14 > 25.09 – City Sonic @ Mons

After a tour of the sonic journey sound installations of this City Sonic 14th edition by director/curator Philippe Franck (with the artists), there will be a presentation of several short sound performances. These and other displays, will be presented, by French artists who have completed post graduate studies at ENSA Bourges School of Fine Arts.

Arthur Zerktouni and Yanick Deneux present abstract hip hop performed in audio visual installations. Project members include Julien Grosjean, Elsa Welfelè, Simon Deterne, and Johana Beaussart.

This is followed by other artists including Dimension N, a live AV creation by Arba G. Corral (graphic- multimedia artist / Barcelona), as well as Dariusz Makaruk (composer of contemporary and electronic music / Warsaw and Jury prize winner at Festival Bains Numériques 2016) at the fridge (site of the old slaughterhouse).

+ City Sonic Party site of the old slaughterhouse of Mons with Quelques Piétons (hybrid poetic mix) > 22:30 (free entrance).

Meeting @ Passage du Centre (galerie)
Entrance by grand rue or rue des Capucins – Mons
Free

After an extended edition in the framework of “Mons2015, European Capital of Culture”, City Sonic returns to its pirate and pioneering origins, as initiated in 2003 by Transcultures (Centre of Digital and Audio Cultures). This program is mainly oriented towards emerging creators. It consists of an audio urban itinerary at four main sites in downtown Mons.

• The site of the Old Slaughterhouses (Anciens Abattoirs), at Grande Halle, an audio-visual exhibition features twenty works of post graduate students of the National School of Art, Bourges (ENSA – France),
• le Carré des Arts and the partnership of Carré des Arts, with the School of Visual Arts of Mons Arts2.
• la Maison du Design which also hosts artworks produced by the students of ENSA Bourges
• le Passage du Centre (galerie) where a dozen of stores will be revived by the undisciplined artists.

The Sound Itinerary is open 09.15>25 ¦ 10:00 > 06:30 pm / closed on mondays

In practice of PAS (Audio Sensitive Course), What Gilles Malatray often finds most interesting are the transitional spaces, where one passes somewhat progressively, from state to state, where our senses sometimes lose their ground, only to find new points of balance.

In the grey of passages, we shift in space-time. For City Sonic, Gilles Malatray invites you to a journey to the edge of night. Again, the passage of light itself, towards obscurity is too a darkness, where one finds himself to be, more or less, in blackness.

Or, conversely, it could act as a catalyst of/for the senses, where everything becomes uncertain at times, thus, where many things become possible. Sight loses its efficiency; the hearing reactive, like a sensorial re-balance that thwarts the nocturnal trap, and enjoys the silenced, mysterious, and undoubtedly most poetic atmosphere.”

Digital manufacturing and fablabs now allow to prototype objects within hours or even minutes. But have you ever tried to prototype an interactive object, that is to say capable of reacting to your movements? For example: a custom video game controller, a new interface for electronic music or a new object connected to your home or to your office. The interaction is synonymous with fast sensors, complex connections and numerous iterations.

Nicolas d’Alessandro presents an innovative workshop, exploring the virtues of special inks, called resistive and capacitive, literally to paint the interactive elements on an existing object or on a paper and low-resolution prototype cardboard.

This workshop consists of two parts:

• On the one hand, the “pattern of interaction” is used where the ink creates the elements of interaction on the objects.
• On the other hand, the “audiovisual interaction design” where the elements of interaction are connected to a circuit board and / or computer to trigger sounds, images or light. In this second part, the issue of creative programming is also addressed.

The approach of this workshop is friendly and open to project participants.

09.00 > 16.30
Maison du design – 4a, Rue des Sœurs Noires, 4
Booking : +32(0)65 59 08 89 or giuseppe.speziale@maisondudesign.be

With Sonic Garden Party, City Sonic offers a convivial Sunday afternoon, with intimate concerts and performances (about twenty minutes each) created and presented in beautiful private gardens (open to the public for the occasion) in rue des Compagnons (historic area of the Belfry located behind the Grand’Place).

The Sonic Garden Party 2016 features performances by :

• Catherine Graindorge
• Timo Van Luyck with Ditterich von Euler-Donnersperg
• Sébastien Sth Biset

Meet in front of the chapel (Rue des Telliers, 5) – 03:00pm

From “Sound Planets” to “audiobiographique Journal”, a journey in sound arts

With Sound Planets, Essayist and art critic, Alexandre Castant presents the two major books which he has written about sound arts, which have a ten year span in between them: Sound Planets, 2007; and ‘Audiobiographical Journal”, 2016. The conference is a historical and theoretical trajectory which crosses the visual arts, cinema, radio broadcasting and the theme of sound in contemporary art. It also considers the critical and methodological objects that accompany it. Historical nuances and a general sense of aesthetics are therefore proposed in the conference, as well as concepts such as, “necrophonia”, or the idea of, “journal in connection with photography and radio broadcasting”, which are specific to his research developed in these texts related to contemporary art.

• Auditoire Carré des arts
• 11:30am > 12:30pm
• free

Our world is shaped by the surrounding noise; the sound of machines becomes our daily lives. It is thus, that the definition of music extends as the sound and textures become musical components. Everyday objects become musical instruments.

Practicing musical noise has the advantage of enabling us to experiment, and to develop our imagination, to seek amazing sounds, exit from musical formats, to let constraints occur. In this workshop, pieces of wood, metal plates, toothbrushes, nails, screws and plastic containers become instruments of choice. In Collective improvisational playing, the electro-acoustic manipulation (placement of microphones, and added pedal effects), the participants can build an incredible band, in a short time.

This workshop is provided by Claire Williams.

Sonic Kids are creative and playful initiations (by artists / close animators of City Sonic) to various sonic practices for youngsters.

10:00 > 12:00 – Médiathèque 7M3
Rue de la Seuwe, 23-31 – Mons
Free : Reservation is required

Après la dernière visite guidée, la clôture de City Sonic@Mons, une scène de concerts attend les curieux et les participants du festival dans un cadre bucolique, avec des créations live, entre autres, de :

• 11:60 (Christophe Bailleau + Didié Nietzche, paysages électro cosmiques)
• Ze Zorgs (Maurice Charles JJ au saxo, Pierre-Jean Vranken à la guitare électrique, Stéphane Fedele à la batterie, set post jazz no wave)
• Isa Belle (Cristal Shower, douche de vibrations essentielles)
• Supernova (vibrations sensorielles)
• Un City Sonic Sunday drink pour se dire à l’année prochaine…