Urban Influx / Afflux urbain (2021)

Urban Influx (Afflux urbain), une pièce composée par Robert Lemay pour le Proteus Quartet, vient de faire son apparition sur la plateforme Hearnow ! Cette pièce a utilisé un de mes textes comme point de départ (‘Au large des objets perdus’, Éditions Prise de parole, 2011). Je suis aussi content que Robert et les musiciens aient choisi une de mes photos pour la couverture. Bonne continuation !

https://robertlemay.hearnow.com/urban-influx-afflux-urbain

The Ghost in the Machine (2018)

While the airwaves are filled with news that computers are vulnerable to the Meltdown and Spectre attacks, something incredible happened deep inside my own Yamaha synthesizer.

I have been playing on this keyboard since 2002 without a glitch. Last year, after a gig, I mentioned to someone that my synth was a workhorse; after fifteen years of composing and playing music, it was still going strong. That must have been the signal for something to go wrong. Suddenly, the up and down arrows stopped working. Without these, I lost access to crucial functions in my workstation. I contacted a local electronic service center and brought the keyboard in for an emergency visit. The technician found that one of the PCM boards was not working and a replacement part was purchased from Japan. After weeks of waiting, the part finally arrived and the keyboard was healed. This renewed vitality was more like a short remission as the arrows soon lost their power for a second time. I brought the keyboard back to the shop but nothing else could be done. My beloved sound-making machine looked like it would never be the same.

The keyboard still worked, it just wasn’t what it used to be. As time went on, I learned how to live within its reduced capabilities. Then a few days ago, I turned it on, selected the piano voice and started to play, but the machine seemed to have another idea in mind. It kept cycling through voices and parameters. The yellow, red and green lights on the controls were flashing on their own. I tried to regain control but was unable. In desperation, I hit the surface of the keyboard with my fist to power it off. I thought this could be the death rattle of it, the end of music.

I waited a few seconds and turned it on again. The lights flashed once more, the names of voices on the LED window kept cycling around and around. And then, all of a sudden, all of that madness stopped. I looked at the keyboard as if it was a wild animal, unsure if it was going to jump at me or burst into flames, but nothing happened. I touched the keys; the piano was there. I played a little something. Everything sounded okay. Then I noticed that the up and down arrows were working! I played some more, accessing things that were not optional since the breakdown. I was shocked. I thought that these reemerging sounds might be the last to come out of my machine; if I closed it, it might die. I was afraid to power it off, so I played all day thinking that it was the last day.

Then, at some point, when I was ready, I shut it down. I waited a few minutes and put it on again. It was still working, and it is still working now, days after the incident. I don’t know what happened, maybe the ghost in the machine decided to make a move, or a speck of micro dust stuck under something fell off when I hit the keyboard. What do I know of the secret lives of microprocessors? Maybe I will never know, but for the time being I am ecstatic, enjoying the return of the way things were.

FLOW – Launch (2016)

FLOW: BIG WATERS by Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas – Soundmap launch today.

12 soundworks inspired by geographic locations within the Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve and surrounding regions of South Florida and featuring the voices of Rebecca Rideout and Mark McPhee are available for listening.

http://flow.basicbruegel.com/soundmap/

Subtropics XXIII (2015)

Very excited to be part of this!

SUBTROPICS XXIII
SUBTROPICS XXIII MARATHON
SAT MAR 7 | 3PM (until it ends)
audiotheque marathon concert
924 lincoln road studio 201, miami beach

SUBTROPICS XXIII MARATHON
featuring AISLINN QUINN + BLACKSHIFTRED | ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ | CHEN-HUI JEN | DAN DICKINSON | DANIEL DUGAS + VALERIE LeBLANC | DAVID BRISKE | EDWARD BOBB + THE INERTIALS | ERIC GOTTLIEB | JACOB SUDOL | JORGE GOMEZ ABRANTE | KERRY WARE | LADONNA SMITH | LAWRENCE MOORE | LIZA SEIGIDO | PAULA MATTHUSEN | RENE BARGE | RANDY NUTT | ROBERT BLATT | and more …
SAT MAR 7 | 3PM (until it ends)

http://subtropics.org/2014/10/02/subtropics-xxiii-marathon/

Space at AUDIOTHEQUE is limited, please RSVP through Facebook

Afflux – Urban Influx (2014)

Une première!  Un de mes textes intitulés Afflux a servi d’inspiration à Robert Lemay pour créer Urban Influx une oeuvre pour quatuor de saxophones. La pièce a été présentée le 23 mars 2014 à la salle de l’University of Illinois in Urbana-Champagne, USA, avec le Proteus Saxophone Quartet.

Voici le texte et la pièce:

Afflux

sur les artères immobiles
des villes en mutation
dans le brouillard du matin
le smog de la pensée
dans le flux et le reflux
de cette vie productive
ça roule
sans cesse sans pause

Announcing 2014 AIRIE Fellows

Valerie LeBlanc and myself are extremely happy to have been invited by the Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Park to be the artists in residence for July 2014.  It is a prestigious opportunity and referring to the tradition of invited artists, as stated in the 1st paragraph of the letter, ‘our work there will become part of the permanent record of the parks that helps to preserve them’.  Described as a subtropical wilderness, with a unique combination of temperate and tropical characteristics, the Everglades has been designated as a World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere reserve, and a Wetland of International Importance.  One of the main outcomes that the Park hopes to gain from the visiting artists is ‘to help visitors make emotional and intellectual connections with this amazing place’.  As per our practice(s), we are looking forward to continuing to create poetic storylines within the exploration of this new media locative soundwalk project.

Artists in Residence in Everglades proudly announces the 2014 AIRIE Fellows. This year, AIRIE boasts a creative group of local, national and international artists across several disciplines including painters, installation artists, new media artists, photographers, and writers, who will live and work in the Everglades for a month at a time.

2014 AIRIE Fellows include photographers Adam Nadel and Dana Levy, poet Breanna Dixon, painter Rodney Dickson, video artists Karl Staven and duo Daniel Dugas & Valerie LeBlanc, as well as Florida natives including multi-disciplinary artist Elite Kedan, photographer Emily Myerscough, visual artist Reed Van Brunschot, Regina Jestrow and Prudence Gill and writer Nathaniel Sandler. Read more about each of the AIRIE 2014 fellows.

South Florida is home to the only subtropical wilderness area in the country, AIRIE is the only program bringing artists to the Everglades. AIRIE’s purpose is to inform, connect, and support artists, writers and musicians who wish to be inspired by the Everglades and then become ambassadors for the Park and its resources. AIRIE partners with Everglades National Park staff to offer month-long artist residencies in the Park’s subtropical wilderness. At least twelve AIRIE Fellows per year live and create new work in the Park, and in return lead interactive activities with visitors and donate artwork to the Park.

With generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Arts Challenge Grant, AIRIE connects Fellows with the South Florida cultural community to bring attention to this unique and endangered part of our national heritage. AIRIE’s expanded programming will feature a year-round calendar of events both in the Everglades and outside the Park, including readings, performances, workshops and lectures. Through these outreach events, Fellows will use their art forms to engage the public, showcasing the Everglades as inspiring, important and worth protecting.

AIRIE Fellows have the unique opportunity to get to know the ecology of the Everglades by being immersed in it, and then share their perspective through creative public programs. “In a park known for its spectacular and diverse wildlife, the art and voices of AIRIE artists reveal other unique, and often missed, dimensions of this special place,” remarks Park Superintendent Dan Kimball.

from: http://airie.org/2013/announcing-2014-airie-fellow/

Une boucle pour Noël (2011)

Sculpture Space – Then and Now 1991 (2011)

JUiCYHEADS celebrates 35 years of Sculpture Space!

Sculpture Space is unique in North America for its support of sculptors, both those who come to Utica, New York, as residency participants and those who continue after their residencies as working artists. The organization selects 20 artists each year for two-month residencies and has helped to advance the careers of more than 500 national and international artists since 1976. A non-profit organization with a 35-year record of success.  For the next few months JUICYHEADS will be featuring work from Sculpture Space artists. Click on a year and their name to experience their work: http://juicyheads.com/

Then and Now at Sculpture Space:

I applied to Sculpture Space when I was in residency at the Banff Centre.  My project, THE NEW PANDORA’S BOX was a two-fold installation work.  The first part was a trip around the world, and during the second stage, the Utica residency, I constructed the installation.  I convinced my partner video artist Valerie LeBlanc to accompany me on the trip, to share the adventure.

The entries have been collected from notebooks, reconstructed from past memories and / or from revisiting photos and video taken between December 2, 1990 and January 31, 1991.

Daniel Dugas

SNOW

That was a big storm, even for Canadians.  And it’s cold and damp.  We are wrapped with scarfs, tuques and mitts, walking slowly in single file in the knee-deep snow of Genesee Street en route to Mr. REDS.  We meet other walkers going up, coming down.  At every encounter we all put one foot in the deepest snow to let the other person pass.  From the air it must look like pirouettes of a silent ballet.  DD

WELCOME

On December 2, 1990, Daniel and I arrived in Utica via greyhound bus during the first snowstorm of the winter.  Although large and fluffy flakes began accumulating during the final miles of the bus ride from Montréal, we could not be held responsible for bringing it south, the Mohawk Valley of Central New York State lies smack in the snowbelt. VL

CHRISTMAS IN UTICA

They are called Appalachians, Adirondacks and sometimes they are said to be linked geographically to the Canadian Laurentians.  In any case, the snow covered mountains and hills there have that familiar purple/grey aura of bare hardwoods nestled in snow.  When winter comes to Utica, it is a Christmas card world straight out of Dickens.  VL

WAR

January 11, 1991 – 7 pm, Sculpture Space studio

The radio is on.  Politicians are debating the possibilities of going to war.  The stove is hot and it’s good because there is a big snowstorm outside.  The resonating voices and the radiating heat gets mixed in front of our eyes.  After hours of discussion the senators approved the Senate Joint Resolution.  War is coming.  DD  The Persian Gulf War Resolution

NATION OF WARRIORS

Once the Gulf War started, B52’s made night passes over Utica with the regularity of a milk run.  Off they went from the Rome Air Force base, carrying soldiers and supplies from the start to the finish of the bombing time period.  Meanwhile the debate raged on NPR, and many discussions in the cafés and on buses turned to worries about the threat of a prolonged state of war.  In my heart, I was a visitor to the country, on the streets, I was drawn into the news that made every headline.  The waitress’s father-in-law was called up as a reserve officer, one of the finest mechanics in town.  The car salesman’s daughter was an infantry soldier, he hoped for the best over coffee and eggs.  Generals ‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell were all over the television news.  Rehashed and rehashed, tactical victories gave opportunities for veterans to enter the fray.  Old scraps were revisited as the current war played out, and Utica resembled the stage set of The Deer Hunter movie, more and more each day.  VL

APARTMENT

We got a small apartment on 939 Schuyler St.  It’s not big but as Jonathan (Kirk) pointed out “it’s cozy”.  There’s a hot plate and a toaster but the two can never be powered at the same time, as it will create a short.  And we will have to ask the owner to change the fuse.  The shower is also ‘unique’; it‘s perfect for anyone under 5 feet.   But, best of all are the trains.  It was worth taking the apartment.  The first time we saw it, we heard a loud sound and then another one, louder, closer.  We opened the curtains in a hurry to witness a freight train in all of its glory coming down the middle of the street right under our balcony.  You could almost reach out and shake hands with the Conductor!  DD

CULTURAL ICONS

Having lived for five years in Kingston, Ontario, as a kid, I was somewhat familiar with the cultural environment of Central and Upper New York State – from television of course.  As I sat glued to the T.V., I was storing up a range of programming highlights from Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Watertown, Ithaca, Utica and all points in-between.  Cartoons and black and white re-run movies started airing very early in the morning.  On weekends and holidays, I woke up early to soak it all in.

Upper New York State was a far cry from what I expected to find in the Big Apple, and yet different from what I had come to know in Canada.  With television as my window to the world: life down south in the United States of America, I knew that the hot dogs were bigger, more red; there was a bigger variety of candies; and dime store specialty gifts were more affordable.

All of those years later, as an adult, visiting Sculpture Space brought me to the actual source of some of those cultural icons already familiar to me.  I knew before arriving that bowling had been VERY big in Utica.  I personally felt that one of the most interesting programs on T.V. was the Sunday bowling.  Far from boring, the soothing voice of the announcer whispered the step by step action, building the tension of each player’s profile and emphasizing the high (monetary) stakes involved in winning the tournament.  And there were Utica Club Beer ads!  The jingle of the tournaments’ sponsor came back to me when I stood in the train yard outside the still-active Utica Club brewery.  The factory, with its high chimneys and the oversized letters’ sign towered high above street level, lending a larger than life silhouette to the Utica skyline.  VL

STOREFRONTS

Storefronts are fascinating.  They are markers of time, documenting life. In the few weeks since our arrival, we have noticed a lot of wig stores and wonder why.  It seems that every block has one.  Styrofoam heads with curly blond or long black hair resting on shelves, looking out all day long at people going by.  Somewhere downtown, between two wig stores, we saw an abandoned shoe store.  The front window is still offering a dazzling display of boxes sitting on pedestals.  Everything is coated with a layer of dust, 3 years thick at least.  It looks like the tomb of some great Egyptian ruler.  There are also wedding dress storefronts.  Today we stopped in front of one and took pictures.  DD

SCIENCE FICTION MEETS REALITY

When I walked on the street in Utica, a million story ideas appeared in my mind.  Every turn of the corner brought a unique storefront, café or colourful local character.  I had travelled all my life but was struck by the rich character of this city. For some reason, each encounter with a store clerk or conversation on the bus, seemed to present a string of other possible outcomes, all of them mysteries.

One day, after being spooked out by passing the darkest of abandoned parkades, I looked into a store window to see a perfectly arranged shoe display of the finest leather shoes.  Signs indicated the qualities of the particular brands carried and looking past the window box, in-store displays, and stacks of shoeboxes resembled a neatly organized library, complete with a sliding ladder to reach all of the available sizes.  It was definitely a very classy shoe store.

The only quirk about the place was that it was abandoned, and all of the fashions were 1940’s styles.  There was a thick layer of dust everywhere and everything was faded.  It looked as it the owners had just disappeared into thin air, leaving not a trace, and yet, in this city with a vibrant, animated street scene, no one and nothing had disturbed that shop.  I had often thought about the fact that Rod Serling, the science fiction writer of the television series The Twilight Zone had lived in Binghampton, a short distance from Utica.  When I thought about some shows from the series, I began to feel that the science fiction reality of his stories were hovering just below the surface here in Utica.  VL

STOVE

The wood stove at Sculpture Space is incredible.  It is a colossus object that looks like nothing else on earth.  It is the source of heat for the whole studio, the beating heart that allows residents to carry on.  When we arrived, in early December, Sylvia de Swann showed us the cords of wood outside and said, “Use as much as you need”.  We did.  DD

MUSIC

Music all day, music all night!  We all brought our favorite cassettes, but it’s Tracy (Brown) who has the biggest collection.  We listen pêle-mêle to: Voivod; John Cale; the grinders and the saws; The Red Hot Chile Peppers; Sinead O’Connor; the MIG welder; Bad Brains; NPR; hammers and cutters; all flowing and bouncing freely, helping us to concentrate and to create.    DD

OUTSMARTING THE DOGS

And in Utica there was Sculpture Space, that extremely well equipped and highly accommodating support for sculptors.  After a few days, I felt inspired to do a documentary about it.  I began to shoot possible cutaways.  I carried out preliminary interviews with Daniel, and the other artists currently in residence:  Tracy Brown, and Charlie Citron.

WUTR, Channel 2, the local television station supplying a percentage of local programming was located on top of Smith Hill in Deerfield, but its official address was Utica. I got dropped off outside of the station one morning to meet with the Programming Director.  Unfortunately, the weight of the impending war was thick in the air and the meeting was brief.  If war was declared, all programming would need to focus on that event.  Peaceful cultural concerns would be moved to the back burner.  I started down the hill to catch the bus, with not much hope for moving the documentary ahead.  That was when my real problems arose.

The walk back down was through a remote section of landscape with not much around but the dogs.  It seemed that everyone had already left for work and no cars passed me by either way.  I would not have cared except the walk was close to two miles and each abandoned home or farm had at least one dog.  I quickly developed a life-saving strategies.  Looking to the edges of the snow-covered road, I filled my pockets with as many rocks as I could find.  As the first of two beagles raced toward me from their driveway, I began throwing rocks.  No one was hit or injured but they got the message quickly and doubled back home yelping in defeat.  Whew!  There were two more encounters and then I used the ‘black bear strategy’ of lifting my black leather coat up high over my head.  On both of the other encounters, I charged toward the dogs yelling as loud as I could.  Unbelievably, it worked.  By the time I got to the bottom of the hill and found the bus stop, a german shepherd in his yard  started to run for the driveway, miracle of miracles, that owner was home and yelled for the dog to get back in the house.  I returned to Sculpture Space without a strong prospect for the documentary but I had a few stories to tell.  My own war to return went well.  VL

ESPRESSO

We needed a good coffee, something strong like an espresso.  We went out, looking for some.  After a little while, we saw in a window display, an espresso machine and some little Italian flags in coffee cups!  There was also a very small sign with the magic word Café above the door.  Despite the sign, the coffee machine and the flags, this place didn’t really look like a Café or a restaurant.  There was something private, secret about it.  Guided by our addiction, we opened the door.  It was quiet.  We saw a long counter and two little red enamel tables.  We looked at each other full of hope.  As we slowly made our way in, a man showed up and glared at us.  There was something Boris Karloff about him, something in his demeanor that was telling us that this might not be the right place.  But nevertheless we had found the place, we were in, and we were thirsty, there was no way back.   We risked, “We’ll have two espressos?”  There was a slight pause, a silence, and then the man pointed to one of the tables.  We sat down.  There was no music playing, no flowers on the table.  He was already behind the counter working.  We could feel his gaze.  The smell of the coffee started to take over.  After he put the cups in front of us, we paid him.  He pocketed the money and disappeared behind a curtain at the end of the counter.  Then, all of a sudden we heard a flurry of other voices, two or three other men.  They were speaking, yelling in Italian, swearing in English, the energy was on the angry side to say the least.  It felt weird being there.  We hoped that they were not talking about us.   We drank our espresso in a hurry, put a fifty-cent on the table and left.  As we stepped outside, we could feel the adrenaline rushing in our veins, it felt pretty good.   DD

⁂

After Sculpture Space Daniel Dugas and Valerie LeBlanc moved to Chicago where they did each their Master of Fine Arts Degrees at the School of the Art Institute.  They each continue to carry out individual creative projects and collaborations.  Social and political aspects of the world, as well as the technological changes that continue to augment reality are the pivots on which their practices revolve.  At the heart of their activities resides the desire to establish a rapport between what is experienced and what is imagined; the ideas that emerge to see the light of day, and those that remain below.  The underpinning motivation is to move communication forward.

Daniel’s website: http://daniel.basicbruegel.com/

Valerie’s website: http://valerie.basicbruegel.com/
4 short videos YouTube

stroboscope papier (2011)

Le bruit
des chapitres
stroboscope
du papier
sur la peau
du pouce de l’index

intempéries mondiales (2011)

intempéries mondiales
une photographie d’un nuage
des numéros de téléphone
un bout du monde arraché du lointain
se balance indécis
fragile devant la brise