Unsoundables

This work could have been named « Insondables » in French – with a slight ambiguity between ‘sound’ and ‘probe’ which in French are ‘son’ and ‘sonde’. In English, the word ‘sound’ in »Unsoundable« refers to sound and probe, without changing the writing and it has also several other meanings: reliable, deep, sure, imperturbable… Faced with this profusion of meanings, English won in my imaginary quest for places to which we cannot access and which have a sound dimension that escapes our hearing. Places that we see or perceive but where access is impossible and which represent possible sound universes. We can then send a probe there, in this case mental and imaginary, to explore these places.

The mental probe explores those places, situations and spaces to which our body has no access. And, like a probe we would send to the underground, we discover different universes, sometimes similar to the ones we know, sometimes totally impossible. Several short situations follow one another like a quick trip to these unsoundable places, each with its family of sounds, its space and its logic. Although the places are referenced in my work, there is no need to give the clues. The listener’s imagination will easily identify them.

Commissioned by Musiques & Recherches

The piece has have been designed during an artistic residency of Daniel Teruggi at ZKM from April 19th to May 1st, 2022.

It has been presented in a ZKM  KUBUS concert on April, Saturday 30th, 2022.