Exomène

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Unnoticed Shadow

If you follow me for a while, you know I do music from pictures and floppy disks. Maybe you also know I do music for videos and that I have an industrial spoken word project. But did you know I have my own project from which originated my name Exomène?

Exomène means (basically) Mental Exodus. I chose this name because my music is made for avoiding the intellectual side of the brain and thus adress directly feelings and emotions. That's why I make those cinematic soundscapes inspired by industrial music.

After depicting the struggle of a man against the arbitrary in my first demo and my oneiric world in the second, this time I tell about all the shadows we barely notice at the background of our lives. "The life and death of an unnoticed shadow" is my first real record ever and will be released by Industreeallace Productions.

You can listen and download the full album on bandcamp starting may 17th. You can join the event on Facebook to get updated: Exomène ALBUM RELEASE PARTY.

Meanwhile, here is a teaser video

I'm standing beside me

Je suis à côté de moi (I'm standing beside me), 7th track of the Spoken Worms has just been released.

As usual, I soundscaped the text Marianne wrote while Dorianne Wotton shot the video.

You can enjoy the music (don't hesitate to leave a comment).

And the video with english subtitles

I am standing beside me

I watch myself slipping
I stretch my hand to myself
I grasp that hand, of course,
Because I know it well,
Gracious, cheerful, sweet,
and yet strong, certainly,
almost beautiful when it makes an effort,
all of this, it gives,
just to stay alive,
alive and shiny,
even slimy sometimes,
meant not to scare,
Therefore,
right beside me,
again and again,
I watch myself stretching my hand to myself,
and I take that hand,
which I despise sometimes,
which I would like to ignore,
it’s here,
at the end of a gigantic rosary,
it's the keystone of a whole world that makes it sublime
because it knows how to give
because that hand does know what love is
because THIS HAND does know how to be loved
that’s why I take this hand as mine
with no desire, and sometimes, without appetite, or pleasure,
just because each pearl of the rosary,
counts on it
each pearl of the rosary
is bound, by this hand
I know it,
that’s why I take this hand as mine
therefore,
let me cry,
merely cry,
over lies,
futures,
promises and betrayals,
let me cry over this life,
supposed to sublime me
let me cry over those absurd torments
which do matter only in the venom of my Muses
those very ones I stand against
those very jealous ones
of this hand of mine
The whirl is infernal
The whirl is life, is irremediable,
it is this hand, this hand of mine,
beside me,
this held out hand for me,
that I grasp
sometimes with no desire,
sometimes whith euphoria,
today, from habit,
tomorrow from certainty,
this evening from generosity,
for love, love of some pearls,
shiny, or desappointing, sometimes only dull,
dirty,coarse,
fragile, submissive, naive,
sceptical pearls,
that, even when facing intolerance,
convenience,
are always here,
bound to each other,
to this rosary
stuffed with life
linked to the womb of this world;
I’m not born yet,
I’m not get used
I don’t know how to do well,
I don’t know how to live
With closed eyes I can’t articulate,
therefore,
I hold this hand of mine,
hoping
that I will never let me go.

Kindergarten

Here is a video demo to see what my live performances look like. And what a better playground for industrial music than playing in a factory? A factory which was actually one of my favorite playground when I was a child.

When I play live I try to bring my physical approach of music making to the audience by using the most visual possible controllers: audiocubes, ribbon synths, motion capture (soon) and maybe someday a laser harp or an electronically modified didgeridoo...

But my most important performance controller is the audience.

And if you like the sound of the video, which was a quick little on site impro, you can listen and download it on Souncloud.

I'm currently looking for gigs, so feel free to leave a mail on exomene@gmail.com

Suscribe to the newsletter!

Hi there,

Maybe you noticed some changes on the website recently. After I set up a comment system for us to speak more easily, I needed space to display a link to my newsletter. I realized that RSS may not be the best way to tell you about my shows and exhibitions.

Don't worry I won't spam you :) If you suscribe to the newsletter you'll receive a mail every once in a while telling you about my next gig, show, exhibition or album release.

So, don't hesitate to join the newsletter,

Cheers,

Exomène

Website updated

Hi there,

I made a few improvements on the website: I corrected the background bug, changed the color of the links to make them easier to read, videos from Vimeo on the homepage... But, above all, you can now comment on the articles.

I hope I'll get to know you better and that we can have interesting conversations.

Cheers,

Exomène

New Vimeo channel

I'm started to gather all the videos which music I wrote and played on Vimeo. It's here: https://vimeo.com/channels/485213

Geek poetry

"sudo dpkg-reconfigure --force myLife"

It seems that I'm in nerd mode this week. After the release of user@localhost:~$ cat /dev/random, and a long struggle with my computer for my upcoming project, an A/V performance named Side by Side, it seems I'm trying to program myself. I really thought about changes I have to make with my life in this way "sudo dpkg-reconfigure --force myLife".

Side by Side is a collaboration with Dorianne Wotton where she works on the visual whereas I work on the audio side of the performance.

Magick, Music and Ritual 6

If you are not new to this website, you probably know of the quarterly musical anthology released by the Hermetic Library because the librarian was kind enough to release some of my musical works.

I'm very proud to be part of this project especially this time where two of my most spiritual and special tracks were released. The first is Requiem I wrote in the summer of 2012 in memory of a close relative.

The second is my very first only musical collaboration with Dorianne Wotton, who, prior to her carreer as a photographer and videographer, wrote dozens of mystical short stories she won't publish. But she accepted to read one of them upon my music. This text is called "Le dogme de Luna" and the resulting track is "Luna's Dogma". This track is built to illustrate the inner tension of an ascetic mystic, an anchorite, which seeks to achieve a celestial spirituality while feeling trapped in his earthly body. You can read a detailed explanation of the track on my Hermetic Library Anthology Profile.

You can listen and download the full Anthology on Bandcamp.

Still here?

I guess you'd like to read the lyrics of Luna's Dogma, so here they are.

I am a heretic.
What enjoyment heresy can give us.
I am the ascetic of another mysticism, the priestess of another dogma.
What happiness, what sublimation, what transcendental moments my dogma gives me.
Behind the apparent barbarity of the acts that my almighty cult makes me do, there are short, too short moments that bring me closer to an impenetrable and indefinable ideal. The ascent to another spirituality far from pain, greed, emptiness. Agony for the common man, an orgasm for my emotional being.
[...]
I dream of another reality and perfection before I leave.
I want to live before I die.
Exalting my soul, I desert my body and especially the passing of time that ravages everything.
Like an anchorite, I hate my body and try to take refuge where no one can reach me.
Torn between inner violence and contemplation that brings me peace and serenity I chose to denigrate my body to feel the purity of my soul,
As required by my own religion.

Those lyrics are just an excerpt of a short story written in august 2003 by Dorianne.

Mes croyances me donnent l’illusion d’être vivante. Croire, c’est penser. Penser, c’est vivre, ou, dans une certaine mesure, être en état de survie. Mais je suis rejetée, jugée et accusée de ne pas penser comme tous. Je suis une hérétique. Mais si condamnable soit-elle, que de jouissance peut nous procurer l’hérésie.

Je suis l’ascète d’un autre mysticisme, la prêtresse d’un autre dogme : celui de la Souffrance. Que de sublimation, que de bonheur, que de moments transcendantaux que me procure mon Dogme. Derrière la barbarie apparente des actes que mon culte tout-puissant m’amène à effectuer, se cachent de courts, trop courts, instants qui me rapprochent d’un Idéal impénétrable, indéfinissable. Une ascension vers une autre spiritualité, très loin de la douleur, de l’impermanence, de l’avidité et du vide de ce bas-monde. Une agonie pour le commun des mortels, un orgasme émotionnel pour mon être. Je me livre corps et âme aux rituels que stipulent ma secte personnalisée. Une religion certes mortifère dans son existence mais si mystique dans son essence. Mais qu’est-ce qu’un pauvre être humain peut demander de plus que d’être le Tout-puissant de son existence, le maître de sa chapelle ?

Comme pour conjurer le Destin inhérent à chaque être humain, comme pour oublier la future putréfaction de mon corps, je suis à la quête de l’intemporalité. En exaltant mon âme, je déserte mon corps mais surtout le temps qui passe et qui ravage tout. Telle une anachorète, j’exècre le monde et cherche à me réfugier dans des recoins où nul ne pourrait m’atteindre. Partagée entre une forte violence intérieure et une contemplation qui m’apporte calme et sérénité, j’ai choisi de dénigrer mon corps pour ressentir pleinement la pureté de mon âme. Ma religion en veut ainsi. J’use et j’abuse d’une sorte d’ambroisie, comme pour faire perdurer cette exaltation intemporelle. Mon âme ne veut connaître ni dégradation, ni décrépitude.

Mais tout Dogme à ses failles. Le mien est que mon âme est désormais enfermée dans sa chapelle, prisonnière d’un corps-cachot qui la rappelle sans cesse à la réalité qu’elle voudrait fuir. Car lors des plaisirs que me procurent les violences masochistes de mes rituels, la transcendance spirituelle tranche avec la douleur corporelle. Bien que je ne l’accepte pas, mon corps est toujours présent et je n’ai toujours pas su comment l’intégrer dans ma religion.

Tout ceci n’est peut-être qu’hérésie, croyance, irréalité. Une manière dérangeante et atypique de considérer le corps, l’âme, le monde. Mais c’est cette souffrance, ce plaisir masochiste, cette irréalité qui me tiennent en vie. Car si je sais que d’autres croyances seraient possibles, si je sais qu’il y aurait peut-être d’autres substituts, si je sais que ma religion n’est qu’idéalisation, je veux rêver d’une autre réalité et de Perfection avant de partir, je veux vivre avant de mourir.

Still here? It seems you just can't get enough...
A video maybe?

 

Artificial / Fusion / Natural : Union

Artificial / Fusion / Natural : Union is the theme of the Necktar 2017 volume 5 compilation.

Artificial and Natural... that made me think about social connections where most of us unconsciously play roles in order to be accepted in tribes systems that are not relevant anymore and even dangerous IMHO. I wrote a track about that called "Dull boy - Failure - Social experience" which made it to the compilation.

This track is part of my "noise" tracks on the Objective Tinnitus set which consists only in improvised pieces.

You can download and listen for free the whole compilation (as well as the previous ones) featuring 115 different artists on archive.org http://archive.org/details/Necktar2017Volume5

And if you want to listen to "Dull boy - Failure - Social experience" directly, here it is:

Happy 2013!

You've been amazing!

 All of you. Even "You! yes you behind the grandstand". So much listens and downloads this year... (BTW here are the 5 songs you played most this year)

So much enthusiasm for the Glitch-O-matiC

And for the new version of the Synæsizer

So much enthusiasm for F#555 too... You sent me 144 floppy disks so far that allowed me to build the first prototype which renders this:

I'm so grateful to you all for your support. 

Finally, I'd like to thank personnally the people I worked with this year: Dorianne Wotton, Marianne Essentialités, Lise Côme, Sophie Boss, Recluser Dark and Wehwalt as well as the people who allowed me to share my work: Myriam and Lucie from La Trappe aux Étoiles, Vincent Mignerot from Projet Synesthéorie, Miette, Soirées I-R-L, Lee-Ann Joy, Dimanche Rouge, Systaime, Radio Kaos Caribou, Galeria Texu, Gaston et sa Contrebande, Petroglyph Music and The Hermetic Library.

I wish you all the best for 2013! 

Explorers Of The Darkest Depths

I just received a mail from Bedawang telling me he selected my track R'lyeh for his "Explorers Of The Darkest Depths" compilation vol. 9 which is meant to be "The soundtrack for your last hour restraining the crawling remainings of bodies hunting for your flesh". \o/

If you want to listen to this while offline, you can download the whole compilation. And if you wish to contribute to the next releases, you can join the soundcloud group.

Season present: the X-Mas compilation

Petroglyph Music and VJG records offers you their X-Mas compilation to listen for free.

All the 109 artists placed their pieces under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license for you to enjoy more than 7:35 of music. And, should you wish to download the whole compilation, it's on archive.org

I made a brand new version of "Holiday special - Tabula rasa - New year's day" (track #29) for this compilation. You can compare with the previous version on soundcloud.

I hope you'll enjoy and I wish you all a pleasant end of year!

How Exomène glitched Christmas

La Trappe aux Étoiles offered me the opportunity to install my Glitch-O-matiC at their Christmas market. Now, let's see how Exomène glitched Christmas.

http://www.arts-numeriques.info/

Woot!

An article about the Synæsizer, originally posted on Synesthéorie's website, has been linked on http://www.arts-numeriques.info

I'm so happy my work is making its way \o/

Présentation du synesthèseur (30/11/2012)

Here is the text (in french) of the presentation I gave at the virtual lab of Synestheorie

Le synesthèseur vous fait voir ce qu’il entend et entendre ce qu’il voit. Il vous transforme en synesthète, comme l’étaient Kandinsky qui entendait la musique des couleurs ou Nabokov pour qui les lettres évoquaient des couleurs.

Pour ce faire, il est lui-même un synesthète artificiel: son système vidéo est directement branché sur l’audio et inversement: il entend avec ses yeux et voit avec ses oreilles.

Il m’est arrivé quelquefois de présenter le synesthèseur, sur quoi il repose, quels en sont les principes de fonctionnement, mais je n’ai jamais présenté sa genèse, comment l’idée m’est venue. Et pour ne pas faire durer le suspense plus longtemps, l’idée m’est venue très naturellement...

Même si je ne me reconnais pas dans le terme, ma date de naissance me fait entrer dans la génération Y. Depuis tout petit je ne suis jamais très loin d'un ordinateur et l'utiliser a toujours été la chose la plus naturelle du monde. Et j'ai vraiment eu l'impression d'avoir grandi avec eux. Il faut se remettre dans le contexte des années 80/90 où les évolutions étaient spectaculaires. Régulièrement un nouvel ordinateur arrivait, un peu plus puissant, un peu plus rapide, avec de nouvelles capacités. Comme moi, les ordinateurs grandissaient: ils savaient faire de plus en plus de choses et ils en retenaient de plus en plus. Et la personnification ne s'arrêtait pas là. À mes yeux d'enfants, ils avaient parfois leurs humeurs avec leurs plantages à répétition incompréhensibles et je me suis souvent surpris à les remercier quand une tâche importante se déroulait rapidement et sans accrocs.

Et puis Internet est arrivé, ce qui a complètement changé mon rapport à l'ordinateur. Il n'était plus un simple outil avec lequel je dessinais, je faisais de la musique ou consultais un article d'encyclopédie sur CD-ROM. Grâce à internet, mon ordinateur m'a permis d'accéder à un volume de connaissance incroyable en me soustrayant aux filtres des autorités traditionnelles: enseignants, bibliothécaires, comités de lecture, rédactions... et ces autorités ne pouvaient plus m'empêcher de publier ce que bon me semble. Je n'étais plus un simple consommateur de médias. J'avais enfin accès à un vrai outil de communication qui m'a permis de rencontrer plus de gens de cultures différentes sur mon ordinateur en un an qu'on ne pouvait le faire en une vie à la génération précédente. Quant à la critique sur la virtualité de ces relations, elle m'a toujours semblé ridicule. Je parlais avec de vraies gens et nos conversations en temps réel était certainement plus spontanés et intimes que n'importe quel échange épistolaire.

Je perçois vraiment Internet comme un cyberespace, c'est-à-dire un espace réel où je vis des expériences réelles mais dans des dimensions différentes de celles du monde physique. Dès lors, l'ordinateur est devenu un prolongement de moi-même, un nouvel organe m'offrant une nouvelle perception du monde, presque comme un nouveau sens. Un sens qui traite des données, c'est-à-dire de l'abstrait, mais qui comme tous les autres sens génère des sensations.

La fusion de l'abstrait et du concret... c'est peut-être la raison pour laquelle la musique est ma forme d'expression privilégiée. Je répète à qui veut bien l'entendre c'est le plus immédiat des arts abstraits. Celui avec lequel il est le plus facile d'éviter d'intellectualiser (Exomène est un raccourci pour exode mental). En effet, quand il s'agit de littérature par exemple, on est obligé d'en passer par les mots, par les concepts. Idem pour les arts figuratifs (réalistes ou stylisées): ils finissent toujours par faire recourir aux mots. Par exemple, quand on voit un arbre, on pense à un arbre et donc au concept d'arbre. La musique, c'est différent. Elle peut s'en passer et générer directement des sentiments et des sensations.

Toutefois les arts abstraits génèrent des sentiments et des sensations ont des manifestations sur d'autres modalités sensorielles que l'ouïe ou la vue. Par exemple, une musique anxiogène peut générer une sensation de "boule au ventre" ou d'un "poids sur la poitrine". Certes, ce n'est pas de la synesthésie, mais c'est une expérience que peuvent faire les non-synesthètes. Car je ne suis pas synesthète. Mais j'ai souvent recours à des métaphores visuelles et sensibles pour travailler le son. Il s'agit souvent de volumes dont la taille correspond à la durée, la forme à l'attaque et au « release », la surface au timbre de l'instrument et la luminosité à la hauteur de la note. C'est en parlant de ma manière de travailler que j'ai été introduit à le synesthésie.

En ce qui concerne la synesthésie, comme nous sommes ici à l'invitation de Synesthéorie, je ne vais pas m'appesantir. Certains d'entre vous sont peut-être synesthètes et je suppose que la plupart des autres savent de quoi il retourne. Mais rapidement, la synesthésie est un phénomène neurologique par lesquels deux ou plusieurs sens sont associées, c'est-à-dire que la stimulation d'une voie sensorielle ou cognitive conduit à des expériences automatiques et involontaires dans un deuxième voie sensorielle ou cognitive. On peut concevoir que la synesthésie produise des effets esthétiques particuliers. Plusieurs artistes s'en sont donc inspirés, comme Baudelaire dans Correspondances.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme des hautbois, verts comme des prairies,
- Et d'autres corrompus, riches et triomphants, [...]

Kandinsky, quant à lui, en théorise une utilisation dans la peinture dans Du spirituel dans l'art.

Bon, quel rapport entre une affection du cerveau humain et un programme informatique alors ?

Eh bien, comme je viens de le dire, j'ai tendance à personnifier les ordinateurs et à réifier les concepts. Au fil de mes lectures, je suis tombé sur Herbert Simon qui est connu en tant qu'économiste et sociologue (c'est lui qui a inventé le concept de rationalité limitée). Mais, pour ce qui concerne le synesthèseur, il a surtout fait parti des pionniers de la recherche en intelligence artificielle. Selon Simon, l'intelligence artificielle peut servir pour décrire, analyser et comprendre le raisonnement humain. C'est le paradigme du traitement de l'information qui repose sur l'hypothèse de symbole physique. Selon cette hypothèse, la pensée peut être définie comme un ensemble de symboles que le cerveau est capable de combiner en structures et de traiter. L'ordinateur est capable de la même chose. Si vous vous allez plus loin, je vous renvoie à son ouvrage de 1969 : Les sciences de l'artificiel.

Grâce à Herbert Simon, la passerelle entre cerveau et ordinateur est toute trouvée. La synesthésie peut s'appréhender, par analogie, au delà des cerveaux.

La synesthésie, c'est étymologiquement, l'union des sens. On peut supposer que cette union des sens soit due à la réception de symboles transmis par un récepteur sensoriel par des zones qui ne sont pas adaptées à leur traitement. Le résultat serait une modification de la sémantique des signes. Celle-ci est possible avec tous les systèmes de symboles cerveau ou processeur. Par exemple, les synesthètes musique → couleur verraient les symboles provenant des oreilles interprétés partiellement par le système d'analyse des couleurs. En tout cas, il s'agit de la manière traditionnelle d'appréhender la synesthésie. Vincent Mignerot m'a signalé que les recherches actuelles s'orientent vers d'autres explications.

Néanmoins, une technique très proche de la synesthèsie dans son acception de mélange des sens existe : il s'agit du databending. Cette technique est la première étape du synesthèseur. Elle consiste à détourner un fichier ou un flux de données de son usage initial. C'est donc un parent très proche du glitch art avec une forte composante expérimentale qu'on peut retrouver dans le circuit bending.

Pour expliquer le databending, on peut reprendre ce mensonge pédagogique qui consiste à dire que l'informatique c'est des 0 et des 1. Si vous avez déjà malencontreusement changé l'extension d'un fichier sous Windows, vous vous être rendu compte qu'il était inutilisable car l'ordinateur a besoin d'éléments de contexte pour pouvoir interpréter correctement un fichier. L'extension est un de ces éléments de contexte. Mais les données, elles sont toujours là. Et on peut les exploiter pour produire autre chose que ce pour quoi elles étaient prévues. On peut tromper la machine pour qu'elle interprète un fichier comme si il s'agissait d'un fichier d'un autre type. C'est ça, le databending.

Pour illustrer la synesthèsie informatique, j'ai choisi de transformer des fichiers images en sons. Je travaille avec la photographe Dorianne Wotton qui m'a fourni ces images de la série Visions désaturées ou Introspectrion. Grâce au databending, ces images ont été transformés en sons bruts. Et comme il s'agit de databending, les sons générés ne sont pas un interprétation des formes, des couleurs, de la luminosité ou quoi que ce soit d'autre. Il s'agit d'une simple transposition des données images brutes en données sonores brutes. C'est donc la manière avec laquelle l'image a été enregistrée qui va définir en grande partie le résultat sonore brut. Ainsi deux images identiques peuvent sonner de manière complètement différente en fonction de leur format d'enregistrement. Une photo en JPG ne sonne pas de la même manière quand elle est enregistrée en BMP.

La deuxième étape du synesthèseur consiste à affiner les sons bruts. Ils sont transférés à un système génératif constitué d'algorithmes d'affinage que j'ai écrit basés en partie sur l'analyse graphique des spectrogrammes et la densité spectrale de puissance. En effet, si la répartition des données contenues dans les fichiers d'origines ne sont pas aléatoires pour générer des images, ces structures de données peuvent engendrer une impression de sons aléatoires. Je n'ai voulu garder que les sons significatifs générés par l'image à l'aide d'un processus itératif. J'ai défini plusieurs types de traitement que le synesthèseur applique et répète jusqu'à ce que l'analyse graphique du spectrogramme lui indique qu'il doit s'arrêter. Les critères d'arrêt sont nombreux mais l'un d'entre eux est le taux de silence du fichiers.

Une fois les différents sons produits, l'ordinateur analyse les spectrogrammes finaux et les compare afin de choisir la son qui présente les meilleures caractéristiques.

Les sons générés par les images désormais affinés et sélectionnés sont alors envoyés à un synthétiseur vidéo qui produit des films en modifiant en temps réel les images fixes d'origine en fonction des sons qu'elles ont contribué à générer. Les modifications se font en fonction des différentes propriétés du son (volume, graves, aiguës, beat) selon des fichiers de configuration créés par Dorianne Wotton et moi-même. Nous en avons créés environ une centaine combinant tous de manières différentes l'action des différentes propriétés des sons sur les images et nous en avons retenu une vingtaine qui produisent, comme vous pouvez le voir, des résultats assez différents.

Reminder - Talking about the Synaesizer

English version below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Pour vous rappeler que vendredi prochain à 21h, je ferai une présentation du Synesthèseur au laboratoire virtuel de Synesthéorie, voici le tout premier extrait de la nouvelle version du Synesthèseur

Vous trouverez toutes les infos pour vous connecter dans l'article dédié à l'évènement: http://www.exomene.com/?article=331 et sur Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/430799913650138

---------

I post the very first excerpt of the second version of the Synæsizer as a reminder for my presentation next friday (nov. 30th) at Synesthéorie's virtual lab.

I will talk in french, but I can answer some questions in english anyway. All the infos are on  http://www.exomene.com/?article=331 and https://www.facebook.com/events/430799913650138

Magick, Music and Ritual v. 5

In a day of doom and gloom I doomed the poor mandolin you are about to hear. Yes, what you hear from the beginning to the end of the track is the sound of a single mandolin. Twisted, stretched, then torn, cut into pieces, and then all the pieces of the sound of the mandolin were nailed to each other, glued, hammered. Three times the screams of agony of the mandolin imitated the mourning of angels just before the crack of doom is heard. But it’s only the fourth crack that starts the judgement day.

I'm proud the Hermetic Library gave me the chance to be part of the "Magick, Music, and Ritual" anthology once again. This time the anthology consists in two parts which developed a ritual structure, or at least a passage through liminality. The first part is an arrival which is also the departure from normal place and time and the second part is a departure from a place of imagination but also a return to world, having perhaps changed ourselves and world in the meantime. This is a 2cd anthology with 14 artists playing 16 tracks for about 2 hours. You can read the full description of the album, listen and buy it on bandcamp.

Dorianne Wotton made a video for Doom and Amine Boucekkine read one of his poem on the video during one of the "Langage des viscères" party at Les Trois Baudets.

Glitch-O-matiC slideshow

You weren't at the first exhibition displaying the Glitch-O-matiC, were you?

Art crasher

"Passage" a video from the Synæsizer (version: visions désaturées) is in the october video show of the Art Crasher magazine along with other stunning video including the slideshow of the series "Bodies" by Dorianne Wotton.

\o/

Glitch-O-Matic

A few minutes ago at the back of the apothecarium when the Glitch-O-matiC started to work...

The synesthetes and the synæsizer

Although I use synesthesia in my work, I am not a synesthete. My "ability" of working sounds as if they were concrete materials are not the result of synesthesia but only of an extreme use of metaphors. I use synesthesia to show that brains and computers may work the same, even in unusual circumstances.

That's why I made the Synæsizer which conceptually simulates synesthesia in a computer by plugging the video inputs into the audio and the other way round.

This device interested several synesthetes including Vincent Mignerot who leads the Synestheorie project (fr) which aims to study the impact of synesthesia in the fields of sciences and arts. We met a few times and he really helped me to go further with the Synæsizer by explaining me as far as possible what synesthesia is and by confirming my intuitions on some points (about the refining process in particular).

Vincent was kind enough to talk about my work on the "art & synesthesia" page of his site, when you finished reading the rest of the site, you can read the article in french ;)

Introspectrion aka the Synaesizer 2.0

Introspectrion, the second version of the Synæsizer has been released for the exhibition "Les ombres inconscientes".

If you are in the Paris area, you really should come to the "59, rue de Rivoli" (M° Châtelet, exit n°1 or 11) because the exhibition is fantastic. Each pieces generates something very consistent and beautiful. But, if you can't go and see the installation, here is the first excerpt of the Synæsizer - Introspectrion.

Let's talk shop

Maybe you noticed strange activities on this site last week...
Pages and articles that appeared or disappeared, dates changed...

That's because I was working on the code to open my ONLINE SHOP \o/

There were no reasons for my work to be displayed only in galleries. So you can now buy pieces of my work here, such as pictures on copper plates, pieces of the Synæsizer, you can even have your own picture processed by the Synæsizer!

All you have to do is to click on the "Shop" link in the upper right corner of this site.

Waterdropped

Do you remember of the exhibition Waterdropped? The photographer Sophie Boss (in the middle of the picture) asked me to play my music at the opening party of the exhibition at La Trappe aux Étoiles.

The opening party went well as usual since it was at La Trappe. Mélisandre L. (on the right) took us further into the pictures by reading a selection of texts while I tried to keep the public in the right mood with my music.

If you were wise enough to come, you had a preview of my next record with Otorragie to be released on oct. 2nd. And a little bird told me that this is not the last time you hear about Sophie here ;)

Original article: http://sophieboss.blogspot.fr/2012/09/melissandre-l-et-exomene.html

The Synæsizer has his own Bandcamp

The synaesizer has now his own Bandcamp, so you can support him by buying the whole "Visions désaturées" album, or just your favorite tracks. So, I can take part in other exhibition and keep on working ;)

artE Alter 'Collection

Doom!, a collaboration between Dorianne Wotton and me is now part of the collection of contemporary art: "artE Alter 'Collection".

"ARTE ALTER is a collaborative collection that has been born from the personal exchange and from the altruistic donation of the artists. This means an attempt to transcend the sphere of the art gallery as a “limited” art centre and become a cultural heritage that reflects a temporal framework of reference: the second decade of the XXI century.

The collection is based on three fundamental principles: Collaboration, Openness and Integrity.

The objectives of the contemporary art collection ARTE ALTER are:

- The building of a cultural heritage that reflects a view of contemporary art creation
- To give support to the propositions and artistic discourses of the present time. 
- To become an innovative sphere for dialogue and knowledge 
- To create a physical expositive space, with no profit motive in mind, that offers the ideal conditions of register and prevention."

Last but not least, the page dedicated to the presentation of the piece is pretty great:  http://www.kaosart.org/artealter-colection/collection/Wotton_Dorianne.htm

Radio Kaos Caribou

Sometimes, you meet people who really care... Can you believe that?

That happened to me when I met the person behind Radio Kaos Caribou on Twitter. What is amazing with people who care is that they actually listen. And people that listen understand. Unbelievable, I know.

So, he wrote an article about Bedtime Stories on the radio's facebook page that is quite close to what I had in mind while recording the tracks. The article is in french.

So, you really should give RKC a try! Go listen to it, and you can follow @RadioKC on Twitter to keep track of all the interesting things that happen there (feed in french and english).

The sinaesizer goes glitch

While working on our next exhibition, Dorianne and I decided to put some wild glitches in the more unstrained ones generated by the Synaesizer.

So we hacked our hacks, glitched our glitches to go beyound the "mere" databending and propose some kind of a meta-glitch.

This is what it looks like, when the synaesizer goes glitch.

If you want to learn more about glitch, The Glitch Momentum by Rosa Menkman is excellent IMHO.

Magick, Music and Ritual

The instrumental version of the track Migration from my "work in progress" set The Æsthetic of Distress has been released on Magick, Music and Ritual vol. 4 an anthology of the living western esoteric tradition by the Hermetic Library. You can get your copy of the CD on Bandcamp.

Migration is the depiction of an inner trip where the person experiencing the trip has difficulties to get rid of what confines one into his body. This lack of abandonment endangers the sanity of the tripper when he/she comes close to the edge of him/her-self. That's why it sounded totally appropriate to submit it for the anthology ;)

There is also a spoken version of Migration as part of the Spoken Worms project with Marianne (texts) and Dorianne Wotton

Cyclical Rebirth

Thanks to Raul Zbengheci from Collectif Experiencia, the spoken worms are now subtitled in english.

Here is "Cyclical rebirth" (Renaissance cyclique), with images by Dorianne Wotton, texts by Marianne, didgeridoo by See-J and soundscapes by Exomène 

The shop of fame

I don't need to be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since I already have my own star at la Trappe aux Etoiles, next to Dorianne's one. Much more classy.

And since everything must finish with a song, here it is:

RÂ’lyeh in the Hermetic Library audio pool

R'lyeh by Exomène has been added in the Hermetic Library audio pool.

The Hermetic Library audio pool is a curated participatory place for sounds and music of a living Western Esoteric Tradition.

R'lyeh is the sound depiction of an aborted invocation of Cthulhu, a deity from the Cthulhu mythos by H. P. Lovecraft.

The dark universe drawn by Lovecraft has always been a huge source of inspiration to me, especially because he is one of the rare (and maybe the first) fantastic authors that really wrote on the "otherness".  It's seems really difficult to imagine something totally new for example, when we try to think about a new animal, we usually build chimeras: centaurs, mermaids and so on. Even the extraterrestrials are often anthropomorphic. But Lovecraft wrote on entities totally non-apprehensible entities in their forms, goals and deeds.

R'lyeh is a fictionnal prehistoric sunken city in south pacific where Cthulhu is in a state of sleep beyound death. The city emerges when the stars are in the correct configuration for Cthulhu's awakening ritual to be proceeded. In my track, the ritual is started but it is aborted because of an external intervention.

Here is the text of the ritual and counter ritual.

“Cthuluh fhtagn.
Iä-R’lyeh ! Cthulhu fhtagn ! Iä ! Iä !
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Iä ! Iä ! Chtulhu fhtagn ! Ph’nglui nglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn.

Malitia vetus / Malitia vetus est… / venit… / tandem venit…

Ya-R’lyeh ! Ya-R’lyeh ! Cthulhu fhtaghn ! Nigurat-Yig ! Yog-Sothoth
Tibi Magnum Innominandum, signa stellarum nigrarum et bufaniformis sadoquae sigillum
Ya-R’lyeh ! Ya-R’lyeh ! Cthulhu fhtaghn ! Nigurat-Yig ! Yog-Sothoth

Malitia vetus / Malitia vetus est… / venit… / tandem venit…

Iä ! Iä ! Chtulhu fhtagn ! Ph’nglui nglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Iä-R’lyeh ! Cthulhu fhtagn ! Iä ! Iä !

Cthuluh fhtagn.”

R'lyeh was the main inspiration for Froid by the Spoken Worms project with Marianne (texts) and Dorianne Wotton

Paranoïd Androïd?

Hey, an android and iPhone app for Exomène is now available for download \o/

You can now follow my news on your portable devices by following this link http://appr.at/exomene

And for those who came only for the Radiohead song name, here's the videoclip.

The hermeticism of the worms

Mysticism, esoterism, hermeticism even if the mental exodus isn't directly inspired by that, it is quite related. Especially when Marianne's word and Dorianne's images (who define herself as a mystic) melt with my sounds like in Renaissance cyclique (ie Cyclical rebirth in english).

Maybe that's why there is an article about cyclical rebirth on the Hermetic Library's blog.

The Hermetic Library is one of the earliest ressource about hermeticism on the internet granting access to a large collection to esoterism scholars.

Open your web #3 - The video

Open your web #3, the open mic session for the net/digital/... artists organized by Systaime and DigitalArti that was held at the 104 during Futur en Seine 2012, the "Digital World Festival" has been recorded by La Chambre à Air and is now online!

See artists like Thomas Cheneseau, Systaime, Xavier Faltot, AGT, Hector Kafka, Exomène, Miyö van Stenis, Aurélien Bambagioni or Olivier Blaecke present their work and their digital worlds (in french). 

Reminder - Open your web 3

Le me remind you tomorrow's presentation at the 104 during Open your web #3 an event for the digital festival Futur en Seine 2012 by giving you a wallpaper for your computer.

Please help yourself and download it.

I hope I'll see you tomorrow, it's in Paris, it starts at 2.00 PM and it's free ;) All the infos you need are in this article: http://www.exomene.com/?article=163

The glorious liberation of the People's...

They're talking of Open your web #3 (where I'll present the synaesizer on sunday june 17th 2010) in the newspaper Libération.

Of course, they misspelled my name, but I hope you'll come anyway :)

And a picture of the first page of the issue took by Systaime.

The name of the paper reminded me of this piece by Type-O-negative: "The Glorious Liberation Of The People's Technocratic Republic Of Vinnland By The Combined Forces Of The United Territories Of Europa". Enjoy!

Ugly as memories

Otoragie had a great project called "The eye listens...The ear sees". The carousel video immediatly remind me some childhood memories which gave me those sounds.

Enjoy!

English speaking worms

The Spoken worms videos are being translated and subtitled in english and Larsen is already available. Enjoy!

Le temps des cerises...

The best thing about may is to go pick cherries and that's what I did.

The sinæsizer did too but it came home with quite a different fruit: a brand new sound processing, the cherry sound processing giving a brand new flavour to the sound 

And, of course, it generates a brand new video.

School's out

I'd like to thank people at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics for displaying my synæsizer in their listening room on their amazing 22 speakers surround system (22 speakers? That's what I call surround!) along with other fantastic audio installations (really when I read the descriptions of these works, I feel honoured to be part of it).

So, to celebrate the end of the Linux Audio Conference 2012 and because home cinemas are still much more usual than 15.7 auditoriums, you can download the 5.1 version of Insomnia by the synæsizer.

You can also watch the entire piece (ie with the video), on vimeo:

Meanstream

There is an interview of Dorianne Wotton, who is the eye of the Spoken Worms and of the synæsizer, in the dark issue of the Meanstream magazine.

There are some photos she took for Exomène in this paper :)

A lame manifesto

[English below]

Vous parlez français?

Eh bien mettez illico ce blog dans votre lecteur RSS: le manifeste des éclopés. Ca fait très longtemps que je lis ce site et c'est un vrai honneur d'y avoir été interviewé pour le synesthèseur.

Do you speak french?

In that case, you really really should bookmark "the lame manifesto". Since I read this blog for a long time now, it have been an honour to be interviewed about the sinaesizer there.

The worms always shine on TV

Hi there,

The Spoken Worms gig at the IRL party has been filmed and is now available on the web. I hope you'll like it :)

Watch live video from Soiree IRL on Justin.tv

From URL to IRL and back

Awesome!

It was awesome!

Thank you for your support before and during the show. Thank you for your nice comments after. And if you who want to see the concert again, or if you missed it, there is the recording:

The performance by Bjarni Gunnarsson & Cedric Dupire is available too: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21176044 

Last but not least, I'd like to thank the staff of I-R-L Vision'R and of the centre Mercoeur, you made it all run as smoothly as possible!

Larsen live @ Dimanche Rouge #13

Screening the video of Spoken worms was not enough for Dorianne Wotton, she also filmed Marianne and me on stage.

Here is Larsen as played at Dimanche Rouge #13.

Larsen - Live Dimanche Rouge from Dorianne Wotton on Vimeo.

Gone walkabout

Do you remember the last Spoken Worms concert in Paris?

I do! Everything went fine and the audience (you?) was exquisite. People were lying on the floor enjoying the videos, the music and the sound of the bass in their bodies. That was quite impressive from the stage :)

It was the first time the Spoken Worms played "Renaissance cyclique" featuring a didgeridoo by See.J

This is the video by Dorianne Wotton.

The text by Marianne is available in her book: Il(s).

And, last but not least... there is a live recording of the whole concert on ustream!

Migration live @ Dimanche Rouge #13

Screening the video of Spoken worms was not enough for Dorianne Wotton, she also filmed Marianne and me on stage.

Here is the first piece we played at Dimanche Rouge #13: Migration!

Migration -Live Dimanche Rouge- from Dorianne Wotton on Vimeo.

Spoken worms live video recordings

Hi there, the concert this afternoon was really great. I mean I really enjoyed playing at "le Petit Bain" for "Dimanche Rouge".

Anyway, waiting for the new videos, I gathered all the video recordings of our songs played live in a youtube playlist. I hope you'll enjoy :)
 

Wave of silence

"All we say now can be taken from us – everything except our silence." (Slavoj Zizek)

Beyond politics and the current 99% movement, I joined the Wave of silence project because of the previous quote. I often feel deprived of what I can say or think, because of things older, louder, cooler, trendier...  But being deprived of words does not mean you have been deprived of the thoughts that would have induced the words. Those thoughts remain, on the edges of consciousness like tinnitus of the mind, painful and harrassing as real tinnitus.

The form of this project: producing a 1 minute track of silence was also very appealing to me. As a musician used to usually convey meaning and feelings through the opposite of silence, this project both tickled my nonsensic sense of humor and reminded me of 4'33" by John Cage. Although not being the first one to use silence as the central part of a piece of music, he became its emblem. Just check on google!

Lucky me, the very origin of 4'33" was the inspiration I needed to make my own wave of silence. The story of the anechoic chamber where Cage heard two distincts buzz when he expected silence was the bridge between what I meant and how I should make it. The low buzz was the sounds of the blood in its veins while the high one was the sound of its nervous system. I got my silence then: two sine waves at the edges of human auditory system (20Hz and 20kHz), symbolizing people deprived from everything but their thoughts on the two sides of a road where the carnival of golden mediocrity passes, waiting for the time to take action to come.

This track is silent, but you can still feel things if you turn up the volume.

As seen by the synæsizer...

You may already know the collaboration between Dorianne Wotton and the synæsizer on her "Visions désaturées" set explained for the picture Hurt. But did you realize that the synæsizer could draw your dynamic portrait?

A picture of yourself, will generate a piece of music that will express what you look like. The music will then generate a video from the original picture, just like below.

This is my face, as seen by the synæsizer.

So don't hesitate to contact me if you want your picture synaesized!

The synaesizer - Insomnie (cherry)

On a blue sunday, the synaesizer made me a blueberry sound pie from the picture Insomnie by Dorianne Wotton.

I know there is no need to explain how the synaesizer works since you probably already read the step by step explanation ;)

So here is the original picture:

That provided the data on which the synaesizer applied its blueberry sound process:

That both were feed to the milkdrop video synthetizer set up by Dorianne and I:

The synaesizer - Insomnie (blueberry) from Gêhïks Exomène on Vimeo.

Son of a glitch

I am a sound of a glitch.

Interview for the launch of F#555

This is the translation of the interview I did for the launch of my collaborative databending project F#555 on "La contrebande" a progressive music radio show on "La grosse radio rock".
This interview was originaly published at http://www.lagrosseradio.com/emission/news-976-f-555-massive-multi-user-experiment.html 

Exomène... what does that mean?

Exomène is the shortcut to mental exodus: a way to let go through music.

According to your bio, you have not enjoyed the music theory during your studies in music school. Is the system poorly made for people like you?

It's not really music theory that I did not like but a whole pedagogy that evacuated the pleasure of music making. I can't say the system is wrong. It still got results. What is certain is that I was not adapted to the system. Other people may have felt the same.

Is it necessary to follow a traditionnal course to get into music? And in particular experimental music?

In a normal course, you'll have to learn things when you want to do something else, whereas if you're self-taught, you'll have to learn something you wish you'd already know at the time you should do something else.
Then, it all depends on what you mean by experimental music. If music is the subject of experience, you'll need to learn some music, sound engineering, etc... If music is a means to illustrate what you experience, academic knowledge of music is perhaps less necessary.

Do you consider yourself as a musician or a digital artist?

I'm not an artist. I do things. I compose songs but I do not feel I'm a composer. I created sounds to participate in the creation of environments, but I do not feel sound designer. I leave the labels for those who have a compulsive need to stick them all around.

Your first project "Dusk to Dawn" tells the story of a man faced with injustice. He finds his apartment destroyed, he is pursued by an army ... His family has disappeared. All instrumental tracks trying to make us live the emotions of this man through your sounds.
Then, if I understand the title "Shopgirl" extract your second project "Bedtime Stories", a girl's dreaming about her wedding (A "Here comes the bride" saturated and destroyed).
I have the feelling that, you want your listener to fell what the characters feel? Is your goal is to create moods, feelings, emotions, rather than "music"?

Causing feelings, that's the point. This is closely related to the mental exodus that I mentioned earlier. But I never tell myself: "I will make the listener sad" or "I'm going to make him feel angst". I want to make music that allows to enter a state of mind proper to feel emotions instead.

Then a radical change with "Spoken worms"? There are even words? How did this happen?

I consider "Spoken worms" as a side project, not because it is secondary but because it is a collaboration with Dorianne and Marianne. And as you rightly pointed out, there are lyrics, something I preferred to avoid until now.
I had the opportunity to see Marianne on stage several times and she is one of the few authors I totally enjoyed. But I never considered working with her. It is rather Dorianne who initiated the project by organizing a photo shoot with Marianne. Then, each enjoying the world of two others five pieces of music are born and the next one is on its way.

Can you tell us about the synaesizer? After characters, you want to make things talk now? Images? Computer files? What can they tell us?

The synaesizer is born of many ideas that have come by hearing people talk about the use of digital tools in art often with the assumption that this was a fundamental change (and not necessarily a good one).
However, is a symphony a piece of electronic music if it was composed and recorded on a computer? A techno song is it classic if it was played by a symphony orchestra?
There are "real" digital works but they have not yet affected the greatest number.
For now, the switchover was mostly to transpose the practices of the physical world so they can be processed by the processors. A photo is a photo anyhow it was taken: digital or analog. Ditto for a piece of music. And if we think in terms of practice, it's the same thing. My music software reproduces the racks with machines you might find in a studio. In a photo editing software, you use brushes and layers. The logic also applies to hardware. Many synthesizers are based on the metaphor of the piano and the computer until very recently on that of the typewriter.
I wanted to question the breaks and continuities introduced by the digital, hence the use of technical and databending as synesthesia as a mode of expression.

You have offered to the smugglers [the listener of the show] to participate in the project F#555. What will happen?

The smugglers sent me floppy disks through you. I picked one and put it into the machine which combines databending, an audio generation system and a video generation system. What will we hear is the sound of the data on the diskette. And I do not mean just the data that are currently playable. Everything that was written on this disk has left a trace that will be read and transformed into music.

Why F#555?

F#555 is more focused on the data than the synaesizer. Today, the slightest gesture generates the data. Turning on the TV, validate your bus ticket, do your shopping...
Although you are the creator of this data and they affect you, you are rarely conscious you are making it and you do not really have access to these data.
Even worse, you often have no more access to the data you willingly created. Who can even read the floppy disk he still has? And when it is technically possible, the file are rarely readable because of obsolete file formats and encodings...
F#555 is a reference to the command "chmod 555", which toggles the files to "read and execute only" for all users.
F is for floppy-disk.
F#555: I would like to collect and process 555 diskettes to make an album and distribute it.

How was your meeting with the photographer Dorianne Wotton? What are your future plans?

That was an intellectual encounter above all. We share our worldview and we have the ability to feel things the same way
It was also an aesthetic encounter. Our tastes are in perfect harmony. That's why we developed the whole aesthetic of desolation
Concerning our projects, we fill a lot of files at this time to be able to present our work. There are also plans to continue to develop our digital project. And then there will be new spoken worms pretty soon.

Do you have references in the classics of Rock?

Of course, rock and its derivatives constitute the major part of what I listen. I do not know if these are really "classics" but Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are references for me.

In other genres?

What goes through my head at the moment: Slayer, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Ligeti, Xenakis, SPK ...

What is the disk lying around your house that you most ashamed of?

Every time there is a flea market, I do all the stalls in search of 7" disks of French pop of 70s and 80s, so it makes a lovely package of discs to be ashame of.

The album you're listening right now?

"Dead men tell no tales" Monarch alternated with "The Downward Spiral" by NIN.

What is best compliment you have sent on your music?

A deaf person once told me she liked the disturbing feeling that gave him the bass and treble in my tracks. It left me with a sweet feeling of accomplishment.

The worst?

People who do not like my music had the politeness to ignore me until now. Anyway I think criticism is good to take as long as it concerns the work.

If Sarkozy wins the next election, you will play the support act with the synaesizer?

You saw the scene of the dove in Mars Attacks?

Something more to say?

Kamoulox?

If you didn't listen to the show, here is the "enhanced" recording ;)

Sorry HTML purist, I didn't use the dialog tag since it is not implemented in all browser the day I wrote this article.

Best of 2011

This is the end beautiful friends...

As a present to you all who supported and listened my music in 2011 I baked a compilation of my most played tracks this year that you can download. Doom, industrial, ambient, spoken word, instrumental, you chose my sounds in all their variety. Thank you!
 

Froid

Froid, the latest video by Spoken worms hypnotizes you in a cold and wet world. This will be our only concession to the spirit of christmas.

Froid (live)

Froid, because spoken worms is a dish better served cold, wet and gloomy as the day the great ancients will return.

Live performance, november the 24th in Paris.

Unknown pleasures vol. 37

Kalle hosting the show "Unknown pleasure" on Temple of despair radio was the very first to give Exomène a chance in the 37th issue of his show.

The show is still broadcasted on a regular basis. You really should check it (by clicking the image below).

The synæsizer - Hurt (blackcurrant)

I posted a new excerpt of the synæsizer yesterday introducing the brand new blackcurrant sound refining process that give me a good excuse to explain how the synæsizer works in its "visions désaturées" version.

First I feed it with a picture by Dorianne Wotton

Then the synaesizer analyses the image and choose the most appropriate sound refining process. Here, it chose the blackcurrant process and generated this sound.

Finally, the image is transferred to a milkdrop video synthetizer that Dorianne and I configured in order to make a video by modifying the image thanks to the sound it generated.

The hunt for red october

My dear friend Moonsugar asked me to join his October revolution 94th anniversary compilation named 3rd International.

While very happy Moonsugar asked me to take part in his work, I hesitated before agreeing to his request. Although the history of Russia from the beginning of the modern period always interested me and some of my favorite artists are Russians or lived in the russian Empire, the possible political interpretation of this recording scared me a bit.

There are several reasons for that. First, I'm not Russian. How can I judge (whether in a good or a bad way), something that I never lived, something that is totally outside of my culture? The second reason is, again, that I'm not Russian. Where I am from, your political opinion should be strictly personnal and confidential if you want so. Therefore I'm not used to talk about politics in public. The third reason is communism in itself. It's hard to talk about communism in a world where the western hemisphere won the cold war. Moreover when you studied social sciences and that you are used to separate ideas from ideals from ideologies. I mean, I'm not against communism as an idea. It's great and generous. But at some point of its history in Russia, communism became totalitarianism. Then ideology came in and most people take communism and totalitarianism as the same words. But Russia is not the only country where dictatorship and totalitarianism took place. Germany, Italy, Spain... these were totalitarian regimes too. And they were against communism.

So I decided to take the chance Moonsugar gave me to talk about totalitarianism with "They're coming for you".

The synæsizer - Mots (dust)

The synaesizer by Dorianne Wotton and Exomène uses Dorianne's pictures to generate sound thanks to a software developped by Exomène. The software uses different kind of sound refining processes. In this track, you can here the process called "dust" at work.

Operating a synæsizer

The video below illustrates how the synæsizer work in order to turn raw datas into audible sounds.

As you can see, this refining process of the sounds resulting of the databending of Dorianne Wotton's image is partly based on a sprectrogram analysis algorithm I developped.

This work has been shown at the Exhibition of Experimental Sounds Sculptures and Installations in Melbourne at the Library Art Space. 

This exhibition curated by Lee-Ann Joy gathered a bunch of astounding pieces of arts and performance by Dale Chapman, Tara Cook, Rodney Cooper, Antonia Goodfellow, Lee-Ann Joy, Vijay Thillaimuthu, John Waller, Buttercup Insurgent, E.T.G, Cezary Gapik, IDTAL, Jason Kavanagh, Sean Derrick, Cooper Marquardt, NOS Project, Maresuke Okamoto, PAS, Jaime Rguez, Hugues Vincent, Marco Cher-Gibard, Mark Groves and Sharryn Koppins.

You can see all the videos of the exhibition on Vimeo.

I got my eye on you

Dorianne Wotton shot me last sunday...

I'm still alive though, keeping an eye on you.

Luna's Dogma

First came the music. A simple silly tune on the piano dedicated to my significant other.
Then came the words. Harsh, meaningful as Dorianne Wotton spoke of mysticism.
The words met the music and engendered this video.

Le synesthète

X-Tin, a talented painter whose work you should check, got inspired once by a picture by Dorianne Wotton. It happened that my face was on the photo... sorry ;)

If you can read french, X-Tin wrote an article about this painting, talking about synesthesia, which is the condition (or the ability according to me) which combines sensory or cognitive pathways.
Calling myself a soundsmith, and often explaining my work in terms of shapes and images this article interested me of course :) 

UPDATE: Dorianne Wotton gave me the painting as a present.

Logo

Live video from "le langage des viscères" party

Dorianne Wotton caught us on tape while we were on stage last sunday in Paris

Enjoy!

Migration

Here is a new piece of Spoken Worms brought to you by Dorianne Wotton, Marianne Essentialités and Exomène.

Ma chair est tendre

Dorianne Wotton and I collaborated on the slideshow of her new series: "Ma chair est tendre".
The track resulting of this collaboration is called "Police des moeurs" (ie Sex police) where I tried to depict inter alia the feeling of being on the edge, where despite the confidence, everything can change.

Ma chair est tendre

Police des moeurs

Best of 2010

This is a compilation of the most played tracks by Exomène in 2010. Enjoy!

Exomène - Best of 2010 by Exomène

Dusk to dawn artwork

Here is the artwork for our first demo.

I hope you like it.

© Dorianne Wotton & Exomène

Across my universe

Here is a sample of photos illustrating my universe updated on a regular basis.

Enjoy :)

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

© Dorianne Wotton

And if you are not comfortable with slideshows, you can see those pictures in the Exomène gallery on Dorianne Wotton's website.

Flyer

Here is the first flyer I made in mid 2010. Feel free to download it.