Audio-visual installation, Projection, 4.1 surround sound and stereo open headphones

"Dear Phonocene" takes root in the industrial forests around my home (Rhône). Inspired by recent scientific studies on acoustic enrichment showing that sound diffusion in damaged environments can help their restoration, I wanted to adopt this method by inviting sound recordists to play back recordings in forest plantations and clear-cut areas. The sounds we are playing were recorded on site over several years, collected in bits of forest that have since been cut down or in unlogged areas. Here, without scientific pretension but as a poetic act of acoustic care, our playbacks represent a certain reactivation of a past soundscape. Like a distant memory of extinct species, could these sounds perhaps have a positive impact on these places? The term "Phonocene" is directly borrowed from Donna Haraway, and taken up by Vinciane Despret to propose a philosophical concept of an era where attention is paid to the sounds of the earth. How do we listen to these remaining voices? What do we take in when we take in sound? How do we return these voices? The "Dear Phonocene"  installation documents this research.

Vimeo link (PW on demand) here.