Félix Blume (Fr)

1 November 2019 City Sonic

Amazônia (Belgian premiere)

Félix Blume went to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Tauary, a small Brazilian village without any road access. He takes us to listen to the everyday sounds of the twenty or so families who live there (about 80 people), all along one day. From dawn in the forest to a ride in a pirogue, from the storm to the night, from games in the river to crocodile hunting… In constant dialogue with their environment, the inhabitants imitate the animals’ screams (monkeys, toucans, macaws, hummingbirds…) to make their singing heard. The telephone ringtones merge with the sounds of hunters mimicking their prey. A work that provides the possibility ‘to see’… without ever showing… leaving all freedom to our imagination to travel between the ambiances of this invisible world.

This piece of “field recording”, is divided into sections of 3 minutes, in compliance with ARTE Radio: it is transmitted between various other programs diffused in the Écoutilles device.

Production: ARTE Radio.

Sound works proposed by the artist or the structure during the Parcours Sonore @ Louvain-La-Neuve will take place in the multi-chanel device Ecoutilles by Stephan Dunkelman (Be).

Biography

Félix Blume is a sound artist and sound engineer. He currently works and lives between Mexico and France. His work is focused on listening. It invites us to live sonic experiences that enable a different perception of the surroundings. He uses sound as a basic material in sonic pieces, videos, actions and installations. His process is often collaborative, working with communities, using public space as the context within which he explores and presents his works. He is interested in myths and their contemporary interpretation, in human dialogue… both in inhabited natural and urban contexts, and what voices can express, beyond words.
His sound pieces have been broadcasted in radios from all over the world and in different places such as Centre Pompidou and Musée d’Orsay (France). He received the “soundscape” prize for his last video-piece Curupira, creature of the wood and the “Pierre Schaeffer” prize for his work Los Gritos de México, at the Phonurgia Nova Awards. In 2018, he did a site-specific sound installation, entitled Rumors from the sea, composed of hundred of bamboos and flutes on the coast of Krabi, a work commissioned by the Thailand Biennale.