« Crepuscule Matinale - homage to Erik Satie » is a project where the ventilation ducts of the Georges Pompidou Centre forecourt receive a makeover and put on an act of playing Furniture Music, the brain child of Erik Satie between 1917 and 1923.
By equipping them with sound installation speakers, the ducts use is doubled-up and their shape is changed too; they come to acquire a new identity: a surprising and captivating one. The area around the Pompiodu where the ducts are situated was designed as a recreational gathering spot in itself, making it particularly well suited to this kind of experiment.
Hearing music but not knowing at once where it comes from creates ambiguity: the world as we know it seems to have a new face, what we see no longer has the same shape or function. Something escapes us.
Passers-by slowly become an audience, sometimes without even being aware of it. The very object becomes captivating, playful, active, resonant, able to lead us off our path as soon as we uncover its identity.
Through the ventilation ducts/loudspeakers music takes over the surroundings, just as Erik Satie envisaged when composing his Furniture Music in 1917.
Satie invented Furniture Music after coming across the widespread habit of listening to music without really paying attention, with a certain indifference. With his usual ironic conventionality he once told Fernand Léger : «You know, there's a need to create furniture music; that is to say, music that would be a part of the surrounding noises and that would take them into account. (…) Moreover it would neutralize the street noises that indiscreetly force themselves into the picture»
Satie presented the first example of an « orchestra with no conductor » during the intermission of a play by Max Jacob. He encouraged the audience to «walk around, eat and drink» while five instrumentalists played Ambroise Thomas and Camille de Saint Saens at the same time. Satie shouted at them to «Talk, for heaven’s sake! Move around! Don’t listen!», but all to no avail: «they kept quiet. They listened. The whole thing went wrong.».
We are sure Erik Satie would have loved using these ventilation ducts, all the more so since they are painted in white, a colour he loved for its unique ability to express « absent beauty ». The music will be played as the sun begins to set, a magic moment when new evocative aspects come to light.
FURNITURE MUSIC (1917-1923)
1) Carrelage phonique. Peut se jouer à un lunch ou à un contrat de mariage. Mouvement : « ordinaire » Phonic tiling. Can be played during a lunch or civil marriage. Movement: « Ordinary » (1917-1918) 2) Tapisserie en fer forgé. Pour l’arrivée des invités (grande réception), à jouer dans un vestibule. Mouvement « très riche » Tapestry in forged iron. For the arrival of the guests (grand reception), to be played in a vestibule. Movement: « Very rich » ( 1917-1918) 3) Chez un « Bistrot » ; Un salon. Mouvement : Chez un « Bistrot » : « avec entrain ». Un salon : « gaiement » At a « Bistro » ; A drawing room. Movement : At a « Bistro » : « avec entrain ». A drawing room : « gaiement » (1920) 4) Tenture de Cabinet préfectoral . Mouvement : « pas trop vite ». Nuances : « calme et sot » (1923) Wall-lining in a chief officer's office. Movement: « not too fast ». Nuances : « calm and foolish » Durée de la diffusion : ad libitum. Length of performance: ad libitum
« Crepuscule Matinale - homage to Erik Satie » is a project where the ventilation ducts of the Georges Pompidou Centre forecourt receive a makeover and put on an act of playing Furniture Music, the brain child of Erik Satie between 1917 and 1923.
By equipping them with sound installation speakers, the ducts use is doubled-up and their shape is changed too; they come to acquire a new identity: a surprising and captivating one. The area around the Pompiodu where the ducts are situated was designed as a recreational gathering spot in itself, making it particularly well suited to this kind of experiment.
Hearing music but not knowing at once where it comes from creates ambiguity: the world as we know it seems to have a new face, what we see no longer has the same shape or function. Something escapes us.
Passers-by slowly become an audience, sometimes without even being aware of it. The very object becomes captivating, playful, active, resonant, able to lead us off our path as soon as we uncover its identity.
Through the ventilation ducts/loudspeakers music takes over the surroundings, just as Erik Satie envisaged when composing his Furniture Music in 1917.
Satie invented Furniture Music after coming across the widespread habit of listening to music without really paying attention, with a certain indifference. With his usual ironic conventionality he once told Fernand Léger : «You know, there's a need to create furniture music; that is to say, music that would be a part of the surrounding noises and that would take them into account. (…) Moreover it would neutralize the street noises that indiscreetly force themselves into the picture»
Satie presented the first example of an « orchestra with no conductor » during the intermission of a play by Max Jacob. He encouraged the audience to «walk around, eat and drink» while five instrumentalists played Ambroise Thomas and Camille de Saint Saens at the same time. Satie shouted at them to «Talk, for heaven’s sake! Move around! Don’t listen!», but all to no avail: «they kept quiet. They listened. The whole thing went wrong.».
We are sure Erik Satie would have loved using these ventilation ducts, all the more so since they are painted in white, a colour he loved for its unique ability to express « absent beauty ». The music will be played as the sun begins to set, a magic moment when new evocative aspects come to light.
FURNITURE MUSIC (1917-1923)
1) Carrelage phonique. Peut se jouer à un lunch ou à un contrat de mariage. Mouvement : « ordinaire » Phonic tiling. Can be played during a lunch or civil marriage. Movement: « Ordinary » (1917-1918) 2) Tapisserie en fer forgé. Pour l’arrivée des invités (grande réception), à jouer dans un vestibule. Mouvement « très riche » Tapestry in forged iron. For the arrival of the guests (grand reception), to be played in a vestibule. Movement: « Very rich » ( 1917-1918) 3) Chez un « Bistrot » ; Un salon. Mouvement : Chez un « Bistrot » : « avec entrain ». Un salon : « gaiement » At a « Bistro » ; A drawing room. Movement : At a « Bistro » : « avec entrain ». A drawing room : « gaiement » (1920) 4) Tenture de Cabinet préfectoral . Mouvement : « pas trop vite ». Nuances : « calme et sot » (1923) Wall-lining in a chief officer's office. Movement: « not too fast ». Nuances : « calm and foolish » Durée de la diffusion : ad libitum. Length of performance: ad libitum