ChantalArtistTalk

From AlmostPerfect

I am not going to use images

I only want to use sound

the images come from the sound

think in terms of

• space (depth of field)
• spatialization
• rhythm
• colour
• perspective
• movement
• displacement

based on narrative works

done for radio

fictional works

documentary fiction

many of the pieces are based on a specific site

what brings me there is

I recorded everything everywhere I went

recording as I was walking

sounds in the city

glasses with microphones on both sides

wanted to be invisible so

if you wanted to record in stereo you had to keep your head still

I tried to be invisible - record all types of situation

one of the first work I did was through the sound bank of someone else

another one was about guys going fishing - i did a piece a patchwork from that

in 1992 in Slovakia I started with this fictional form

recordings from different devices - dat / tape recorder

learnt how to put sounds together to built up a dramatic songlines with its continuity out of short excerpts of sounds (20sec-2min.)

more recently my pieces are more musical

a common work...

some more like documentary some like musicals

links between these pieces - use these sounds that I collect

first piece presented : a collaboration.

radio roadmovies The little man in the ear - a trip through Canada from Montreal to Yukon, then Vancouver island and back

minivan 2 month-trip 20,000 kms - 60 hours of material

the project was sold before hte departure to 2 radios Radio-Canada and Deutschland Radio Berlin(kunstlerisches Feature)

art - sound - documentary - an abstract documentary

name of a totem - British Columbia University

big altar with sculpture with a bear on top - little man in the ear of the bear

relationship between man and nature

radio is images into the head

everyone constructs in their own head

our own images are related to our own library of images, sounds affect memories

everyone can have their own history from the same sound

Man in the ear - german for crazy!

55 minute piece - constructed in small vignette

related to travelling

space and location

notion of moving and going somewhere else

second piece " Surface Document" no humans the presence of the nature thought in a musical way. materiality of the sound.

difficult to find places where there was no human sound

I wanted to record silence. -- http://waves.rixc.lv - silence

I was recording - levels were too low - what was wrong?

but no here we got the recording of silence!

there are 19 pieces and I choose one called

this one is called

North west passage 3m18

contains different recordings from the radios - service radio - public radios - morse code

the question that is raised - we will cross the country and represent the geography What is the sound of the mountains , of the prairies ?

in fact it didn't work that way. Sound has its own logic.

we were in Ontario - there were 2 girls screaming in the Ouimet canyon with echoes

we worked with the idea of point of view. and developped a piece with the idea of double

there is always the point of view of the author and the microphone gives it.

so we should work with it

also the quality of the sound is related to the quality of the microphones which are used - sometimes with a high quality microphone in this cas high quality (with schoeps)- and low quality with sunnheiser (like the glasses)

but we can all types of microphones in relation of what we are looking at.

we did not want to escape the fact that there was someone behind the microphone - the author is always present

trip was in 1999 pieces made in 2000 and 2001

many many places

work based on points of view - be in the background and foreground

work with brazilian type of dance called sapatiada .. this is game that people played in festivities. you repeat the steps as fast as you can until you can't accelerate anymore.

recordings done in different accoustic environments (architecture)

acoustic traces of people crossing these public places

the piece finishes on a close up of one dancer's shoe..

we were fighting against the guards who didn't want us in these public spaces!

Dance

idea transpose the parameters of a medium in an other one dance --> sound

worked with a dance company Montreal Danse. followed all the process of creation of a new choreography.

how the choreographers interact beetween eachother the notion of confidence, energy, ...

porribility of trasposition

foot prints on the floor transposed could become the notes on the staves ?

how to talk about the dance in audio. without the body . that was ambitious. deisre to bring evrything in the piece, the stage (with its sculptural aspect), the biology of the body, the physics speed)

also incorporating a text

so we included some of the text an

get to this through sounds (didn't want to use the classical techniques of notation etc)

11 parts 4 solos in the piece

what form can they be?

drawings

• water
• spin

then we gave the dancers the texts - they don't use a text normally but it was unnatural for them

solo 4 this piece is solo like a spin

what is the sensation of a spin? what do you see when you spin, what the sensation in the body ? trie to gibe images with the sound and the text.

started looking at loops which is everywhere now..

I liked to bring the dance on the radio which is a medium of decorporealisation

With radio : you are in your own space and you are overwhelmed by another place and space

the idea that you can do this is very fabulously..

there is some other works that i have done through time

a workshop which brings together old ladies - teenagers attemps of bridging the generations

based on interviews with the ffocus on the place of the technology in the life of the elderlies.

It's very nice to do this collaborative works - to get out of the studio

and to be close to other people -