Category: Non classé

Inside a space all in one piece plunged in half-light a centrifugal device made up of six speakers hanging on the walls emits three sound pieces linked in a long narrative.
The first speaker is a central one for the voices (a woman followed by a man). The four others, on the sides, are for the musical atmospheres and layers accompanying the voices. A last one, set back at mid-height is for other voices perceived in the distance.

Il y a, ensuite is an installation with four speakers, two voices and a music.
In this version, the two voices and the music can be heard in the three levels of the gallery and dialog at a distance from a point to another.
The music played on two speakers fixed to the bottom of the walls in the middle of the other works (one in the lower space and one in the upper space) frame the two voices played on two speakers fixed at ear height (one in the entrance as reception, the other in the lower intermediate space).
The repetitive and linear music, perceived far or near (depending on our position in the gallery), initiates the narration and accompanies the rhythm and the scansion of the voices that respond each other at a distance: a child, on one hand, central voice that describes a landscape to be reconstructed fragment by fragment (panorama, details near or far), a composite possible landscape, half real half invented, and a woman, on the other hand, secondary voice that questions and rekindles the narrative.


visual – excerpt of the transcription

 

In the exhibition in Île de Vassivière, the installation took place in a little theatre (frontal space with small bleacher).
in the first part of the space and at the top of the bleacher, two speakers on the ground emit the music. Further, on what can be called the stage, two speakers on a pedestal amit the two voices at a distance from each other.
The possible landscape evoked by the voice of the child finds resonances with the real landscape of the island. This landscape from which we can see a fragment through the small window on the back wall, a framed view of the nature and the lake.

The installation called Il y a, ensuite takes up at least two spaces. One space for the music underlayer and nearby, one space for the two voices.
In this version, a partition draws a first space, an airlock, a first landing on which two speakers, mounted half way up on a spedestal, symmetrically emit the music. Beyond, in a larger and more open space, from which the underlayer music can still be heard, two speakers at a distance and mounted on a pedestal emit the two voices. The two loudspeakers for the voices do not face each other: the second one is oriented towards the first which is oriented towards the distance.

In this version of the installation called Il y a, ensuite, which takes place in a symmetrical twin staircase, the music takes up the first landing and the voices the second one. The two speakers for the music are symmetrically mounted on the window sill. For the two voices, upstairs, two speakers are set high up on either sides of the major dividing line and they are slightly steeping towards the staircases. The visitor, who can decide to use the left or right staircase to walk up, first hears either the child’s voice or the woman’s. On the second landing, the two voices, equidistant between the two speakers, merge together while the underlayer music from the lower floor can still be heard.
 

version with 2 haut-speakers and subtitles

Il y a, ensuite (There is, then).
Version for voices only from which the musical underlayer is substracted: the street down below and the traffic give rise to a rumor which can be heard inside the exhibition and takes up the space devoted to music. The great length of the glass roof enables the two voices from two distant areas to be emitted.

In this version with subtitles, the voices stays the same (in French). On one side, a video screen fixed on the wall shows the written and synchronous translation. English translation by Chet Wiener.
 

The installation called L’amorce des consignes takes up two spaces inside a public building, city hall.
In the lobby, six speakers set high up emit a repetitive musical atmosphere, whose volume and mixing vary according to the attention being paid to it.
Further down, in an adjacent part beyond several doors, a speaker hanging on a wall at ear level behind seats emits a voice (a little boy who makes a stocklist of the things to be taken in case of an impending disaster).
The doors, which get opened or closed whenever the users of the place walk in or out, make the neighbouring voice and the music perceived from afar overlap, or not.

The installation called Le prévu, l’imprévu takes up two symmetrical spaces, laid out on either side of a long corridor.
Inside each one of the two spaces, two speakers: a unique voice (a woman) and a unique haunting musical atmosphere. In the first space, the woman describes what makes the expectation and the excitement about an unhoped-for and unspoken event (Le prévu) while in the second one, she describes the acknowledgement and the devastation once the event has taken place (L’imprévu).
Right in the middle of the corridor, the music which comes from either sides connects the two distant spaces.

Fringale is an outdoor installation.
In the city center, next to a terrace, a sequence of stereo sound pieces emitted by two speakers set behind a fence can be heard as if from inside by a listener who would be sitting outside on a bench.

Certaines responsabilités is a composite work.
Two speakers at ear level are set up in front of a row of seats like in a film theatre. Listening is meant to be performed while seated, in stereo and frontal. On the same device, several sound pieces follow one another and deploy a long open and fragmented story.

Les liens invisibles, variation of Quant-à-soi (which has already engendered multiple versions about the same concept of invisible links, including Aloof, Proche, très proche, La main coupée, Les liens en sourdine) is a sound installation with five speakers that reveals itself in several stages.
It forms two synchronous but remote planes – first noises, then a voice – and must be listened to as we walk, building up according to our spatial and mental progress.
In 2015 in Île de Vassivière, the installation took place in a tower.
On the first level, four speakers are standing on the wall surrounding the visitor who enters the tower. They form a first sound screen that consists of a series of noises circulating from one speaker to another, interspersed with silences. Each of these sounds is an action produced with objects that seem to be made of glass. Their apparitions, articulations and movements follow a logic that eludes us. At times, a sound wave fills the entire space of the tower.
At the top of this tower, after having climbed the huge circular staircase, we can discover a fifth speaker fixed on the small platform at ear height. It emits a voice that has remained hidden from us until then. The way we discover it depends on our movement and the way we listen. It is by approaching and accessing this second space that we can hear – more or less strongly and distinctly according to the distance – short sentences, also interspersed with silences and broadcast in exact synchronicity with the sounds of the first room – sounds that are now perceived in the distance, accompanied by their reverberation.
It is this synchronicity that has made it possible to hide the voice: each sentence has a corresponding noise, and each noise is linked to a sentence – noise and speech like the two sides of a medal, joined together in editing and then separated ans spatially removed from each other in the installation.
When the voice appears, connections are revealed, a narrative becomes possible: a woman speaks to us, evoking invisible links that connect her to others, to people, objects or entities that she has trouble defining or naming. Her fragmented speech remains undetermined and suspended.
Once the two sounds planes are revealed, we can move back and forth between the two poles, choosing one over the other or any of the intermediate degrees, determine the near and far and listen to their invisible links.

version with subtitles

Les liens invisibles (The invisible links).
The installation took place on the two levels of the museum: the main galleries and the mezzanine area. The installation encourages the people traveling through the espace and listening to the sounds to make synchronic connections between the noises and the voice in their concentrated and attentive perambulation of the space.
On the first level the four speakers for the noises are standing on the floor in a scattered configuration. Upstairs on the mezzanine (a balcony space that along with an open walkway) a fifth speaker on pedestal emits the voice.

In this version for non-French-speaking countries, the sound stays the same (voices in French).
Somewhere in the periphery, a video screen hanging on the wall shows the written and synchronized translation of the words that can be heard a few meters. English translation. by Miles Hankin.