Romain BARTHÉLÉMY, Mathieu GHEZZI | FR |

 

Installation

 

Trajectoires

 

 

Abstract

Trajectoires is an immersive sound art installation which explores the evolving soundscapes of French Jurassian forest. Created from a collection of sounds, obsolete speakers and leftover wooden cleats tied together to make a multichannel sound system, it questions the effects of climate change on the soundscapes of a small village from a French middle mountain region. The creation approach was inspired by the work of Bernie Krause and his concept of biophony : an auto-orchestration process where every species of a natural setting is able to find its own acoustical niche to communicate with its mates. The result is a complex, yet spontaneously organized soundscape, occupying large parts of the audible spectrum, and functioning in many ways like a man-made music creation. Trajectoires is thought of as a deregulation of this organisation, where stable sound protagonists of nowadays Jura migrate through the audio spectrum with long glissandi, creating irregularities and singularities in the soundscapes. The glissandi as a transforming musical gesture was inspired by the findings of biologists about some species of birds which, faced with the evolution of their environment, especially human noise, adapt their songs and calls by modifying their pitch, volume and morphologies. By amplifying those processes and applying them to every sound that we collected in the forest, new kinds of soundscapes emerge, evoking faraway landscapes, primary forests, underwater ambiances, human machinery, reminding us of our own illusion about our landscapes stability. The progressivity with which these are applied makes it difficult to hear the tipping point between normal and abnormal, between the familiarity of French Jura and uncanny soundscapes from elsewhere. Trajectoires was created by Romain Barthélémy and Mathieu Ghezzi during an artistic residency organized by the Parc Naturel Régional du Haut-Jura in the village of La Pesse, which spreaded across a whole year (2019-2020). It was exhibited in La Pesse in september 2020, and in Saint-Claude’s art center La Fraternelle - Maison du Peuple (october 2020).

 

 

 

Romain Barthélémy is a Paris-based composer and sound designer. He has been creating sounds for scenography and industrial objects since 2013 (Ircam, Laps, Sorbonne Université, MK2, Cité du Vin, SNCF, etc.). His personal work mainly focuses around the human-machine sound interactions and the evolution of everyday soundscapes, which he explores through acousmatic compositions, sound installations, interactive devices and graphic scores (Ateliers Médicis, Le Centquatre, etc.).
Mathieu Ghezzi works as an urban planner and sound artist. He graduated from Grenoble University in Territorial Development and is trained in sound recording and editing. Through the use of different mediums (soundmaps, documentaries, radio sets, photography, exhibitions, installations), he tries to question our relationship to territories and urban development through a sensitive angle. He has collaborated with different urban planners and landscape architects (INterland, Michel Desvigne) on multiple-scale projects, from urban renewal to landscape planning.