Les Souliers
The Shoes
sound installation - 2009
Les Souliers is an ensemble of thirty pairs of
shoes mechanically queued by tramplers and
computer-controls. These shoes hit and rub the floor to
make acoustic music according to an original composition
developed by a numerical Midi score (run by max/msp
software). The selection of shoes, the composition they
perform, and the scenography make a singular work that has
been exhibited in international contemporary art and music
festivals, along with more unique presentations in
electronic arts and puppetry festivals.
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(vidéo)
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Pour une mythologie
des chaussures - text in french from Vérane
Partensky
Watching someone who walks is a terribly exciting and
instructive activity.
Walking is captivating in its physiological complexity.
Muscles, bones, joints, sensory organs, and the nervous
system form a structure that is capable of causing the
displacement of the body while it maintains a dynamic
equilibrium. Seeing this "mechanical" system in action is
exciting.
In many ways, this careful observation is instructive to
distill the richness of understanding the walker. As
conscious communication or unconscious expression, walking
is another way of speaking that says intimidation,
submission, provocation, and even seduction. It also
reveals a speech of social affiliation, asymmetries,
disorders, injuries, and perversions. Walking is an archaic
language marked by the story of a being. It would be a
shame to ignore those messages.
The artist, one of whose roles is to observe, must practice
this auscultation of walkers ... of course.
It is during this rigorous observance that I reconsidered
the common foot garment : our shoes! My musings led me to
imagine a sound installation, an ensemble of mechanical
shoes : Les Souliers.
Thirty pairs of shoes, selected by audition, perform this
job. The shoes are provided by generous donors or bought at
the flea market; they all have known a wearer and have
tread across grounds. They already tell a story. Through
customized tramplers, the shoes can move with amazing
personality that makes us forget their mechanical drives.
They hit, rub, hit & rub, rub & hit in rhythms that
vary fast and slow, while also stepping up, down, forward,
backward, and all stages in-between. A numerical Midi score
guides the shoes precise movements. The composition, like
in the selection of the shoes, is as much narrative as it
is musical. It is an arrangement that is inspired from the
raw sounds of an accumulation of individualized shoes. It
can be considered a narrative work that evokes the
wanderings of a singular man in certain passages, the
rubbing of an unknown folk dance, the galloping of a youth
gang, the determination of a military march, or even the
independence of dissident foot falls in others.
Behind the burlesque character of these agitated shoes, we
may also feel anxiety. An ambiguous feeling of fascination
and fear, when talking about how we run the world. In
orchestrating an ensemble of shoes, Les
Souliers convene ghosts of former wearers and
inevitably suggests their absence. In this way, we are
confronted with a curious intermingling of dance
incantation, contemporary music and derisory trampling.
from an idea of sabine petit and arno fabre
design, realization and composition > arno fabre
programming max/msp > matthieu phillipon
electronic design > francis bras and zandrine chiri - interfaceZ
assistant producer > liberty castelin
production and diffusion > c15d
thanks to the donors of shoes
and many thanks to sabine for her advie, help and patience
Les Souliers are supported by the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - Dicréam, the city of Toulouse, le bbb, Bauer & Durin Réalisations and by Farnell France.