Existential

by Rodolphe Blois

Some listening indicators…

At the technical level, the piece explores several interconnected directions of research: essentially, the 'personalised' play-back technique of multiple and mixed dilations and compressions. The few seconds of electronic pulses which provide the short initial material were played back on reel-to-reel and DAT tapes with the 'cue' function and Sound Designer files with the 'scrubber' tool. The technique was used in order not to have everything read mechanically, so as to leave some imprints of gesture on the sound and in particular, to shape the melodic profiles.

Among the generated sound-objects, soundscapes and 'characters', there are pthe grain masses in motion, the lines-sirens which form some slowly oscillating horizons, the emphatic strokes sounding like sirens-howls; the vibrations, tremblings and oscillations which, from complexity to complexity, by way of mixed and variable dilations and compressions, become bubbling, seething matters…

At the narrative, metaphoric and archetypal level, the electro-acoustic chemistry generates its images and stories: Is it cold? Is it hot? Is there a storm? Is there someone… a hidden character without a body or a voice? A prisoner trying to free himself from the pain of his soul? Is there a raging sea? A seething city at boiling point?… In this wordless drama, this theatre without text, so many questions cross our mind for a moment, to which only our imaginery may answer.

Rodolphe Blois is a Paris-born acousmatician and sound environmentalist based in Brisbane, Australia. He has composed pieces for concert, radio, theatre, film and various indoor and outdoor environments. His latest work includes the 'Colours of Silence', for electro-acoustics and bush environment and 'Marine', an acousmatic series.