aurore nocturne

Une Suite de Temps-Mort: Nelson _R.Y. B was exibited May 16 to June 13, 2014 as part of Audiospace 10 Not All There at Open Space gallery, Victoria, British Columbia.

This version of the instalation was comprised of three music stands displaying colour pinhole photographs overlaid on blank music sheets, and a re-edited stereo mixdown of the original 5 channel version, heard on a pair of flush mounted monitor speakers.

“Temps-morts” can be translated as “idle time”: those moments in between activities. It’s the time capsules where awareness—and for me, auditory awareness—shifts from focused to open wide, to an almost distracted state. Those are sometimes brief, lapsed moments that don’t provide rest because they are transitory, akin to the spark before a short-circuit.

The audio compositions in the series Une Suite de Temps-morts: Nelson_R.Y. B are comprised of location audio recordings; part soundscape, part musique concrète. They are revisionist sound events that follow another narrative than the one that took place. During the location recordings, I shot photographs using homemade pinhole cameras—which require long exposure time—and used the required time of the exposure to determine the duration of the recordings.

The photos from these locations are later used as compositional tools, where I interpret their graphic qualities as guidelines or strategies in the editing and mixing of the audio selections in the piece.

The location sound recordings provide a complex realm of events, rich in textures and contrasts. However, I do not treat them as pristine—they are the raw material I work from. The relationship of distant or intimate sounds, and the way they occur over the landscape as subtle transformations over time, makes them ephemeral and fluid attractions. By reordering the original location recordings, I compose by micro-editing the severed sections. Each is reconsidered on its own to find new connotations. Where does it lead to? What does it suggest?

The result is an exploration of the space, reinterpreted within the audio setting of the exhibition.

Une Suite de Temps-morts: Nelson_R.Y. B is composed of three music stands on which rest photographic transparencies overlaid on blank music sheets and a pair of speakers. By using loudspeakers for audio playback, the aim is to present an intimate experience. This series resonates with me. I found the working methods, the complementary approach and results obtained by using the two media in a parallel way, stimulating and attractive.

Jean Routhier is pleased to have been invited to present the installation Une Suite de Temps-morts: Nelson_R.Y. B at Open Space, where he previously presented Ethereal Interference as part of Audiopace 02 when it was a streaming-only exhibition series until in 2005.

The 2014 edition of the Audiospace: Not All There was curated by Paul Walde.

Not All There Project Description

Not All There is a series of sound art works presented in succession over a six-month period from January until July 2014. These works all deal with music (obliquely or directly) and absence (as a device or concept). The title is a reference to this absence but also to sound’s non-materiality, while also being a play on the perception of cognitive dysfunction in oneself or others. Many of the works investigate ideas of what “there” might be and what it means to be both “there” and “not all there.”