locus sonus > R&D > ANR programmes

Partenaires

• LESA Laboratoire d'Études en Sciences de l'Art Univ. de Provence Aix-Marseille 1
• École supérieure d’Art et de Design de Marseille et de la Méditerranée (ESADMM)
• Locus Sonus (ESA Aix en Provence, ENSA Bourges)
• LSIS Laboratoire des Sciences de lʹInformation et des Systèmes

Résumé de la proposition

ABSTRACT

Le projet de recherche SonArt vise le développement dʹune base documentaire sur les arts sonores à lʹaide dʹoutils numériques spécifiquement élaborés. Les arts « sonores » ne sont pas une catégorie définie : ils impliquent sculptures ou installations sonores, poésie sonore, arts en réseau, musiques expérimentales, création radiophonique, création vidéographique, etc. Alors que ce domaine est aujourd’hui en pleine expansion, son inventaire et son approche historique n’en sont qu’à leurs débuts tout autant que sa théorisation, actuellement en pleine évolution dans les pays anglo‐saxons et germaniques. SonArt propose d’y ajouter une importante contribution.

Partenaires

• LAMES Laboratoire Méditerranéen de Sociologie MMSH CNRS UMR 7503, Université de Provence (F)
• CRESSON, Ambiances architecturales et urbaines, CNRS UMR 1563, ensa Grenoble (F)
• LTCI/TELECOM PARIS TECH (F)
• LOCUS SONUS, Écoles Supérieures d'Art, ESA Aix en Provence, ENSA Nice Villa Arson

Résumé du Projet

ABSTRACT

This project aims to analyze the sonic component of the life of public places. It does so by enrolling in the same experiment sound artists as well as social scientists.
At its core is “Locustream Promenade”, a sound art installation, to be set up on the “Parvis de la Défense” in Paris. This installation, which uses audio "streams", is devised so as to transport soundscapes via the Web from one place to another and in “real time” -- this, with a predilection for distant urban places whose soundscapes are captured “non stop” by a network of fellow artists who keep their microphones permanently open in their different surroundings.
Another feature of the installation is that its streams can be delivered in many ways: scattered as precise spots (sound showers), or stretched in large tracks; tuned so that they melt into the local sound environment or the other way around. These varieties of modus operandi allow for critical observations of the urban audience, in this case made up mostly of passers by, and the way they react to these sounds.

For the student of urban ambiances, these controlled sonic variations are likely to help him decipher the delicate interplay between social life and sound component.
For the student of digital technology and the ways in which lay actors cope with it, this is a case study in the matter of “immersive environments”, though one which is low key in nature.
For the student of public places what is at stake is to observe the ways a public place, where “dispersed attention” prevails, can make room for focused attention.

Addressing the question of art and its public in an ecological fashion, dealing with the technological component of contemporary art, this project falls into two of the different axees sketched out by the text of the “AO”. But, beyond these two aspects, and by the very fact that the research will be jointly run by artists and scientists, it too addresses the question of the relationships in between artistic and scientific endeavour: not simply from the top down, and in a comparative approach; but from within the project itself, and therefore with a reflexive twist.