CATHERINE BÉCHARD & SABIN HUDON
La circulation des fluides I
2008, 2009 et 2013
Biography
Residing and working in Montreal, Catherine Béchard and Sabin Hudon have worked in tandem since 1999. Sound and movement lie at the heart of their artistic investigations. The two artists are interested in sounds and noises, including those generated by audio devices, as well as in their dissemination, the impressions they arouse, and the “things” and “silences between things” that make up our fields of perception. Their approach stems from a wide range of aesthetic concepts that combine sculpture, kinetic installation, sound art and performance—and have an equally wide range of configurations, forms and practices that sometimes intersect within the same work.
Through the transitory tensions between sight and hearing, the duo creates works that reveal, both visually and aurally, the anecdotal elements of our daily microcosm, taking into account both the spatial environment and the mobility or immobility of the bodies within it. Their works put into perspective the impermanence and ever-changing nature of things and beings, as well as our presence in this world; they set up moments in which interior time and exterior time coincide. The duo’s works have been presented at solo and group exhibitions in numerous Canadian cities, as well as in the Czech Republic, Brazil, United States and Germany.
About the work
This audio work was derived from La circulation des fluides I, a sound installation created in 2008 and 2009, which probed the resonance of water, those liquid bodies familiar to our sight and hearing, but whose subaquatic echoes remain foreign to us. Water is an integral part of our lives. Most of the planet is submerged in it, and the human body is primarily composed of it. Water has its spatiality, its rhythm, its own modalities. It is dual in nature, a mass at once dense and light, a medium of comfort zones and dark depths.
The installation La circulation des fluides I consists of paper pavilions of various sizes, supported by a wooden structure with numerous vanishing points that intersect, multiplying the number of perspectives and horizons. Each pavilion is equipped with a speaker, an amplifier channel and ultrasound sensor. Through their movements within the presentation space, visitors trigger diverse subaquatic sounds that were captured by hydrophones (waterproof microphones), producing various modulations in the process: the closer they approach a sound source, the louder the sound becomes; conversely, as they move away from it, the volume decreases. In La circulation des fluides I, the sounds are thus dormant, awaiting to be aroused. They come and go, according to the movements of the bodies.
The listening process for La circulation des fluides I is closely linked to the work’s materiality, and to its relationship with space and time. For the audio components here, we digitally captured the variations in movement and distance generated by the eleven sonars set up near the pavilions. With each sonar being connected to a speaker and independent audio source, we also recorded the sounds transmitted in the eleven cones. Using the same software employed in the installation, we made eleven audio tracks stemming from the variations in volume produced by the sonars. Everything was then stereophonically mixed to create an audio piece that makes possible one of the “listening paths” of La circulation des fluides I.
