ENSA Bourges (Fr)

The workshop of sound aesthetics brings together the sound pieces produced, every year since 2005, by the students of the National School of Art of Bourges (years 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5), and in the framework of the workshop, an aesthetic research seminar in sound creation by Alexandre Castant, professor of aesthetics and history of contemporary arts at the ENSA.

The sound bits produced as part of this workshop go beyond the issue of levels and genres: radio drama, documentary creation or musical compositions, they therefore participate in a very open sound writing. On the other hand, each without the exception of a short format of less than ten minutes or so, makes the description, the subjective commentary or the semiological analysis with sounds or the voice, of a work of art, all artistic disciplines combined, whether they fall under heritage, ancient, modern, contemporary or current. The sounds, then apprehended for their signifying potentialities, make it possible to reflect a history of the aesthetics in the sound practice. Conversely, over time, these pieces will constitute a small encyclopedia, subjective, artistic and audio, of the history of the arts.

At the same time, this workshop assumes that, in the light of an attempt to define sound and a course in aesthetic correspondences, the history of sound in the visual arts, but also in the history of radio and cinema, constitutes today an autonomous territory of creation. Thus, from the experiences of Father Castel in the eighteenth century to sound sculptures and Fluxus, listening and seeing have always questioned space and time differently, configuring them and giving them new ways to be read. As an educational space and research, the Workshop of sound aesthetics takes note of this artistic reality and feeds on it constantly.

In this perspective, the website is provided with a Bibliography page which, as a tool as well as a place of debate in becoming, will be enriched over time. Finally, this sound creation work made by students would not be successful if it was not broadcast. In addition to the public broadcast, which takes place every year in the Listening Room of Ensa, in addition to a Cd also made for each work session, this site gives free access to the nature of these works. Moreover, and for all the reasons stated, the program of sound art festival, as the presentation of this type of research in galleries, museums, art schools or universities led us to create the Diffusion page which updates the living reality of this workshop, where sound creation is also conceived as a synthesis of art and an aesthetic practice.