Benoît Bories presents sound installation bringing historical landmarks back to life
Do you like history, music, sound and new technologies? If so, don’t miss a lecture by the French documentary maker and sound artist Benoit Bories, who on Tuesday 21 March will present his work Method of reflecting sound from the past into the present at the Prix Bohemia Radio festival.
Bories started working on the sound installation two years ago after being commissioned to create his first installation, entitled Confusion, at a 13th century Jacobin monastery in Toulouse.
He later put his experience to use in the creation of a project exploring the subject of women prisoners in WWII. In the future he is planning to create a sound installation relating to ecotourism in Australia.
Bories creates and records all the sounds heard in the installations himself. „In my projects I often use untreated sounds. Each of them tells its own story, which was recorded in a certain context. Even though I then transfer them into an electro-acoustic composition, they maintain their characteristic sound,“ he explains.
The actual process of production starts much earlier and is more complicated. First Bories needs to select the right place for which to create an installation. He then focuses on recording various hubbub and sounds connected to the place. He then combines them together and creates a whole sound composition than is then relayed by speakers at the given place.
„Of course before the actual work on a project begins I have to search for all kinds of information and find something out about the place or historical landmark. However, it is also important for me to have a personal overview on the whole space. Then I gradually find most things when I am recording,“ Bories says.
You can find out more about this unique method of bringing history and historical sites back to life at Benoit Bories’s lecture, which takes place on Tuesday 21.3 from 12:30 to 14:00 at the Film Hall at the Arts Centre UP. The event is open to the general public even without accreditation and will take place in English.
