LES SIÈCLES machineOBSCURS for four operators installation / performance - concert a proposal by Judith Depaule, Julien Fezans, Laurent Golon and Tanguy Nédélec MABEL OCTOBRE artistic direction Judith Depaule codirection Virginie Hammel 20 rue Rouget de Lisle - 93500 PANTIN contact Virginie Hammel + 33 6 13 66 21 33 / + 33 1 41 50 38 10 [email protected] / www.mabeloctobre.net cast and crew concept and performance Judith Depaule, Julien Fezans, Laurent Golon, Tanguy Nedelec development Sylvain Buffet, Guillaume Evrard, Olivier Guillerminet voice training Valérie Joly production Mabel Octobre subsidized by The French Ministry of Culture – the Drac Île-de-France convention and the Île-de- France Region with the participation of DICRéAM creation and rehearsal residencies “first version”: Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers – October 9th - 12th 2012, November 26th - December 1st 2012 / Atelier de Laurent Golon – August 26th - 30th 2013, May 19th - 30th 2014, December 8th -19th 2014 “second version”: ARCAL – May 26th - June 5th 2015 / Lutherie Urbaine Le Local – June 29th - July 3rd 2015 / Confluences – January 18th - 24th 2016 / La Muse en Circuit - Centre national de création musicale – April 11th - 21th 2016 calendar end-of-residency presentations “first version”: Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers – December 1st 2012 “second version”: Lutherie Urbaine Le Local – July 3rd 2015 présentation during the Extension festival – La Muse en Circuit - Centre national de création musicale, Confluences, Paris – May 6th and 7th 2016 performances May 6th at 6pm and 9pm and May 7th at 3pm and 6pm technical needs a concealable space with a minimum of 6m by 6m wide and 3m50 high two 16A plugs idealy on two distincts phases an internet connection a sub conditions installation the machine can be programmed autonomous, continual and on a free access, in the presence of a mediator performance by appointment with the audience the birth of the project In June 2011, the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers welcomed Gangplank for a residency. This informal and shape-shifting collective brings together people from various fields of contemporary artistic production to question the relation between technology and dramaturgy («dramatoolgy»). After this workshop, Julien Fezans, Laurent Golon, Tanguy Nédélec and Judith Depaule met together again several times to continue with the experimental work, and to develop a collective artistic object, somewhere between installation and performance. intent and purpose In today’s dependency on technology, its continuous need to reaffirm its control over modernity, each one of use is compelled to acquire the latest equipment, ever more powerful and sophisticated than the last. However, we know that without even mentioning “programmed obsolescence” or “planned disuse”, every piece of IT equipment bought at a T instant becomes obsolete at a given T + epsilon moment. A computer, a camera or a phone becomes obsolete once it is opened at the latest, and a microprocessor at the start of its serial manufacturing, among other examples. Technological obsolescence and its exponential acceleration could remain a collateral phenomena of the evolution of mankind, if with the rise of digital technological, they had not become synonym of future memory loss. Indeed, the transition to digital exposes our memories to constant restructuration (a constant change of support, port, format, norm, system…) and to material incidents (failure, energy outage, destruction...). Thus weakening them to the point where one might think we are participating in the making of a new “Dark Age”, a period without memory. If we have retained the historical concept of “Dark Ages”, it is because the foundation of every culture is based on transmission and memory. Is a culture without memory doomed to disappear? By “Dark Ages”, modern historiography designates the period between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, from the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization to the emergence of the great Greek cities. Four centuries during which, memory has been consigned onto lost media (a cha- racteristic of oral-based civilizations), opening the door to often apocalyptical hypothesizes and a long-standing “hole” in History. How can we not conceive that the media on which we consign our memory today are so easily obsolete, that there could be nothing left? We have chosen to question this in a fun way by inventing a machine, an assembly of objects tied to the IT revolution, and turned away from their conventional use. In our installation, we voluntarily associate “outdated” material with “advanced” IT developments, in order to counter our compulsive relation to technology, whilst highlighting the poetic and oneiric fields it encompasses. What do our machines become when they have served their time? They are merely hard-to-decipher artifacts. Should we toss them over to rubbish? Can we recycle them to give them a second life? Can we assemble them to make a new kind of material? Can we, with the help of today’s digital technologies, reassert their value so that they can become a field of technological and artistic experimentation? the machine The visitors or spectators will discover an installation composed of an experimentation straw mattress of 1m90 by 1m90 wide and 2m90 high, on which is piled an accumulation of past century equipment: computers and printers, original gaming stations, typewriters, audio cassettes, CDs, SyQuest.., cathode monitors, all sorts of amplifiers... A lit ceiling of industrial-type fluorescent lights is suspended above this pile. Beneath this pile is a web of cables to supply it all. The sounds and vibrations of all this old equipment, cables and fluorescent tubes are amplified with Piézo cells (pressure sensors that serve as microphones), the whole thing leading up to a giant mechanized Organ. The intent is not to lead a museum-type installation, but to take advantage of the internal organs of these machines, which are still in working condition while no longer being compatible with today’s technological requirements. To achieve this, the equipment has been completely taken apart to recycle its components, which were then selected for their sound potential. Our apparatus has become a Machine, the organs of which have been extracted from their original equipment and exposed as is, according to the principles of hardware porn, and then reconnected to command systems compatible with contemporary digital technology. The mechanized organ can exist either autonomously in installation mode while playing programmed light and sound sequences; or “living” under its performance mode, activated directly by its operators, who become mad scientists, tech- no-archeologists, or obsessive geeks, struggling with a shape-shifting machine that sometimes escapes them. Visitors or spectators are invited to circulate around the structure during the whole length of the performance and to change their angle of vision. the performance 4 performers intervene (by appointment with the audience) to interact live on the machine and make it «sing» upon 5 sequences: the technical rider, the obsolescence song, the binary song, the memory song, and the song of the future. - The Machine, centered on itself, lists precisely its own technical rider, putting the emphasis on each and every one of its components. This procedure responds to a memory preoccupation due to obsolescence: how do we preserve and reproduce contemporary works of art in which more and more technologies are involved? To that end, art curators and researchers have developed protocols inherent to the visual arts, similar to a technical rider in the performance arts. - The Obsolescence song attempts to systematically list all of the computers that have existed until the year 2000. The accumulative and repetitive effect of this list, in which everyone recognizes a model they have used and then forgotten, highlights the question of obsolescence and provokes a nostalgic and comical dizziness. - The binary song lets the machine speak of its memory and its status. The performers translate the phrase “ I do not think but I am as long as I am updated” into binary language (“0s” and “1s”). This creates a paradoxical inversion effect. - The memory song explores the rooting mechanisms of the -mnesia system by pushing the machine into a corner. - The song of the future asks the question of a future reduced to the scansion of the word “tomorrow” backed by a “raging” and finally apocalyptical music. technological choices We decided to write in MIDI language. MIDI converts musical commands into dimming commands for low-voltage mo- tors (players, ventilators) as well as AC power equipment (lights, radio, computers, etc.). This language enables direct manipulations that are closer to the musical gesture, thus controlling the sound emitted by the machine. The connective software used by a newest generation computer are Ableton LIVE and Max/MSP. They offer the ability to either launch pre-written sound and light compositions, or work directly on the behavior of the equipment and lights with a MIDI controller, or even to combine both functions. The Machine also comprises a soundboard, an equalizer, amplifiers and speakers. The soundboard takes in the signals sent by the piézos sensors placed on the lights and the different components. It can isolate the elements throughout the performance, make them resonate with one another, as well as transform their sound via a double equalization, which selects and highlights a particular frequency. The sounds can be distributed towards four independent diffusion sources. The speakers are placed directly into the machine. They allow a coherent hearing platform for the operators and specta- tors, as well as a direct interaction between the speakers and the various microphones (piézos sensors) by creating a Larsen effect. The choice of very specific instrumental amplifiers (guitar and bass), allows us to achieve different tonalities from the same sound and to knead the sound with more acuity. We tackle it directly without having to use digital effects. More so, amplifiers have the aesthetic of former technology that blends in with the other pieces of equipment.