"Frozen In Stone (replica) is a light and sound piece wich intends to define some physical and mental limits of
different states of consciousness. It's a parallel piece to a piece called 'Frozen in Stone' released in 2011 on Razzle
Dazzle following the same lines, with a different perspective. This one was adapted for the event at Ausland in a context
of total darkness." ( and then performed in Hamburg and in The Zone in Berlin in 2012...)"
"I'm born in France, graduated from Nancy Academy of Fine Arts, east of France. My works is made of several
practices, installation, action, drawing, writing, recording, performances. They are all connected. I'm exhibiting my work
regularely in galleries and museums since 2004 releasing records since april 2003 and performing live since may 2007.
In 2007, I've also created a label called Razzle Dazzle (name related to a painting technic to camouflage military boats)
publishing sound works of artists dealing with a conceptual approach."
The process:
I don't know if I'm looking for one specific sound, I feel more like I'm visiting. I don't know exactly what I look for if it's
the question, but I know what I don't want.
I'm interested by how memory processes transform time into space. I'm basically using sound performance as a
rupture point, or better, sound starts with a rupture, and I use this original point to build a surface which can be modulated
by sound but not only. The modulations of the surface offers new points of view for listening or 'new points of listen' for
viewing, I should say. At some point, I like to create layered plans, to consider space as an emotional complex, to make
a listener listen and then slowly trying to make him listen to him while listening, etc... In a performance, I think what's
really 'alive' is not so much in the music itself, but in the active experience of present and in our effort to recover from it.
When I'm drawing a sound piece, or writing it, I feel like I'm already playing, playing an idea, playing a line, a word...
Recovering is a productive act, I think. But we also have to face specific forms of knowledge whose "princips" are not
entirely rational.
The impact of noise:
I like neighbourhood's noises. The cat of my neighbours has a big influence on me right now. Everytime I hear him
suddenly running on the ceiling above my head, I think that it's exactly the point I'd like to reach. I can't explain much
more though. It might be a Schrödinger's one...
Why music?
I think I came to music because I couldn't find elsewhere such an elusive and, at the same time, total medium.
I've allways been interested by art forms trying to enlarge practices and confronting different emotional and mental
layers. I like when I don't know exactly where the performance really goes. I like music which gives me time to think,
makes me erase and draw a new line around me. I like in-between states, when sounds become precisely 'something
else' and this precisely 'something else' suddenly become words, image, memory...
Recommendations:
I'd definitely recommend Palix's blog "Beyond the Coda" (beyond-the-coda.blogspot.com), Revue et Corrigée /
Metamkine, run by Jérôme Noetinger (www.revue-et-corrigee.net).
In my home town, I had the chance to grow up
with an experimental festival called 'Musique Action' which had a big influence on me when I started to have and
interested in 'experimental' music around 1999. I'd also mention a very active music scene in Indonesia which I had the
chance to meet during a residence in 2010, around Gustav H. Iskandar and the festival 'Nu substance'.
(commonroom.info).
Advantages and disadvantages of independent curatorial spaces:
It's interesting to work with independent spaces as soon as they are working with perspectives and/or interests in
what they're showing. For me, a space is more like a blank sheet of paper. I don't want to be too critical about this, I know
independent venues, sometimes they're offering bad or quite bad conditions of sound system, etc.. But first, the artist can
ask the place about it before and say no if he doesn't want to play, you are never forced to show your work. But then,
sometimes I also have the feeling that artists could be more flexible about their practice, and take advantage of the whole
situation. I agree that it's a singular idea to open a venue when you have a shitty cellar, with bad speakers and no idea.
But then? I'm sure it can change someone's life to see a show there, someone who starts playing shows, I don't know. I
don't like to think I'm trapped in something. Let's keep things being unstable while happening. « Perfection is terrible, it
cannot have children » wrote Sylvia Plath. Worst case is when the owner comes right after your performance and ask
you : "Did you have a technical problem?". Yes. Life is a vast technical problem.
Benjamin L. Aman, 6th March 2012