artist: °SONE
title: Passerelle
catalog number: and/29
release year: 2008
format: CD
status: available
Documented on this CD is a site-specific sound installation /
performance given by °Sone (pronounced "osone"), a project
of Yannick Dauby, Christophe Havard & Hughes Germain. The
only sounds used were from within the walls of the building
where the event took place, channeled and recorded using
large transducers and then mixed and broadcast back into the
main space of the building. http://o.sone.free.fr/passerelle.html
Below, a (English translation of the French) description of the
process is provided until a better one can be obtained.
Make of it what you will...
- A resonator creating an intense wall oscillation of up to 34 Hz
of vibrations was placed at the center of the section refered to
as the "quasi-quiet zone", towards which was pointed a
parabola diffusing the acute squealings space was filled of the
very serious frequency coming from the wall, except for this
point of very localised listening.
- Space of the walls covered with glass a series of parabolas
diffused sounds overshrill, directing their narrow sound beams
towards the walls. The passage in this space implied the
crossing of these lines.
- Metal chimney, setting in resonance by a vibrator, which
diffused the sweeping of a harmonic series these melody
textures were conveyed to the stage by the zinc chimney.
- Two perpendicular walls were put in vibrations by a pair of
vibrators each one during the week, two speakers could at any
moment come to diffuse sound elements of their choice on
this device. A third adjacent wall closed again forming a "U",
making for a broad zone of listening from where one could not
see the sound sources.
- The bottom of the center foot bridge, was reserved for the
installation of Larsens effect. A microphone directed towards
the perpendicular hall and walls, like another directed towards
the room with the parabolas, constituted the entry of the device.
Its exit consisted of two amplified loudspeakers, directed in the
angle of this space the Larsens were controlled using a table
of mixing and were modified by means of computer.
- The walls of the hall were covered with plates of expanded
polystirene, truffées of transducers piézocéramiques. Two
groups of plates created a kind of stereophony, very remote,
with band-busy limited (800-2000 Hz).
- The space of the hall contained suspended balls of
polystirene (they also truffées of piézo). Listening was much
more localised than the plates described above, and the busy
one was shifted towards the acute one.
- A low register box was placed against the balcony of the
stage, which entirely put the space of the hall in vibration.
- A metal plate (at the origin a balance) was activated by a
resonator.
- A metal curtain of big size, a case of transport out of plywood,
and the picture windows of the entry, was available for a pair of
vibrator mobiles all the devices of the hall describes above,
were used according to desiderata's of the speakers: diffused
recordings, installation of automatic or controlled systems,
improvisation.
- On the floor, in a tiny unlit room painted in black, was an
opening for frontal listening: two pairs of plates of polystirene
were laid out in the angles of the walls these plates diffused
various sound fragments for the occasion which was recorded.



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EARLABS (APRIL 2008)
Under the nom de plume °Sone , Yannick Dauby, Christophe
Havard and Hughes Germain, have created in Passerelle a
site-specific sound performance. The sound space they rope
into acting as their primary instrument is adorned with all sorts
of garb - walls covered with glass and plates expanded
polystirene, chimneys lined with metal and zinc, all flooded and
tantalized by 34 Hz of vibrations spilling out from a resonator
planted in the centre of the room. What particularly fascinates
is how such a conceptual composition can provoke such a
strong emotional and aesthetic response in the listener. While
conceptually the work seems to have a great deal to do with
reduplication, the sounds emanating from within the walls
being captured, doctored, and then channeled back into the
womb-like space from whence they came, the recording
operates on an undeniably immediate level. Throughout, a
patiently measured tension is at play. The lurid bellows from a
cluster of metal plates pump through the opener with ease and
fluidity. As the intervals come on quicker, they build a wave
structure that hovers around the ears, as differently articulated
sounds and textures float in all directions. Indeed the heavily
layered perspective is curiously reminiscent of the spatial
awareness created by gauging where clouds sit in the sky. By
the albums midpoint, the main compatibilities have been
grounded and consequences have begun to be probed. An
astute ear and proficiency of execution seems behind all of
this; and this is perhaps most plainly evidenced in the fact that
these neat and beautifully effective physical gestures, which
glide but never meander, seem to occur more by chance than
calculation. (Max Schaefer)
THE ART OF MEMORY (APRIL 2008)
A site-specific sound installation / performance by Yannick
Dauby, Christophe Havard & Hughes Germain.
If I were forced to bring 10 CDs with me to a deserted island,
this would be one. there is the feeling / atmosphere similar to
a photograph by Anselm Kiefer, like listening to one of his
factory floor images, obscured beyond telling.
(Matthew Swiezinski)