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Espaces Sonores

shared listening to sensitive terrains

“To compose "for, in and with" a place:
Let us not believe that the words of an artist can invest in a place without it inhabiting him.
It is rather to find ways to create an artistic proposition
that opens up upon meeting a place (it’s life, it’s movement and it’s exchanges) without blocking... it’s circulation,

without asking, for the time for a show, or a sound recording, the place for be quiet.
It’s offering a team, then a public, be open to listening to this space, orientate yourself, otherwise.
Detects, in the heart of this other way of listening, the native poetry of this place.
Let it breathe, and in it’s exhale, there we find our inspiration."

 

Stéphane MARIN

Contextualised sonic creations

Espaces Sonores

Espaces Sonores devises sonic creations involving listening to sonic microcosms, to the specificity of places, and to the humanity which inhabits and moves through these spaces. By using different postures (sitting, standing, lying down…) and original listening equipment (parasons, “adapted” acoustic earmuffs, binaural recording…) the company creates encounters between sonic writing, acoustic spaces and a listening audience.

 

The originality of the Espaces Sonores company comes from its radical approach to the composition of sound and music, wherein there is always a direct link to the spaces where the work will he heard.

 

We don’t consider composition as an autonomous writing process governed by its own internal laws, but rather as being subject to the different relationships which sound and music can have with such and such a space or place, as well as with the context, the situation, and the listener’s posture. In this way the compositional material has its origin in a given space, at a given moment. The emerging work is therefore indissociably linked to the space which generated its creation and where it will be heard. And this is all the more true when the specific elements of the space form an integral part of the musical and sonic discourse.

 

 

Whether the starting point be a journey, or sonic siestas, or audio walks, our desire is to share these sensory experiences, transforming and refining our modes of perception and even our relationship to the world in a lasting way… this is a truly synesthetic experience where listening opens the body and the awareness of the spectator to other perceptions of his world, and helps him to better understand his position in it.

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At the meeting point of environmental listening experience and sonic creation, between field recording and electroacoustic composition, our desire is to enable “better” hearing, or perhaps “other” hearing!

 

Working in conjunction with sound ecology, Espaces Sonores proposes sonic and musical creations which listen to the world, respecting the integrity of the sonic environment while re-composing it contextually.

towards accoustic ecology via  the art of listening

Espaces Sonores

The aim of all our projects is to encourage listening to our sonic environment.

 

We don’t compose only to make beautiful forms, but, above all, to prompt awareness of the inherent musical beauty residing in sound, and in the environments from which sound emerges. Our works are springboards towards environmental listening. They open acoustic windows into the worlds of sound. They encourage real listening and allow spaces for silences to flourish or, at the very least, for “quiet spaces” to exist.

 

Our artistic propositions are an attempt to cultivate an art of listening which contributes to a new sonic ecology.

 

Our work is not based on trying to constrain sonic pollution but, by means of a qualitative approach to the problem of “noise’, to improve our relationship with the resonant world to develop the quality and the consciousness of our listening experience. We are working to encourage a positive apprehension of the sonic environment, by revealing its unexpected musicality so as to help our ears to appreciate ‘other’ sounds by revealing the bio-diversity (without judgement) of the sonic environment which we try at once to reveal and to preserve.

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Espaces Sonores

An innovative company, and more...

Through our work in the service of digital arts (audio-mobility, localised media, sonic cartography), our wish is to develop a rewarding and vibrant use of “new technologies” with the aim of sensitive sharing, allowing the re-appropriation of sensations, of elevated consciousness and increased mobility within ethically shared open spaces, in opposition to isolation, separation, virtualisation, sedentarisation or even derealisation.

Our creations have been commissioned by structures like Lieux Publics (national and european centre for creation in public space, Marseille), L'Usine (CNAREP, Tournefeuille), Le Cube (digital creation center, Issy les Moulineaux), l'Espace Mendes France / Lieu Multiple (digital creation center Poitiers).

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Espaces Sonores 's outreach is metropolitan (Territory cultural project - Toulouse Métropole / « Passeport pour l'Art » / « Toulous'up ! » awards - Ville de Toulouse, Festival des Arts Numériques - Ville de Saint Orens de Gameville) ,

 

as well as regional (Communauté de communes et Médiathèque de Perpignan Méditerranée / Lycée Agricole Beaulieu et Médiathèque d'Auch / Maison Salvan - centre d'art, Labège...),

 

national (Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris – CCAS - Festival Dedans-Dehors, Théâtre de Bretigny - Domaine de Chamarande – Festival ZAT, Ville de Montpellier - Festival Musiques Démesurées, Clermont- Ferrand, I Sulleoni Festival, Bastia...),

 

and international (Singapore Arts Festival ; Semana de la Escucha, Medellin, Colombia - Hearsay International Audio Festival, Kilfinane, Ireland ; When Art meets Science, Bozar/Tour & Taxi, Brussels - Belgium).

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Espaces Sonores delegates the administration of its production to the association Les Thérèses - L'Usine - Tournefeuille  

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