"... Bind me if you want, but there is nothing more useless than an organ. When you will have made him a body without organs you will have delivered him from all his automatisms and given him back his true freedom. Then you will relearn to dance upside down as in the delirium of the "bals musette", and this upside down will be his true place. "
- Antonin Artaud, To finish with the judgment of God
I have always considered the piano as a body, an organism. I always wanted to know what was going on inside, what was this machinery, a disturbing power rolling and rumbling under its wooden case. Remembering the words of my teachers who told me how to tame it (we were educated like machines to seek the precision of the gesture...), I feel an intense stake. For a long time, I have wanted to create a work that would have this machine, this mass, its intensity, its mechanisms at the heart of its object. At the same time, I would like to question this "body to body" that it delivers to the human machine to make a sound work.
Pianomachine is the result of an organological research that I conducted with engineering students from the Insa of Lyon, then with the Sonopopée collective (Vivien Trelcat, Max Lance, Nicolas Canot). It led to the creation of a hybrid instrument where robotized modules (percussors, resonators, bouncing masses...) are grafted into the body of the piano and act on the strings and the structure. The instrument is conceived as an extension of the performer's power to act. The "machine performer" acts on the piano, triggers the movements of the machines, plays with the instrumentalist and spatializes the sound by multiplying the effects: distorting mirror, doubling, orchestration game, heterophony...
The body to body, it is by nature as well that of a fight as that of the desire, the sensuality and the pleasure, the union of the lovers. But it is above all the one that links machines and men since centuries. Because it is a question of making these two bodies enter in resonance: the human and the instrument, to speak about the interior and the exterior, of what is given to see and to hear and of what is not. A dialogue will take place between the two "subjects" in the form of a performance through sound, verbal and gestural exchanges, in a sort of visual narrative.
![[LIVE] CLAUDINE SIMON - PIANOMACHINE | MuseInSitu](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fb-5cZ4uIns/0.jpg)
Delegated production
GMEM - Centre national de création musicale
Coproduction
La Muse en Circuit - CNCM Alfortville ; Fondation Royaumont
Support
Centre National de la Musique ; Fonds SCAN Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ; DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Financial support
SACEM
Partnership
INSA LYON ; SCAM brouillon d'un rêve Pierre Schaeffer ; Malraux Scène Nationale (Chambéry Savoie) ; Saint-Ex, culture numérique - Reims ; Césaré-CNCM (Reims)
Claudine Simon is developing a sound creation work that focuses on experimenting with the instrument and the capabilities of the piano. She conceives performances that allow her to question her relationship to the instrument by deconstructing the representations associated with it.
Vivien Trelcat is a composer and performer. In an immediate relationship with the musical machines of the 80s and 90s and guitars, he devoted his childhood to the empirical exploration of electric and electronic sounds. He studied music and electroacoustic composition at the UFR of Musicology of Reims with Jean Luc Hervé and Jean Marc Chouvel, then at the workshop of creation of Césaré with Christian Sebille before finishing his training at the IRCAM.
"La machine désirante de Claudine Simon" - interview, Hémisphère Son
To know more
DURATION
65 min.
Claudine Simon
conception, pianist and performer
Vivien Trelcat
computer lutherie, machine performer
Vivien Trelcat, Maxime Lance, Nicolas Canot (Sonopopée collective)
development and machine design
Pauline Simon
choreographic vision
Franck Lemonde
playwright
Jacques-Benoît Dardant
lights, scenography, general management
IN 2024
March 19 + 20, 2024 - B!ME festival organized by Grame, Théâtre de la Renaissance, Oullins (69)
January 27, 2024 - Le Mans Sonore - Biennale du son, Le Mans (72)
EN 2023
March 3+ 4, 2023 - La Barbacane, Beynes (78)
January 12, 2023 - festival écoute-voir, Petit Faucheux, Tours (37)
EN 2022
November 27, 2022 - festival Ars Musica, Brussels (BE)
March 13, 2022 - festival Pianos, pianos, Bouffes du Nord, Paris (75)
EN 2021
March 10, 2021 - scène nationale d'Orléans (45)
October 14, 2021 - festival Just listen! festival organized by Befree, GMEM, Marseille
september 30, 2021 - festival Musique-Action, CCAM / Scène Nationale de Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy (54)
september 25, 2021 - Malraux, Scène Nationale de Chambéry-Savoie, Chambéry (73)
