La Macchina Ricordi analogique
Pierre-André Arcand
It was a three-head stereo cassette deck that was modified to allow sounds to be recorded and reinserted on a loop of at least 4.5 seconds, using consecutive layers.
At the beginning, the track was blank. The initial sounds were recorded and then amplified, repeated, and reinserted just as new signals were recorded, and subsequently repeated and reinserted in a continuing loop. The result was a continuum of sound that was continually changing and being created layer by layer on the spot in an effect that suggested waiting and overlapping. The finished piece was an environmental blending of sound and a compression of the present moment. Obviously, the rules of composition were imposed as the process unfolded. The system forced the artist to create an audio piece live and enabled him to open the closed circuit of the loop and increase its effects.
Pierre-André Arcand
Poet and multidisciplinary artist, Pierre-André Arcand is active in the spheres of performance, poetry, experimental music, audio art and in domains of the artistic exploration which integrate the contemporary technologies.
His activities include writing, visual poetry, sound poetry, performance, installation, objects, books. At the end of the years ’90, became Transfuge in electronic and media arts. Real-time audio and video treatment. Sons-actions-projections. Acoustic, electronic and digital practices in performance, equipped with the Macchina Ricordi*, the resonant book and ashtray, his voice and the multiple personae he incarnates.
“Quand l’œil voit, l’oreille est distraite”. His video images borrow from everyday life, from Internet, from the work with the computer, visual and concrete poetry, video noise and the veiled light of pixelsThe loop is everywhere in his work, but according to a concept which is specific to him and which he applies to the territories of visual poetry, audio art and experimental music.
Published in Inter, Doc(k)s, Baobab, Rampike, Estuaire, magazines; 7 compact discs solo on OBZ, OHM, Generator and Ambiances Magnétiques labels.
* Digital Macchina Ricordi Numérique: a software which allows the recording of sound on sound evolutionary loops and their simultaneous diffusion. The verbal, the vocal, the noises, the instruments are sampled and structured in a sound continuum by repetition and accumulation. These successive operations can activate automatically a similar treatment of the video image.
