sommeil léger and fragments from the serie ephemera.

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photos 1 et 3-6 Aurélien Mole / 2 et 7-9 D.P.

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At the mercy (Στο έλεος) – mute version with translation in English and in Greek

livre La gorge sèche EN

La gorge sèche (documents)
book
2004

published in conjunction with the solo exhibition, assocation à table ! Boulogne-sur-Mer
7 € + port
to order: contact or to buy directly online (secure payment)

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French
book, 28 pages
14,5 x 21 cm

notes and transcriptions by Dominique Petitgand
“Dialogue de sourds”, text by Guillaume Désanges
architectural drawings by Amélie Codugnella
graphic design by Amélie Codugnella and Dominique Petitgand

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excerpt

architectural drawings by Amélie Codugnella / notes by D.P.

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extrait

La chambre d’écho EN

La chambre d’écho
sound performance with 4 speakers
2019/…

for a concert hall, museum, or any other venue
duration 30 or 45 minutes

Soirée Onyx, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 2023
Instants Chavirés, Montreuil, 2019
Kool Birds #3, Salon de musique, Pantin, 2019
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La chambre d’écho is a sound performance presented
to an audience scattered more or less in the middle of
a setup consisting of four sound sources

A first speaker is placed at ear level and positioned more
or less in the center of the audience; it plays voices.
A second and third speaker are placed on the floor,
on either side of the audience, to play music and ambient sounds in stereo. Finally, a fourth speaker is hidden in an adjoining space to play distant sounds and noises. Voices hang in the void; narratives are begun, explored, and left enigmatic; sounds are electric, diffuse, or fragmented; miniature landscapes unfold; and silences are either vague
or sharp. Reality is fragmented, diminished, and unfolded
in the dim light to create a possible fiction—intimate and mental.

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advertisement image for Instants Chavirés, 2019

preparatory sketch, Soirée Onyx, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 2023

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Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 2023 – screenshots from the video L’écoute vagabonde by Christophe Gallois

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document

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organization of the 4 audio tracks – version Instants Chavirés, 2019

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about

– L’écoute vagabonde, video by Christophe Gallois, with excerpts of performance at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 2023, Fr.
– interview with Maël Forlini, as part of a doctoral dissertation, ECLLA, Université de Saint-Étienne, 2023, Fr.