Archive for October, 2013

Back in Montréal

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We are back in Montreal after a three-week sound art expedition through Lisbon, Barcelona, and Marseille with Sound Development City. During our trip we had two performances and made some field recordings along the way.

The first performance was in the Mãe D’Água Lisboa, a beautiful 18th century cistern with ≈ 10 seconds reverberation. The Mãe D’Água is located in the Rato neighbourhood of Lisbon.

The second performance was in le Tunnel Bénédit-Jobin, an underpass that runs beneath the railway leading to Marseille’s main rail station, Gare Saint-Charles. The tunnel is located in the Belle de Mai neighbourhood of Marseille.

Both of these performances have been added to the Works section of our website.

During our trip we captured field recordings to use in our performances while exploring Lisbon, Barcelona, and Marseille. These recordings can be browsed on a sound map that we set up. We will continue to contribute to this map during our future travels.

 

Marseille: Day 2

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We spent the day at the Sound Development City headquarters at La Friche Belle de Mai today, exploring the complex and searching for locations for setting up our final presentation.

Taken from Wikipedia- “La Friche de la Belle de Mai or La Friche – in English The Fallow or The Wasteland – is a former tobacco factory near the Saint-Charles station in Marseille, in the neighborhood of Belle de Mai. In 1992, it was converted into a cultural complex. Presenting itself as a “pole of authors,” the Wasteland focuses its efforts primarily on the creation and production of works. It hosts dozens of international artists in residence [1] and it contains over sixty artistic and cultural structures of all disciplines (theater, dance, music, contemporary art, radio). It is also a place of spectacle and broadcasting, it contains 2 concert rooms (Le cabaret aléatoire, 900 places, and La cartonnerie, 1,200 places), it hosted several times the electronic and urban music festival Marsatac. La Friche includes as well a restaurant, a nursery, a playground for children, a library, a local food market, a skate shop, a skate park, family and community gardens and two new theaters. The Mediterranean Institute of Show Crafts will open there in 2014.”

I spent the remainder of the day walking along the Old Port of Marseille, where I caught Olivier Grossetête’s city made of cardboard, a series of cardboard buildings built by over 3000 people. I wasn’t aware that the event was taking place and so from afar, I actually thought the cardboard structures were real buildings. As I neared the buildings the cardboard and packing tape were revealed and many people were working together to build the structures. It was really such a great piece! You can see photos below.

Barcelona: Day 2

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Today, I set out to the Gothic Quarter to visit the Barcelona Cathedral. In a narrow walkway called Carrer del Bisbe Irurita, I recorded the sounds surrounding me: church bells playing a melody, an opera singer and pianist singing Ave Maria and the many sounds of castanets being played, and sold along the street. We will upload a field recording soon.

Barcelona: Day 1

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For the travel portion of Sound Development City, Max, Jane and I decided to spend an additional evening in Lisbon to continue recording sounds for our sound map. On October 1st, we took an overnight train to Madrid, and then a train to Barcelona the next morning. We originally planned to rent a car, so that we could have more freedom to see many different places on route to Marseille. However, due to hidden costs, it was much too expensive to travel this way between countries so we decided to settle in Barcelona for 3 days.

We found a hostel in Poble Sec, a neighbourhood near the Gothic Quarter and El Raval. On our first day, Jane and I went for a walk to the harbour and on our way there we discovered many stunning locations. Max, Jane and I spent the evening exploring the city, taking photos, etc.