sonic translation of Ferdinand Brunot’s speech
Listening session / sound installation for Nuit Blanche — La Sorbonne — Paris 2014
Concept and music: Sébastien Roux et Laurent Guérel
Voice: Léa Moreau recorded by Nicolas Charbonnier
On june 3rd of 1911, in Sorbonne’s great amphitheater, Ferdinand Brunot (linguist and historian of French language) launched the Archives of Speech. In his speech, he set out the main themes of his project: to create a sound library of speech, to develop speech analysis.
On september 3rd of 2014, Léa Moreau read Brunot’s speech. Mèré fou logou uses this recording as a musical score.
Next to the great amphitheater the recording is played back in its original version. In the great amphitheater, a score for 4 groups of loudspeakers is played back. These groups symbolize the link between speech and perception, understanding and deformation. Each group occupies a specific position in the theatre.
First group is in the orchestra and plays back intermittently Lea’s voice.
Second group is located in the half circle of bleachers above the orchestra. The material is generated using all the sentences describing sound in Brunot’s speech.
The third group, above the first row of bleachers, uses pitch and rhythm of Lea’s voice to control a synthesizer.
The fourth group, in the alcoves, transform the voice into a resonant drone.
→ Watch video (from 00:51′ to 01:39)
