# Imaginary dialogues

Stéphane de Gérando

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Stéphane de Gérando. Imaginary dialogues. 2010, Inactuelles, 978-291936-00-17. hal-05096205

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Stéphane de Gérando

Imaginary dialogues

*Experiencing contemporary creation*
*and research*

Inactuelles

2010
Stéphane de Gérando is a composer (First prize and post gradu-
ate in composition from the Paris Conservatoire), researcher
(Doctor, habilitated thesis director) and multimedia artist.

Cover illustration: Extract from *Intumescence*,
multimedia work, Stéphane de Gérando, 2008.

ISBN : 978-291936-00-17

© 2010 Inactuelles / Tschann Libraire
125, boulevard du Montparnasse
75006 PARIS
http://www.tschann.fr
TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD..................................................9

PART 1

Imagination in question –
Experiencing composition..........................15

Illustrations..................................................55

PART 2

Pondering creation –
Experiencing reasearch..........................67

POSTSCRIPTUM ............................................87

APPENDIXES

Appendix 1

Stéphane de Gérando Catalogue ....................85

Biography ..................................................86

Catalogue of works ....................................90

Publications..................................................99

Appendix 2

Musicians who performed on the monographic CD .. 105
Appendix 3

Index of proper names.................... 103
FOREWORD

In the first part of these *Imaginary dialogues – questioning imagination*, I delve into my experience as a composer and analyze the stages of imagination and the writing process.

*Pondering creation*, the second part, refers to my work as a researcher. I present here a synthesis of publications concerning the idea of creation.

Additional documents such as a biography, catalogues of works, articles and books are annexed.

This book includes a CD with recordings made between 1992 and 2008.
PART 1

IMAGINATION IN QUESTION

— EXPERIENCING COMPOSITION —
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>
*How would you describe the creation process, the notion of imagining a work then going on to writing? Are you conscious of an imagination which would be distinctive to you?*

It is hard to grasp the real starting point of a compositional project. There is a mix of conscious states, rational thought and introspective listening with phases of obliviousness, or on the contrary states which I would call dazzling, hyperactive or of extreme concentration in that they isolate you from the world. These states can rapidly vanish from the memory, as if there were a psycho-physiological security which would « reboot the system » after excessive energy draining.

Also, besides the work itself, the accumulation of previous works forms a new experience which in and of itself has its own coherence, possibly forming a distinctive imagination, a stylistic signature which has its own trajectory and influence on the next work. This dual combination – that of the project of a new work (1) and that of the whole of previous works (2) – contributes to the development of a personal culture (3) which in turn is intertwined with a fourth sensible dimension: a « state of being » (4), which is a form of psychological permanence or immanence, an original resonance to the world, like the realization of what I have always been, a place where all transformations are possible. This is what my inner disposition is like before the creation of a new composition.

Figure 1: See central section.* « Photography » of the inner state preceding the imagining of a work

<footnote>* The black and white figures are to be found in the text, whereas the color figures are to be found in the central section.</footnote>
What is remarkable with this process which enables projection
a work beyond knowledge and hence beyond recognition –
which is the defining process in the principle of inventing – is the
brain's capacity to create with « infinite » flexibility various
types of links, creation and destruction of memories at different
conscience levels, instant upheaval of all logical and hierarchical
associations. Artificial intelligence programs are still unable to
flexibly and fully recreate this situation.

Whereas I rationally know every new work is the fruit of previ-
ous experiences and of my « state of being », I can just as well
inverse the order of this quadruple interlocking to move from
the « state of being » towards the project of the work in partic-
ular, or even obliterate all hierarchical levels to lean towards an
assembling or blending of these four points of reference.

The diagram above is sufficiently general to be applied to all
composers sharing a common cultural background. It shows
that the freedom which an individual has to create and invent is
strongly conditioned by the limits of his own sensitivity and
intellectual experience, not to mention the complexity and
ambiguity of all other larger collective contingencies. The idea
of a fundamental or ex nihilo personal creation is utopian. We
are here facing an essential issue: that of the concept of creation,
of its limits and above all of its positioning. This issue is the
object of ongoing research which I will come back to later. We
are far from the cliché of the artist saying « I write therefore I
am! ». The outreach of a musical imagination which could effec-
tively bear liberty and originality would require capabilities
which could be acquired and developed endlessly, like any other
intellectual discipline, precisely outside of artistic practices.

*Would you tell us, in a more personal way, about the « original resonance to the world », a context which contributes to your imagination beyond the project of creation of a work, the trajec-tory of your works, and your culture?*
My childhood is a period of my life which is essential to me. I experienced the happiness of a simple and basic life with profoundly generous parents who had a sense of responsibility, one sister and two brothers, in a loving and sharing environment. Within this context, I had a sense of a double awakening to the world, a resonance to the world which I both marveled at and wondered so much about: I was profoundly happy, but this joy was accompanied by a feeling of incomprehension. Beyond the idea of injustice, I felt a void which not only was in the present, but which tolled the bells of the future by eternally repeating the past. I only had a vague idea of mankind, but what it had generated appeared to me as silently empathetic, living in every one of my pores, in every breath, a state of being, a hyper-sensitivity, and a constant state of urgency. I felt the immanence of never-ending love and violence.

In other words, I became conscious of what I had always been: ground for permanence, rather than an actual birth. This sensitivity most certainly led me towards composition which seemed to offer freedom and the possibility to commune in silence.

*What was the cultural background in which you lived, your initial musical education, and when did you first start composing?*

I have always been more or less immersed in a musical and historical milieu due to my father's side of the family: my grandmother who was Béla Bartók's student, performed concerts as a soloist at the age of 9 in Budapest. Julienne Marko and her travelling companion Félix de Gérando had to leave the Transylvanian family castles to go to France. My grandmother raised her four children alone in Dordogne, France, after the premature death of my grandfather who was a journalist and diplomat. Between the portrait of my aunt going back 7 generations, Thérèse de Brunszvik, who, according to certain biographers, was the “immortal beloved” of Ludwig van Beethoven to whom he
dedicated the 4th symphony and several sonatas, and that of her
sister, Joséphine, who inspired the character of Eléonor, and the
writings of Joseph-Marie de Gérando (philanthropist and philoso-
pher, one of the founders of French anthropology and administra-
tive law, who under the Empire was in government service), more
than two centuries of history had accumulated at my grand-
mother's place, particularly influenced by cultural, scientific and
political relations between France and Hungary. Visiting her was
always impressive, it seemed like time had stopped, the notes on
the piano resonating at the end of her life like a whirl, mixed with
the sounds of Hungarian, German and French... which she spoke
all the time in florid and dramatic counterpoint.

Despite this peculiar family context, I did not realize the times
in which I lived when I first started experimenting composing,
for I was not very curious by nature, and had difficulty identi-
fying an historical logic and continuity. It is surprising, when I
think of it today, but I lived in successive types of isolation, as if
distinct coherent worlds existed but didn't communicate.

Later, at the age of 17, I had to quit a pre-professional trum-
pet career<fnref n="1" /> due to laryngitis. I therefore started composing
quite late, with a solid music theory background<fnref n="2" /> which I had
begun at the age of 6 with my grandfather, Director of Music
at the Flotte in Brest, as well as with analytical and history
courses starting at the age of 14³. When I undertook intensive

<footnote n="1">1. With greatly renowned professors such as Jean and Clément Garrec, Pierre Pollin and Roger Jeanmarie, soloists at the Orchestre National de France.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. For about ten years, completed at the National Conservatory of the Paris Region.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. Classes known as CHAM and F11 in Rennes, then Paris. I cannot mention here all the professors together, whose quality teaching I was able to experience, each in its own way, in high school, or various conservatories.</footnote>
preparations<fnref n="4" /> to enter the Paris Conservatoire's composition program, meeting Alain Bancquart, Professor of Composition at the CNSMDP was to be decisive: a year's work to be admitted into his class and absorb his teachings which still live within me.

*But is it really possible to learn to be a composer, and why did you wish to diversify your curriculum at a higher level?*

At the time I didn't look at it in those terms. I was lucky enough to be admitted to the Paris Conservatoire and to discover a unique cultural environment, meet students of all nationalities, high level practice, outstanding musical personalities, and professors who were already in history books... I also realized that the Conservatoire had a unique institutional identity. This made me want to discover other higher educational institutions. At the university, the École de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, particularly at the IRCAM, I was able to learn traditions with various modes of thought, action and communication. I remember particularly the pleasure of communicating. This pleasure did not start there, but it was developed and structured around this notion that it was possible to debate without feeling one held the truth. Positioning and relativity of debate were the two operative words which guided debates and reminded us of the ephemeral aspect of our discourse which is based on our never fully sealed memory.

*You speak of sensitive terrains which can be cultivated, as well as other forms of emotions present in imagining a piece. Within*

<footnote n="4">4. In writing and analysis with well-known musicians like Alain Margoni, preparation for competition through courses in orchestration and orchestra direction given respectively by Patrice Sciortino and Claude Pichereau.</footnote>
this context, do you think art can be the expression of activism
or engagement?

I have thought of this link between engagement, activism and
the desire to write. I don't think art and creation ultimately have
a function, for example that of engagement in humanitarian
causes. The evolution of Luigi Nono's works is in that sense
symptomatic: as a communist composer he is associated with
the idea of an engaged music, which is described by Laurent
Feneyrou in three successive phases<fnref n="5" />: first « humanist », then,
starting in 1960, linked to a « depiction of current events » and
finally, as of 1974, a « subjective mediation ». It is clear to see
mixed sources of inspiration, beyond the boundaries of genres
and trends of his time, when you hear Nono speak of his opera
Prometeo (1985). Sound had become the central element, not as
an isolated historical or institutional reference, but rather as his
experience in studios and other places, such as church sounds
which Nono dispersedly perceived from his Venice home. A
dramatic sound in its acoustic articulation and great technical
mastery. Musical material seemed to have ceased serving an
historically bound political or social cause which would mold
the work's imagination; rather, it was the expression of its
« own cause », between timbre, silence, spatial writing, acousti-
cal limits and illusions... But the question is still quite subtle:
can a composer truly break from the notion of reference – or of
engagement?

*Going back to your first years as a composer, how did you artic-
ulate these two levels of consciousness which you describe,
between a sensitivity imposed from « beyond one's will » and*

<footnote n="5">5. Luigi Nono, *Ecrits*, selected texts, presented and commented by Laurent Feneyrou, Paris, Christian Bourgois, 1993.</footnote>
*the development of a culture which depended on the context,
but also rational personal choices, as illustrated by your career?*

Early on I attempted to systematically give my works their own autonomy. The idea of « art for art's sake » became the essential challenge and source of motivation. For four years, between 1989 and 1992, during which I wrote for the string trio present on the CD, I started to feel that this sensitivity to the world became a possible stereotyped stifling of my imagination and of my capacity to write a piece. For example, if I wished to convey a feeling of tension, there would be a growing crescendo; when I wanted a restful atmosphere, the pace would alleviate... in short, I was bound by all the archetypes of good musical writing formulas dating over four centuries of erudite western music.

*Perhaps we can find in your works the expression of a double
inspiration, almost contradictory, of the will to express the
world as you feel it and the will to allow the work to have its
own autonomous expression?*

Most probably, pieces like *Puisqu'il est ainsi* and *Ce que tout
cadavre devrait savoir* are in a sense contrary to *Du sens au sens*
and *6ex1pen7sion4*. On the one hand, like the illustration of
silent empathy, the subject of death echoes our birth: it is the
painful expression of time. On the other, trajectory of sense
toward sense or the interlocked combination of 6174 and the
notion of expansion convey an imagination which would be
more the product of a writing system rather than the opposite.

*When considering the main works of this first period listed below,
how did you experience composing and your dawning relation
to a developing imagination?*
<table><caption>Figure 2: Gérando's works between 1989 and 1992</caption><thead><tr><td>Title</td><td>Instruments</td><td>Date of composition</td><td>Number of years between each composition</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Metathesis</td><td>Piano</td><td>1989</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Puisqu'il en est ainsi</td><td>Orchestra (one hundred instrumentalists) and magnetic tape</td><td>1990</td><td>+1</td></tr><tr><td>Hommage à Bach</td><td>Instrumental ensemble and tape</td><td>1991</td><td>+1</td></tr><tr><td>Musique pour église, pêcheur d'amour, le Christ et moi</td><td>Flute sextet in G, English horn, harp, vibraphone, sib clarinet, viola</td><td>1991</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>En toi, avec lui et en lui</td><td>Four groups of spatialized orchestras</td><td>1992</td><td>+1</td></tr></tbody></table>

The imagination process of these 5 pieces is very different, even though there is clearly a global trajectory during this first period, well defined, and which can probably help better understand what motivated imagining the works on the CD, which according to your analysis, defines a second period.

Métathesis, which is written for the piano, is inspired by a pianistic gesture – hands interlaced the one over the other, like the tentacles of an octopus; this gesture yields both a timbre/space and an evolution process of the gesture by pianistic imprint; a sort of mutation of a single idea, of a single « word » referring to a metathesis. With Alain Bancquart as my pedagogical director at the Paris Conservatoire, I shifted, for the first time, from an intuitive gesture to its systematic and formalized translation – calculation of a rhythmic acceleration on a predetermined playing time at the beginning of the piece – which enabled controlling the evolution of the gesture more precisely and then reproducing it thanks to its musical notation while developing it differently as in the central part, with help of a play on thematic permutations of pitch.
A year later I wrote *Puisqu'il est ainsi* for an orchestra of more
than one hundred instrumentalists and magnetic tape (1989)
inspired by a poem by Roland Raveton<fnref n="6" /> which can be resumed
in these words « I will leave, dying twice, for I have not lived ».
I imagined the structure of the work immediately; a progressive
saturation of the orchestra's sound mass lasting thirty minutes,
submerged by the sound of the magnetic tape associated to the
notion of the title of the instrumental gesture: live to not live,
and play to not play. Orchestra mask effects, increasingly
complex instrumental gestures becoming theatrical movements,
lost in the mass, these were all ideas which were to spark the
inevitable... a memorable scandal at the Radio-France creation
– I still remember Olivier Messiaen sitting close to the orchestra!
My idea of the sound material was indirectly influenced by the
discovery, during those times, of the first « harmonic » writings
of noise (or cluster) composed for an orchestra: I am referring
to *Metastasis* (1954) by Iannis Xenakis and of works by György
Ligeti around 1960, with works such as *Apparitions* (1959) or
*Atmosphères* (1961)<fnref n="7" />.

I imagined the third work, *Musique pour église, pécheur d'amour, le Christ et moi*, Flute sextet in G, English horn, harp, vibraphone, sib clarinet, viola (1990), based on sensations which can be triggered from being in apnea: slowed biorhythm, almost stopped, state of well being beyond a

<footnote n="6">6. Roland Raveton, « Puisqu’il en est ainsi », *La vie exilée*, Paris, Le cercle du livre, 1956, p. 74. Roland Raveton was part of the editorial staff of *La tour de feu*, an international publication of creative poetry which published authors such as Pierre Boujut, Adrian Miatlev, Pierre Chabert, Pierre Chaleix, Edmond Humeau... (150 issues from 1946 to 1991).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7. The structure of the work does not come under a systematic global engendering, but under the invention of a specific process adapted to the evolution of the material and this formal trajectory.</footnote>
certain threshold<fnref n="8" />. The form of the work plays on the ambigu-
ity of perception of static/dynamic time made possible by the
contrasted duality of an extremely slow rhythmic and
harmonic evolution, but in the end, very characteristic.

To convey this idea, I use a double combinatorial of the series
and a harmonic spectrum. Work on dilatation and compression
of series of pitches was among others used by Bruno Maderna
in a post-serial period, and was taught to me by Alain Banquart
at the Paris Conservatoire, on the occasion of micro intervallic
writing (intervals smaller than a semi-tone). The fusion of
timbre by means of an essentially harmonic spectral control is
certainly linked to the spectral school of thought, the essence of
a harmonic spectrum based on the E note reminding us of
*Partiels*, the work by Gerard Grisey written in 1975.
Concerning the general atmosphere of the piece, its slowness
and evocation of colors, we must cite *La Tempesta by Giorgione*
(1976 – 1977), by Hugues Dufourt, a unique piece I discovered
in composition class.

The same year, the 59 seconds of *Tribute to Bach* – for clarinet – reflects the desire to convey a polyphony with a monophonic instrument. The inspiration is sourced from two well identified techniques: in Jean-Sébastien Bach’s work, the varied choral, very distinguishable in *Orgelbuchlein* for example, and his specific work on separate control of ranges creating the sensation

<footnote n="8">8. The piece plays on a triple perceptive phenomena:</footnote>

<footnote n="1">1. The notion of static time, with very slow moments punctuated with resonances associated to a systematic development</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. A dynamic notion created by a harmonic control of the timbre in present time</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. And the ambiguity of a perception which is both static and dynamic at once, resulting in a directional form of time generated by a perpetual compression of the pitch range, form which is only really perceptible at the end of the piece, due to the slowness of the process.</footnote>
of polyphony, as in his *Sonates et Partitas* for violin. The piece was elaborated based on a full citation from one of the *La passion selon Saint Jean* chorals, used as a polyphonic and rhythmic basis to develop an atonal virtuosic melody.

*En toi avec lui et en lui*, for four groups of orchestras spatialized around the public (1991), is the last work from this period. For this project, I became interested in the scientific link between frequencies, duration and perception, with the idea of synchronizing the brain's electric activity with frequential modes (or durations) corresponding to the different electroencephalographic phases! I gradually realized this was not a revolutionary idea, and also, that it seemed difficult to create such simplistic connections. I was, however, convinced that this research could lead to a new musical project. Professor Pierre Buser<sup>9</sup>, Director of the "Laboratoire Comparé de Neurophysiologie de l'Université des Sciences de Paris VI", and Jean-Jacques Bouyer, researcher at the I.N.S.E.R.M. welcomed the project favorably. The piece was composed from a spectral analysis of a cat's corticography. Mr. Bouyer programmed the data to be analyzed so I could later use it musically (representation of the spectral analysis as notes and nuances, cf. graph below). Being interested as well by an acoustical composition of space, I wrote a piece for four orchestral groups placed around a chamber audience. All the frequency and time scales are taken from the analyzed data and sorted into five categories which correspond to particular states: delta waves – falling asleep (3 to 4 Hz), theta (4 to 7 Hz), alpha – rest (7.5 to 13 Hz), beta wave – activity (17 to 50 Hz), gamma (35 to 50 Hz). Although there would be no use for a scientific utilization of these

<footnote n="9">9. Pierre Buser is author of many books and scientific articles including six neuroscience manuals for students (in collaboration with Mr. Imbert, editions Hermann) and Cerveau en soi, cerveau de l'autre, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1998.</footnote>
parameters, the spectral analysis became a reservoir of notes associated with rhythmic modes which have their own coherence and independent successive evolutions.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

Figure 3: Excerpt from the analysis of the corticographic signal of a cat which triggered the writing of d'En toi avec lui et en lui, work for four orchestral groups – data programming by Jean Jacques Bouyer, researcher at the I.N.S.E.R.M., Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie Comparée de l'Université Pierre et Marie Curie

If you were to make a brief assessment, what do you take from this first period concerning the question of imagination?

I have 3 main comments:

- Original imagination is strongly bound by one's experience, which can be restricted, or even limited, but also diverse: notions of instrumental experimentation, interpretation of a poem, expressing of a physical and psychological feeling, developing a writing technique, listening to a piece, discovering a score, coordinating various disciplines...

If we do a global analysis of my imagination during this period, it shows that I try to break from an « original and
immediate gesture », that which bounds the imagination of a work to an instrumental gesture, which is very limited due to my ability to master the instrument, and therefore to transcend this gesture. In this effort to enrich my inner original territory, it seems I am interested in elements which are foreign to the musical domain, such as the analysis of the electric activity of a cat's brain, which, with coherences pertaining to the analysis of this material, enriches the imagining and invention of the piece.

- The course from imagining a piece to its writing (score...) is conditioned by the development of writing techniques from music history as well as peculiar to the composer. Once again, it is clear in the description of my various projects: I never would have been able to invert the chronology of these compositions; indeed, I did not have the technical capability, therefore lacked the possibility of imagining *En toi avec lui et en lui* in 1988 (association of combinatory, spectral and modal techniques).

- Based on the description of this period, we can artificially represent the imagination process of a piece in a binary fashion:
  - either the starting point is a predetermined original imagination which is formalized by means of writing techniques,
  - or the process is inverted, and the starting point is a writing technique which generates imagination.

Here too we can establish that my first two pieces are formally structured with the notions of crescendo/decrescendo and tension/release which is peculiar to the peak of tonal language up until the start of the twentieth century. Gradually, during this 1988-1993 period, I acquired and developed writing techniques which diversified the imagination of the works, both in how I approached them and in their final musical and aesthetic result. This is the way I interpreted the situation and consciously came to develop my writing.
Here is the chronology of the works on the CD:

<table><caption>Figure 4: Chart of the works by Gérando on this CD.</caption><thead><tr><td>Title</td><td>Instruments</td><td>Date of composition</td><td>Number of years between each piece</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Virtualité et conscience du vide</td><td>String trio</td><td>1993</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Du sens au sens</td><td>Transverse flute</td><td>1994</td><td>+1</td></tr><tr><td>Intumescence</td><td>Instrumental ensemble and tape</td><td>1997</td><td>+3</td></tr><tr><td>Binaurale</td><td>Electronic etude</td><td>1999</td><td>+2</td></tr><tr><td>Katanga</td><td>15 brass instruments and two percussionists</td><td>2004</td><td>+5</td></tr><tr><td>SixEXonePENsevenSIONfour</td><td>Piccolo, bass clarinet and electronic version</td><td>2008</td><td>+4</td></tr></tbody></table>

In 1993, which is the date of composition of the oldest piece on the disk, seems to be a crucial period in your production; you speak of this in an article entitled « Separate to discover imagination »<fnref n="10" /> (2002). Can you remind us how you came to this analysis?

The string trio, which is the oldest piece on the CD, indeed came at a crucial moment. It both concluded this first period, with the desire to develop a more complex combinatorial, and gave way to what was to become, the following year, a research<fnref n="11" /> and composition issue for more than five years: the systematic search for an imagination initially unthinkable.

<footnote n="10">10. Journal « L'esprit du Temps » devoted to imaginative faculty and the unconscious. The article is downloadable on the cairn website at: www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID calibre=IMIN_008_0077</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11. Doctoral thesis.</footnote>
At the time of the trio, I had not yet taken this radical decision to use post-serial<fnref n="12" /> combinatory techniques to build the detail of the musical material and to convey the invention of structure beyond classic patterns: namely based on the combined perspectives of various moments or memories. In other words, the combination was not strictly symbolic or numeric anymore, as it was in 1949 and in Olivier Messiaen's *Mode de valeurs et d'intensités*; I tried to integrate perceptive or cognitive constraints in the combination process, for example with the use of elementary time scales based on theoretical and experimental research (differential threshold of the perception of time)<fnref n="13" />.

Returning to the invention of the piece, I imagined the trio based on a series of seven numbers and of processes of permutation, transformation (linear or not), combining, and overlapping. These numbers also defined the segmentation of time and of structure associated with differentiated sound atmospheres; for the violin, the first part becomes dense, fast and distant. The second is silent; the third is fast and close. At this point in the writing process appeared a dialectic between the combination (the logical and calculated part) and intuition. I would choose among the options offered by the combination. I shifted from a synchronic (time-less) elaboration towards a diachronic (taking time into account) aspect of the invention process. As I listened to a sound embryo, the mutation towards the work was taking place in a fragile harmony, then the « awareness of void » spoke out in a redundant track, as if I were moving towards the present, the future having been shattered in a kind of self pleat.

<footnote n="12">12. Use of numeric scale as one of the founding elements of musical coherence.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">13. See the passage on references and time scale in the “Illustrations” section in the middle of this book.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 5: Beginning of the string trio,
Virtualité et conscience du vide, violin score.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6: Beginning of the string trio, Virtualité et conscience du vide (notation of rational time).</figcaption></figure>
*The two following works, the piece for flute Du sens au sens (1994) and the piece for ensemble and tape Intumescence (1997), mark a new period during which you also wrote a piece which is not on the CD Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir. During these five years, you say that you were systematically searching for an imagination initially unthinkable. This quest necessitated the development of computer programs which would tackle this issue and offer solutions.*

In my thesis *Contingence and procedural determinism applied to sound synthesis and musical composition* (1998)<fnref n="14" />, I explain how, during this period from 1994 to 1997, I gave a great deal of room to chance in my writing in order to break forever from my relation to my initial imagination, from any type of conditioning. I was trying to surprise myself with my own invention, and to give way to indefinable emotional openings and therefore, naturally, unthinkable and unpredictable. As such, the use of chance seemed ideal. Chance, which is by definition opposed to cause and effect relations, would ensure the annihilation of any aesthetic finalism. I intended on avoiding historical context and searched to develop a musical problematic which would differentiate itself from the various uses of chance in music, from ancient China to more recent uses such as John Cage (1951) or Iannis Xenakis (1956). These two very contemporary, important notions of determinism and chance were the subject of an historical study which enabled me to come up with a musical definition of these two concepts.

*I suggest we come back to these when we assess your overall research. During this period you also went through one year of intense musical computing training at the IRCAM. What was your objective?*

<footnote n="14">14. Villeneuve-d'Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.</footnote>
I was early on interested in the « all algorithmic » i.e. the
creation of a piece which would be entirely the product of an
automatic process; during my first year of research, this idea
had been the topic of a conference about sound synthesis
control at the Espace de projection in collaboration with scien-
tist Laurent Pottier, on February 6, 1993¹⁵.

*Du sens au sens*, for flute, written in 1994, dedicated to Pierre-Yves Artaud and performed by him at the Darmstadt contemporary music festival, was my first piece which showed this orientation. I was not interested in applying preexisting mathematical models which would convey noises or chaos. The starting point was the radical use of chance by means of a computer. Having elaborated the appropriate software the idea was to test chance, and possibly to make it develop sound variations for roughly 15 minutes, with no other technical or aesthetic constraints.

The first applications of this hazard showed a difficulty in
accommodating logic and perception or emotion. An acute
entropy (measurement of disorder) reinforced the notion of
surprise. However, the first result was familiar to me, and
contained predictable, even banal forms. The randomly chosen
melody potentially had some interest at first, but it was not
sustainable, its listening rapidly saturated by the lack of varia-
tion. The next step was to make the program more directly
musically exploitable. Some options revealed themselves when
tackling and solving the problems at hand: the piece being dedi-
cated to Pierre-Yves Artaud, I imagined a sort of megalithic
sound bloc offered to the virtuosity and might of the performer,
a piece defying time and meaning. After several new steps to

<footnote n="15">15. The recording is available at the library of the IRCAM: Gerando, Stéphane de, (1965) - Présentation par Stéphane de Gérando de son projet "Formalis - Enrgmt sonore-Archives Ircam - 27/07/1998.</footnote>
make the program more thorough, I felt like the project was coming to completion as I realized, test after test, that the musical matter had a form of expressive autonomy.

The neuralgic module was programmed in Lisp and enabled a stochastic inducement of durations with a play on an unpredictable control of the agogic accents<fnref n="16" />. Four always dissimilar parameters would determine this inducement: a list of probable occurrences (1), a list of associated durations (in milliseconds) (2), a value representing the sum of durations randomly induced (in milliseconds) (3) and the number of induced durations (4).

Three other parameters from another program determined the stochastic choice of frequencies: a random induction of frequencies based on a scale of seventy-two notes (1), a random pick of various ranks applied to pitch (2), and a selection of a range based on the chosen instrument (3).

This setup was combined so that the perception of changes by successive states/durations be asynchronous.

The subsequent score required no « coating »: any attempt to associate nuances or systemized play modes appeared to be a disturbance. This observation comforted me, underscoring the evolution of a live potential worth listening to and respecting. During an ultimate single step involving the final launch of the program, the work, better yet, the writing of the whole score, became the result of an algorithm (program). Its first and last playing triggered a few formal amendments, of pitch and dynamic, without altering the final piece<fnref n="17" />.

<footnote n="16">16. Number of durations per time unit, related to the perception of the notion of the pace of time motion.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17. A detailed description of the composition of this work can be found in *Contingence et déterminisme procédural appliqués à la synthèse sonore informatique et l'écriture musicale*, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998, pp. 222-243.</footnote>
*Were you satisfied with the outcome?*

When presented by Pierre-Yves Artaud, *Du sens au sens* was awarded the *Stipendienpreis* of the Darmstadt International Music Institute. Although well received within the professional musical community and even though I was satisfied with the existence of the piece, I wondered what it expressed. As illustrated by the trio, my initial affective and emotional choices were still too obvious; I wished to evermore be surprised within myself by the creation.

My research was nonetheless attracted towards the ambiguity of the relation between logic, perception and the existence of the piece emanating its own constraints which I wished to better grasp. What's more, with the experience of two new works in 1994 and 1996, *Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir*, performed in Paris at the Pompidou Center by the 2<sup>er</sup>2M ensemble and *Intumescence* for ensemble and magnetic tape (mandated by Radio-France), I learned to make the writing process denser by constraining the aleatory with more complex determinist processes<sup>18</sup>.

For these new projects, I wanted to encourage a continuous perception of time firstly by creating models of interpolation from one state to another<sup>19</sup>. But in the end I would choose a

<footnote n="18">18. Having read some recent history of science, I gradually understood that a « formal » approach does not create meaning, and that it is nowadays difficult to oppose determinism and randomness since chance can create any number of determinisms and vice versa.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">19. For example by defining seven parameter entries in the program: the coordinates of movement or start state (x and y) (1), the movement coordinates or end state (x and y) (2), the number of interpolations (3), the shape of the interpolation (straight, convex or concave) (4), a level of random distortion (noise) on the pitch of the list values (5), a level of random permutation of list values (6), a measure of the « form of the interpolation » affecting the length of every list (7).</footnote>
different process which would lead to a continuity of the mate-
rial without having to define initial and concluding states. The
general process was a stochastic combination of two move-
ments, one being jointed, with few values, the other being
potentially disjointed and chaotic. The idea was to combine
both movements with the second being the aleatory deformation
coefficient of the first. I stuck to the idea of unpredictable mate-
rial while applying this program to any type of parameters of
sound writing, with a stochastic control of the notions of conti-
nuity/discontinuity.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

Movement 1 / Movement 2 / Combination of movement 1 and 2

Figure 7: Result of a stochastic combination program of movements used in Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir, for soprano, narrator and instrumental ensemble.

Let's look at this third piece on the CD, Intumescence (1997).
Here is an excerpt from the text you suggested to Radio-France
for the Présence program in 1974, for its creation:
« Je rêve d'une harmonie où le corps et l'esprit se confondraient dans l'intimité d'un devenir, en un point sans limites et sans raison, sans explication et définition, sans justification, au confluent de la respiration et du souvenir, souvenir d'avoir été sans jamais vraiment être ».

« I dream of a harmony where body and spirit would be one in the intimacy of a becoming, in a limitless and reason-less place, with no explanation or definition, with no justi-fication, at the crossroads of respiration and memory, the memory of having been without truly being ».

If we are to understand that you were constantly seeking unpre-dictability of form and material, expressing a non-necessity clearly was crucial in this quest.

Absolutely. To do so, I wanted to make the formalism more complex while always giving priority to instinctive choices, as if increased knowledge of my problematic developed an awareness of the limits of formalization.

The creation of the magnetic tape and of the score was the outcome of the same programs which had seven distinct processes, with an aleatory and combined choice:

1. of a duration induced from an elementary scale

2. of the number of instrumental and electro acoustic tracks

3. of the selected tracks

4. of the number of synchronized tracks

5. of the assessment of the global agogic based on each agogic organized by instrumental tracks

Then by a stochastic choice:

1. of duration by track as previously stated

2. of pitch filtered by atonal harmonic rules and a combina-tory based on defective scales.

I was not interested in globalizing the writing process so I vali-dated each step of this programming, depending on the result.
One of the particularities of the piece was the integration of a heterogeneous diversified sound material, crowd noises, pizzicati of the strings, slowed down low notes, screams... This heterogeneous aspect was reinforced by the automatic choice of sounds and of their superimpositions. It perhaps would never have occurred to me to superimpose the sounds of the buzz of a fly with that of a synthetic bass or completely transform a flute phrase into a static space. This type of automatic proposition with no aesthetic *a priori* could only encourage setting imagination free. Another aspect was the efficiency relation sustained by the passage from automatic writing of the score to the sound production. It would have been hard to imagine doing this manually considering the amount of elements to be taken into account for the audio mixing.

This piece is also one of the first to have included exterior materials, like at the beginning of the *Hommage à Bach* piece where the clarinet is overlaid with two text fragments which appear for no reason:

*Intimité pains humides formée sur ma langue,*
*Distance et calme -*
*Le crucifix.*
*Jouir, tentation visible et consumée,*
*Vibration des membres,*
*Intention des parois somnolent cette clarté pâteuse qui vient*
*du râle sourire tacite et seul -*
*Poche - Les*
*Jambes incurables de ta voix sirupeuse*
*Ystère est là ?*
*Abondance et creux du visage inchangé*
*Fin qui marche déjà*
*Définitif mépris de choisir plaies et poutres, se fondent*
*Etrangeté.*
*Recèle la figure*
Terreux, il avance, chie croissement qui cogne repart s'élance,
valse se traîne, bouffées terribles les aiguilles du corps tapaient
simplement d'or cerclé révélation du métal allumé de mon
crâne s'abandonne entre l'homme distance du chien s'arrache
ventre vide au cœur du corps courbé de la tête en figurée talus
de la voix pioche dans la bête imaginée cynisme et poche

Intumescence apparently embodies a « hybridization » of material
and the introduction of texts written by you, and later, of images
(but we will come back to this). Does Binaurale, electronic
music, which is the following piece, symbolize both a culmina-
tion and a new start?

Intumescence and Katanga (2004) are more than ten years
appart. Between the two there was Binaurale (1999), electronic
music. This period is marked by a developing relation between
research and music writing: I felt the need to compose without
writing music (or inversely), and in order to do that, pursue
research, without it being implicitly linked to the idea of musi-
cal production. I had an increasingly double feeling: research
and writing were interlinked for a common future, to such an
extent that doing one could replace the other. But paradoxically,
these years helped me get through a final separation, since real-
ity and the worthiness of a research project could not coincide
with the musical work. This acquired experience forced for me
to learn to manage this now better defined constraint.

Binaurale was sort of the first unfinished result of this idea of
the « all algorithmic », of the creation of timbre beyond prede-
termined sound, transformed or imitated. My research in the
field of digital sound synthesis control led me to choose a model
which would enable me to invent and control sound beyond
existing acoustic models; this model was powerful enough to
create any type of sound, from interior conception to its overall
morphology.
In two articles about this issue, « Modèles de synthèse sonore, présentation des techniques de synthèse numérique et introduction à une esthétique du timbre synthétique » (Analyse Musicale n°47, 2003) and « Virtualité du son et écriture musicale : pour une création algorithmique du timbre » (Analyse Musicale n°47, 2003), I explain the long route which led me to program both my own synthesizer (in the Csound environment) and the sound control models in *Patchwork* (Open music's « ancestor »). It was a fascinating adventure with the staggering ambition to progressively create a process sufficiently complex not only to elaborate an unimaginable sound, but an entire piece. What's more, the program's complexity could both go beyond me and be self-sufficient in its future development.

In short I had created a synthesizer<fnref n="20" /> with nineteen control tables on each oscillator or wave shape, based on an additive synthesis model, with rules of modulation of amplitude and frequency, and of reverberation and panoramic positions. For the synthesis control and the automated creation of the thousands of needed<fnref n="21" /> parameters, a five step program<fnref n="22" /> would determine selected frequencies, amplitudes and panoramic positions over a chosen time frame, associated to a polyrhythmic controlled time to be differentiated. Data interpolation and filtering programs completed the timbre control models according to my research at the time, with three main categories at hand – harmonic, inharmonic and noise. Each model was subject to specific programming such as aleatory spectral deformations, spectral thickening, logarithmic contractions or expansions of the spectrum based on a slant, the addition of spectral elements... Harmonic timbre models based on Fibonacci, programs to

<footnote n="20">20. .orc file in *Csound*.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">21. .orc file in *Csound*.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">22. Written in the *Patchwork* environment.</footnote>
control even, odd, formant or aleatory amplitude envelopes: everything was thought out to create both an unpredictable and balanced diversity, a constant renewal of perception.

This attempt to create a fully automated piece somewhat failed, contingently<fnref n="23" /> giving way to the electronic study on the included CD, *Binaurale*, algorithmically created by separate sequence, then « manually » edited. At almost exactly the same time, *Patchwork*, the modular graphic programming environment, was about to disappear: it was not compatible with Apple anymore, and switched from developing the IRCAM system to the new *Open Music*<fnref n="24" /> platform. Oddly enough I did not attempt to migrate this stillborn program to a new environment even though it represented a crucial step in my work, not as completed piece, but as the product of a synergy between research and invention of sound and potentially of a work.

After Binaurale, Katanga, work for fifteen brass instruments and two percussionists, seems to have triggered a more fluid and « less problematic » contact with writing: the piece was written rather fast if compared to others, in particular, to satisfy an request from Radio-France.

Your comment is pertinent even though I am not sure to able to see any long term consequences. In 2002 I was working on 6ex1pen7sion4 which was commissioned by the government for the 2e2M ensemble. I suspended my writing, which had been going on for two years, because in June 2004 Radio-France ordered a piece for 15 brass instruments and two percussionists

<footnote n="23">23. Like the result of experimental tests.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">24. This reinitiated the debate about the stability of technologic environments and the future of some works and research.</footnote>
planned for the 2005 season of the Radio-France philharmonic
orchestra.

A few general ideas triggered this project: using the strength and
homogeneity of the timbre output of 15 brass instruments; in
terms of form, writing both a continuous and rhythmic piece;
and among others, alternating individual and collective sounds
and spatialize timbre. It was decided to not move the perform-
ers and to maintain a frontal setup in a half-circle, which was
also adapted to the Olivier Messiaen auditorium of the Maison
de la Radio where the piece was to be performed.

To create the double perception of continuity of unpredictabil-
ity of form, it occurred to me to work like a sculptor building
from a « raw sound matter ». I therefore algorithmically created
a score for 17 voices based on the planned run-time (about 10
minutes). The system for generating these durations was simple,
since it was an aleatory swapping of a series of 15 durations
from the sixty-fourth note to the quarter note linked to a
sixteenth note. The result was generally static, and always
varied in its microstructure. Contrary to the usual, my compo-
sitional work was the result of sound matter filtering, like as a
sculptor. The analogy is even more accurate when you consider
I was composing directly on the final score sheet (written on a
music editing program). I kept one hundred stages of this score
which trace the composition of the piece. Whether it be the
handling of space, the writing of harmonic or melodic design,
the coining or cutting of structure, all these processes are
derived from the original movement of the fifteen values.

Here is the example of the beginning in its original form, then
in its final form.
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8: Extract from the Katanga score, first version, then final version, same passage</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>
As shown in the above example, the timbre is thought of as the result of a meta-instrument, a kind of micro-tonal organ that could produce variations of harmonic density of one to fifteen notes per chord. Two groups of brass instruments are therefore tuned, separated by one quarter of a key. Imitation of the registration; the play on mutes (cup, straight, plunger, wah-wah with and without tube, whisper...) and on their five degrees of opening regulate the timbres thereby creating an independent spatialization of lateral localization. Being associated to a precise control of the articulation (nine total) and of the modes of sound production (semi-fingering, sounds and voice, vibrato...) each vertical and horizontal sound variation completes a polyrhythmic reading of the score. This vision goes with a « dance of the chief » which is a rhythmic score sculpting space by pounding out micro count of time down to the sixty-fourth note.

The title of the piece, *Katanga*, gradually came to exist because of its tone. I subsequently discovered its meaning and wanted the performance to be accompanied by the screening of a text recounting the various stages of the writing of *Katanga*. Each sequence of words was to be showed one after the other on two screens placed on each side of the stage, and the start of the sequences were scheduled with a slideshow based on a specific rhythmic score. As the projection moved on, a third central screen would enable reconstitution the text in its full typographic and spatial version:
Katanga

algorithmic process for aleatory generating
of durations chosen from
a finite set of data

Katanga MINERAL,
**Raw state with no destination: the score,**
*Combined filtration and its name.*

Then comes the time for the title – the dance -
sound,

void.

Rest.

Finally.

Forgotten memory of a province of the Democratic Republic
of the Congo

« silence, Death in progress »

life

land of humans
memory border

dust

painful utopia

DEFINITIVE
*In its version for piccolo, bass clarinet and real time/differed electronic, sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour is the most recent piece on the CD. It seems to reverberate an extreme virtuosity already present in the string trio, while also introducing new elements. What was the initial idea here?*

The *6ex1pen7sion4* was a request by the French State for piccolo, trumpet, bass, percussions, keyboard and electronic, and was performed in Paris in 2006 by the 2ᵉ2M ensemble. I imagined this work apprehending pulsated time, asymmetric, with the possibility of slight variations, fragmented memory of material, unstable, always on the brink of rupture, fast paced and mischievous... Unlike the string trio, it was not merely a succession of isolated durations or slices of life defining the agogic of the work, but the challenge was to generate pulsation irregularly paced yet linked in a continuous movement. Along with this initial intention I also wanted to use a mathematical curiosity which my uncle, André Gauthiez, had showed me while vacationing in Brittany. The process is simple: you randomly choose a series of four numbers; arrange them in descending order, and subtract the same four numbers arranged in ascending order; repeat until the final result, 6 1 7 4.

Summary of the programmed process with an example:

1<sup>st</sup> step: random choice of 4 different numbers: 3 5 6 2

2<sup>nd</sup> step: subtract this series once in descending order, then ascending order, until the result 6 1 7 4.

$$ \begin{array}{c} -6532 \\ 2356 \\ \hline 4176 \end{array} \quad \begin{array}{c} -7641 \\ 1467 \\ \hline 6174 \end{array} $$
3<sup>rd</sup> step: show results step by step:

$$
R = ((3 \ 5 \ 6 \ 2) (4 \ 1 \ 7 \ 6) (6 \ 1 \ 7 \ 4))
$$

I was less interested in the calculation itself than with the impli-
cations: the relation between raw randomness (random choice
of four numbers), a series of determined operations and
converging results.

How did the piece evolve?

As Messiaen would say, music is not numbers, yet the project
became a series of constraints: creation of continuity within
discontinuity, variation of the musical material based on a
scarcely diversified process (4 numbers), invention of a global
coherence of structure and time based on a system applied to the
microscopic composition of sound (acoustic parameters and
linked to the sound synthesis).

Figure 9: *See central section. Construction of the structure by project-
ing the piece in the past and future (durations in combined millisec-
onds based on the 6 1 7 4 formula)*

The creation of the work is mainly based on an initial virtual
center. This center is represented by the time zero – the start time
of the piece. I would write going into the past while writing the
future, all at once, these two states not being predetermined.
Concretely speaking, on the original score, I would gradually
revert toward the start of the piece (« reverse writing ») while
carrying on its expansion at the same time, having no clear
concept of the beginning or end since the origin of time would
gradually disappear from my memory. The challenge came from
the relation between the invention of micro and macro durations.
The system seemed viable when locally applied. But musically
controlling the expansion of the material seemed more complex. It was less the problem of purely combinatory logic (it was not that complicated to invent a « nested » combinatory) than that of renewing perception bearing the writing of memory. As the piece developed (the writing process was very slow) I felt compelled to analyze the existing sound matter (harmony, duration, timbre, space...), to better prolong, diffract, or make it absent. The piece's duration blended with the duration of the writing process, resembling an endless labyrinth: the future was hindered by the analysis of the memory of an always unstable and evasive sound matter.

Oddly, since 2006, this work has been rewritten several times. There are currently various versions with distinct instrumental ensembles. Certain modified movements have become autonomous, like a convoluted work, as if the principle of expansion had naturally, and somewhat regardless of my volition, spread to the existence of *6ex1pen7sion4*. But the concept of expansion here is strange since the global coherence of the piece is not modified: it is as if the density of the musical material enabled me to write the same piece differently, simply by the transposition of the material to the rewriting of certain fragments, with a process of music contraction in pieces with a single instrument (filtering) or instrumental rewriting including technological aspects (real time / differed time, with or without electronics), like that first movement composed for bass clarinet with a « main track » portion created in 2008.

The versions do not add up by replacing the previous ones, but they are a function of a piling effect. This expansion principle is twofold with, on the one hand, the notion of a dynamic piece which extends beyond its own perception (the duration of the writing) and on the other a « static » piece, identical to itself. Along with all the dimensions of this piece like a fractal composition, this double « dynamic / static » simultaneous association is an interesting concept for which we could probably find
contemporary echoes, for example in physics. It is notable that
this principle of material expansion does not seem to be infinite,
like the momentary exhaustion of sound matter linked to my
limited ability to reinvent it in a given context.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Figure 10: Extract from sixExonePENSsevenSIONfour, start of Sequence III.</figcaption></figure>

*To conclude this chapter, could you talk about your latest works and your projects?*

These last years I have explored two new directions: one concerning the creation of an opera with students ranging from ten to fifteen years old, and a second, being the composition of multimedia works, in particular the creation of computer-generated images.
*Tell us about the opera...*

The *Opera de glace* is an opera for chorus, tape and video composed in 2008. This project came from an encounter with a music professor, Laurence Grauwet, whom I knew to be skillful, demanding and experienced.

The initial idea was not to write a pedagogical book, but rather to teach through the creation of a work related to the idea of an opera.

*But in what way does L'opéra de glace belong to the opera genre?*

I still hesitate between using the term opera or prologue to an opera, maybe because of the ideas of expansion previously described. But classifying the piece within the opera genre seems evident to me, with an historical relation concerning the evolution of the genre, namely in relation to the narrative and theatrical aspects and linked to representation, even though these aspects are in this case purposely shifted.

There have been over fifty operas written since 1978, and the evolution of this genre was strongly influenced, more or less directly, during a period which I would situate roughly between 1950 and 1970: during this time musical habits, narrative concepts, dramaturgy, representation... were redefined. Nowadays the approach seems to be more prudent but there is the experience of the veterans, along with a critical overlook and distance which can be put to use.

*How do you then situate your work within the evolution of this genre?*

I do not pretend to situate it in an historical setting, although it is not fully oblivious to this context, with more or less identified and borne reference. For example, the idea of narration
goes through several stages of sensation, with no imposed movement, which brings us back to the questions of timbre writing, strong cause to effect relations or, on the contrary, to a repeated writing of lyrics, image and note. From Stéphane Mallarmé to James Joyce, Charles Ives to John Cage or from determinism to fate, these questions are not new, even though the material of *L'Opéra de glace* enables multiple combining of references which are at times contemporary, for example on the technological level.

*For this Opera, you wrote the libretto, created the digital sounds and images, wrote the score for the chorus of course, and directed the performance. Why did you wish to control everything?*

I don't know that it was voluntary. And what do you mean by « control »? And why this idea, so naïve but so current, which implies that life is a series of events which are decided and controlled? Sometimes we must face situations which cause reactions, as a solution to issues of artistic survival. These choices are not always those initially aspired to, but at times they are necessary.

As for directing the performance of the chorus, I was glad to defend my work as faithfully as possible to the score I had written, even though I do appreciate listening to other interpretations without participating.

Also, composing images, texts, sounds etc. was an identified and willed endeavor: I wished not to direct writing towards a « total art » but towards the concrete creation of virtual poly-sensory worlds. This artistic current and research should have been a collective concern for the past years. It should also be logically noted that, in light of history, the artist is a sort of explorer, an adventurer, a craftsman who is a source of suggestions. This empirical standpoint, although limited, is still necessary, for example in the field of technology. In other words, I am neither
a poet, a plastic artist, writer, computer scientist, sound engi-
neer, nor an acoustics expert... but maybe new forms of poly-
sensory writing can generate new experiences and other skills
which can push the frontiers of imagination further. This would
be due not to the mastering of any particular skill, but rather, to
the possibility of inventing new types of correlations.
Collaboration between specialists is crucial. But this type of
experience and isolation for learning, which is what I did, is
complementary.

*Getting back to the writing of the opera, the text hardly seems appealing for young students...*

Straight away, the students' reactions were diverse, but one ques-
tion was recurrent: « But sir, does your text mean anything? ».
Also, the music teacher was concerned with certain words and
expressions such as « crucified » and « leaking bone ».
Considering the opera was not a teaching project, it was impor-
tant to be very precise taking up the work. The time factor was
essential; to give time, to not impose exterior answers, but to
enable these students to find answers on their own, be it through
questioning or forgetting... As for the meaning of the libretto, my
proposal to conduct research on Stéphane Mallarmé's last poem<fnref n="25" />
(1897), naturally and serenely « appeased » the vindictive minds,
replacing the question of meaning and aesthetic sense in the
framework of both an individual and collective cultural heritage.
This does not mean that the narrative aspect of the piece was
consciously identified, but we were able to modestly live an expe-
rience, share and question it, which for me were very intense and
precious times!

<footnote n="25">25. Stéphane Mallarmé, *Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard*, Paris, Gallimard, 1914.</footnote>
*This opera integrates electronic sounds with the screening of computer generated images. How did you plan the relation between text, image and music?*

Very simply, like a distorted shadow of the same object, juxtaposed or interlocked. It is as if there were three autonomous versions of the same piece which at times can have causal relations, for example in the center of the work when the texts on the screen echo the lyrics of the chorus.

*Was this your first experience with the invention of images?*

In 2006 I started to collaborate with a painter, Pierre Chaveau<fnref n="26" /> with whom I worked on a multimedia version of *Binaurale*. One of the remarkable things in Pierre Chaveau’s work is he creates paintings in movement by projecting primary colors on the canvas. He refers to rhythmic scores, controlling the intensity of the light beams enabling the recomposing of the chromatic spectrum of the colors thanks to the auditory synthesis: the painting is on a « traditional » base but its forms and color change depending on the light. For *Binaurale*, he created a painting based on the shape of the wave of the electronic piece; I then created a video based on his work, the bulk of it forming triple simultaneous dimensions with music. Subsequently, I wrote *Blue bird*, multimedia work performed at the Musée d’Aquitaine à Bordeaux and created for a monumental screen-

<footnote n="26">26. PhD Arts and Art science from the Sorbonne and the l'École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris (ENSBA), Pierre Chaveau is a painter, illustrator and author. In 1990 he invented the « écriture lumière » (light writing) which explores the organic link between color and light and ponders the relation to text, dance, and particularly to music. Since 1971, his work is regularly exhibited in Europe, the US and in the Middle East.</footnote>
ing, both outdoors and indoors. At the same time, I started to work on the concept of virtual slates, sometimes even without music, an image of an object slowly distorting with a play on differential thresholds of perception.

*One of your last compositions in this field, CA, brings forth real time control of image and sound. This piece seems unfinished since it is in perpetual development.*

CA - *Creative Algorithm* - is a virtual interactive piece created in real time, which means it has no standalone existence besides a computer program which represents it. The project was started in 2007²⁷ and goes beyond the normal framework of composing, since it is an artistic concept with multidisciplinary implications, scientific, economic and more... The piece evolves by stages, for example with institutional partnerships<fnref n="28" />. In the long run, the objective is to invent a virtual artistic interactive poly-sensory world.

*Creative Algorithm* is in principle unfinished and « limitless » in its development and complexification.

*What are the operative principles which guided the first stages of the programming?*

<footnote n="27">27. Cf. Tony Héron, Research report, Engineer ENSEIRB, *Développement de programmes de contrôle temps réel du son et de l'image dans le cadre du projet CA – Creative Algorithm* – Developed with MAX-MSP-JITTER, 3icar/icarEditions, 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">28. Such as the École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, Informatique de Bordeaux, the Institut International pour l'Innovation la Création Artistique et la Recherche and the Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création au Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Toulouse.</footnote>
There are five:

1. To develop an autonomous piece, with no beginning or ending, always different (combining various determinist and stochastic processes).

2. To present every stage of the writing process as a version of the work, the developing process never being separated from the artistic objective of the « all algorithmic ».

3. To create sound and image with no hierarchical relations (image does not necessarily depend on sound and *vice versa*).

4. To establish strong relations between selected syntheses models, such as the additive synthesis for image and sound, favoring the intensity of this type of generalist<fnref n="29" /> model and the control possibilities<fnref n="30" />.

5. To consider a rhythmic « core » symbolizing a neuralgic root triggering various impulses with small durations, quanta of the durations to be controlled and to rhythmically compose the evolution of the bulk of the parameters of the different syntheses.

*Can you describe this program more precisely?*

The work was programmed in MAX-MSP-JITTER which is specific to real-time and visual and sound creation. The graphic programming by functional module, the architecture of the environment and the associated libraries probably make MAX the most powerful and stable pieces of software nowadays for this type of programming.

<footnote n="29">29. Creation of all types of images and sounds.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">30. Internal to the synthesized object (sound...) and of procedural nature: composition, not deformation or manipulation of sound and image.</footnote>
1. The user interface

At the outset, CA is composed of three distinct zones: a first zone dedicated to sound and to the elaboration of the synthesizer, a second devoted to the image synthesis, and a third to manage the programs to control image and sound.

Figure 11: See central section.
User interface of CA created with Max-MSP-JITTER

2. Programming the synthesizers

The following paragraphs describe the « sound and image » synthesizers.

2.1. Synthesizing sound

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 12: Sound synthesizer made with Max /MSP /JITTER</figcaption></figure>

I wanted to use my previous research in sound synthesizing to achieve a hybrid polyphonic synthesizer based on an additive model linked to other synthesizing techniques such as modulations (amplitudes, frequencies, phases), processing programs (filtering, reverberation, spatialization...) syntheses by mixed wave shapes... Here is the sub-program representing this synthesizer with the list of control parameters on each oscillator:

Figure 13: See central section. Hybrid real time sound synthesizer based on the additive model

List of the 16 parameters of the sound synthesis to be controlled in real time on each oscillator (sinusoidal or other):
<table><thead><tr><th>Basic oscillator</th><th>Frequency modulation</th><th>Amplitude modulation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>p1: wave shape</td><td>p4: frequency of the vibrato</td><td>p8: frequency of the vibrato</td></tr><tr><td>p2: amplitude (with envelope)</td><td>p5: amplitude of the vibrato</td><td>p9: amplitude of the vibrato</td></tr><tr><td>p3: phase</td><td>p6: frequency of the jitter</td><td>p10: amp coef.</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>p7: amplitude of the jitter</td><td>p11: frequency of the jitter</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>p12: amplitude of the jitter</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>p13: amp coef.</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th>Reverberation</th><th>Spatialization</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>p4: frequency of the vibrato</td><td rowspan="3">p16: panoramic</td></tr><tr><td>p14: duration of reverberation</td></tr><tr><td>p15: mixing</td></tr></tbody></table>
## 2.2. Image synthesis

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 14: Image synthesizer made with Max/MSP/JITTER</figcaption></figure>

For more relational coherence, I planned on using the same synthesis model for sound and image, with a systematic control of every pixel. This option became too arduous<fnref n="31" /> to achieve in the given time for this first development phase (three months). The final choice was the filmed visualization of the public transformed into abstract virtual images. The images of the visitors were reflected in the piece, with their gestures altering the shapes of the now interactive images.

List of the image transformation programs used:

- Fractioning and moving of the image into a cell based on luminance<fnref n="32" />

- Effects of a modification of the sampling rate on an image<fnref n="33" />

- Combining the matrices<fnref n="34" />

- Spatializing and mixing<fnref n="35" />

<footnote n="31">31. limitations of the computer etc...</footnote>

<footnote n="32">32. *Jit.plume* takes two matrixes at the entrance, analyzes each cell of the second matrix and, based on the average value of these dimensions, moves the corresponding cell into the first matrix.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">33. *Jit.ameba* (which is the name of the program) saturates the image by increasing or decreasing the rate of special sampling.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">34. *Jit.eclipse* combines two four dimensional matrixes (alpha, red, green and blue channels) at the entrance based on various interaction modes.</footnote>

<footnote n="35">35. Based on 2 matrixes, *Jit.mxform2d* generates a single matrix. *Jit.xfade* then mixes these two matrixes.</footnote>
Figure 15: See central section. Image synthesizer, 21 control parameters for the alteration of the image of the public

3. The neuralgic root of the program: the creation of a virtual rhythmic core³⁶ (matrix) to generate the polyrhythm

36. Summary of the global process of duration generation:

1. Choice of initial aleatory durations memorized based on a scale of determined durations

2. Possible subdivision of aleatory initial durations (ms), regular/irregular, based on a draw probability

3. Number of control channels and distribution of clicks between image and sound

Example of control parameters for process 1 and 2

– Choice of aleatory initial durations (triggering of the « clicks »)

p1: maximum value (in ms) linked to the scale of initial duration (between 0 and « valmax »)

p2: Draw probability of aleatory initial durations (« durs-initiales » table)

– Possible subdivisions of aleatory initial durations (ms),

Selection of a subdivision model: sub/nonsub – regular/irregular

p3: subdivided or not duration (1 or 0 = non subdiv) (« durdiv » table)

p4: irregularly or regularly subdivided duration (0 or 1) (« reg-irreg » table)

– Irregular subdivisions based on a draw probability.

p5: maximum number of subdivisions of aleatory initial durations (irregular division) (size of the « pulse-irreg » table) (choice of subdivision between 1 and p5) (p5 is linked to the initial « pulse-irreg » table)

p6: Probability(ies) of drawing of the number of irregular subdivisions (« pulse-irreg » table)

– Regular subdivisions based on a draw probability

p7: maximum number of subdivisions of initial durations (regular division) (size of the « pulse-reg » table) (choice of the maximum subdivision between 1 and p7) (p7 is linked to the initial « pulse-reg » table)

p8: Probability(ies) of drawing of the number of regular subdivisions (« pulse-reg » table)

p9: rate of distortion of the subdivided duration in % (regular division) (« distor » table) (depends on the initial table).
To control the rhythmic evolution of all the parameters of the different sound and image synthesis models... the objective<fnref n="37" /> was to produce a succession of durations<fnref n="38" /> based on a probabilistic or determinist control of the defined duration<fnref n="39" /> scales thanks to a process of self-modification of the data based on the result of the evolution of the piece. The program also enabled the control of both continuous and discontinuous time perception (subdivision of durations), for example regular (pulsated time) and irregular pulsation (smooth time).

This already complex virtual matrix represented both the unity and the core of the system. Based on this not necessarily perceived virtual path, we were to generate a layering of triggering or durations thanks to principles of synchronization/desynchronization of control channels of the totality of parameters of synthesis models. Matrix (initial unique channel):

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figure 16: Matrix at the origin of the control of the syntheses in CA</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="37">37. « p durées ».</footnote>

<footnote n="38">38. Triggering or « bangs » in the MAX language.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">39. Each version of CA must easily integrate a complexification of the algorithms of creation of pitch scales and of the process of durations selection.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>Figure 18: See central section. Program for synchronizing clicks</figcaption></figure>

<caption>Figure 19: Program for synchronizing parameters
of CA with MAX-MSP-JITTER</caption>

4. Iterative process of self-modification of memorized data

This program symbolizes the « intelligence » of the system,
sufficiently generalist to be complexified and applied to
itself<fnref n="40" /> and to the control of all the parameters of the piece
such as the composition of timbre and the sound, frequency,
duration, dynamics spatialization evolution... In short, at any *t*
instant, the program selects one or several numbers among a set
of predetermined numbers. More precisely, the algorithm
executes a pseudo-aleatory draw from a set of defined values (x)
based on probabilities of emergence (y). But to avoid stocking
or determining a succession of probabilistic states like in the
Markov chain, each draw modifies the drawing parameters
simultaneously, by altering X and Y<fnref n="41" /> depending on the context.
It is as if the conditions of existence of the piece were in constant
evolution, the system evolving with the material of the piece
with a play on real time interaction: this is where I refer to self-
modification of the control data in CA.

As for the graphic interface which enabled real-time visualiza-
tion of the scales' modification (x and y), I favored the use of
« tables » at the core of the iterative<fnref n="42" /> process, with more than
fifty throughout the piece.

In terms of the concept of self-modification, the pseudo-aleatory
draw depended on ten other parameters to be determined and
presented here in three categories. Here is the list of the param-
eters of this program which enable controlling the evolution of
scales and of drawn values:

<footnote n="40">40. Fractal dimension of the process which can be « nested infinitely » within itself.</footnote>

<footnote n="41">41. Initial scales and pseudo-aleatory drawing conditions.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">42. MAX object graphically representing the line of the curve.</footnote>
1. Modification of the y values (non-null probabilities) associated with the x values.

p1: number of modified values of x

p2: deformation coefficient of y (added or subtracted to the probability of the drawn value)

p3: activated = modified probability never null

2. Addition of values of x

p4: number of added x values

p5: value of x deformation (added or subtracted to the drawn value)

p6: non-activated = expansion of the scale of x values based on p5
activated = range of filtering to be determined (p7 and p8)

p7: minimum value of the range of filtering of values of x

p8: maximum value of the range of filtering of values of x

3. Reset probability of occurrences of values of x (« eliminate » the values of x)

p9: number of eliminated values (probability of the drawn value reset)

Limit of superior expansion of values of x

p10: maximum possible value of x (size of table associated to the parameters of the synthesis)

Just as at other levels of composition of the piece, notions of continuity/discontinuity were controllable. The self-modification of the tables enabled the succession of close or ample scales thanks to the defining of common values of the scales, the control of the gap of distortion between the drawn value and the new scale value...

With this simple program, the complexity of CA became exponential and « uncontrollable ». Imagine one moment if I were to apply the entire program to these ten parameters and that within these one hundred new control parameters, I reiterated the operation infinitely...
### 5. Control of the entropy: the regulator<sup>43</sup>

With the very first tests using CA, it seemed necessary to introduce a regulator, which would be a sort of controller monitoring the entropy<sup>44</sup> of the system, for example through the measuring of the number of parameters used or modified in real time within the limits defined by the user.

### What is your first assessment of CA?

The imagination of the work and its composition were disrupted: it is not composing a determined object representing a piece, but rather the composer invents the conditions of existence of an always changing work, both locally and globally. The impact of technology is clear in the way the concept of writing is renewed, reminding us of this old dream of a « cyber-composition » which would be master, regardless of its creator, of its possible existence, of its evolution and of its ending.

### 43. General presentation

Adding or subtracting values of x (y non null) in a continuous or discontinuous way based on a test associated to the number of values of x (if x < val-min or x > val-max)

Control parameters

* p1: minimum possible number of values of x (non null probability)

* p2: maximum possible number of values of x (non null probability)

* p3: table defining the range of variation of values of x (by adding of vals) continuous (between the minimum and maximum of the associated table) or discontinuous (between 0 and the size of the associated table) (0 or 1) (table « cmd2 »)

* p4: table defining the variation of values of x (based on p1 and p2) (by adding or subtracting), continuous (closest limit) or discontinuous (farthest limit) (0 or 1) (table « cmd3 »)

### 44. Measure of disorder.
*Can you identify any particular problems linked to the development of this compositional endeavor?*

CA being only three years old, it is too early to assess its pertinence. But several difficulties are being confirmed.

For example, defining an unfinished work creates a new experience: protecting imagination beyond the piece itself. Typically, the composer imagines a work in a limited time equivalent to that of the time it takes to write it: normally anywhere from a few days to several years. But in this case, the piece being by definition in constant evolution, the first step of the writing process is measurable on a lifetime scale. It is necessary to manage this new relation to time in connection with imagination, for the work not to become the sign of a simplistic succession depending on the stylistic evolution of the composer.

On a more technical level, the ever increasing level of complexity of the algorithm is hard to master, due to lack of experience in this field, as well as depending on the nature of the project. The MAX program, and more generally the graphic programming by functional module seems to lack efficiency at this level, making it hard to proofread complex programs (links and encapsulation levels). However, even if it is difficult to write an efficient program, it is just as challenging to master it... The increasing of complexity on a purely calculative level could worsen the piece if perception is not kept at the center of a relation between algorithm and the artistic dimension of the project. On such a long development time, the question of technological evolution is also an issue...

A final question remains: is it reasonable to reduce creation to a purely algorithmic dimension? An automatic process can generate singular imagination, but can also reduce and stifle the
imagination of the piece within the program<fnref n="45" />: there is nowadays a true risk of confusing the worth of a piece with the program or the thought process of the composer.

*How do you perceive your future projects?*

It's hard for me to imagine them on a lifetime scale, and I feel, at the age of forty-three, I am only starting my learning process and my journey. Naively, I would be content living three or four hundred years to achieve a type of artistic maturity. Also, in our times, there is a formidable acceleration in many fields, both technical and conceptual, and this creates new communication mediums which also contribute to a strong instability. This is flagrant in the field of visual arts: with the multitude of formats, compressions and fast evolutions<fnref n="46" />, works of art are exposed to an extremely powerful web of technical constraints which greatly weaken their sustainability and probably their conception. There is therefore a need to adapt a piece to each context,

<footnote n="45">45. In the book titled *L'Univers dans une coquille de noix* (Paris, Odile Jacob, 2001, p. 165), Stephen Hawking reminds us that the brain of a simple worm surpasses the most powerful computer, even if the exponential evolution of microprocessors lets us foresee new horizons (3500 operations per second in 1972, to 400000000 nowadays, Intel). According to the « Moore Law», the speed and complexity of computers double every eighteen months. If we are to assume that a composer becomes a high level programming expert, I tend to think that we are only at the prehistoric stages of a new technological era, certain neurophysiologic capacities being far from reproduced or imitated in spite of already remarkable performances of computers in terms of speed and stability.</footnote>

<footnote n="46">46. Real time, differed time, the modes or means of communication (computer, DVD, internet, CDs...)and of visualization (television, projectors, computers...), the frameworks of distribution (sales, museum installations, research...).</footnote>
and even to reformulate it: it is both a costly and time consum-
ing process. A simple example is a state of the art personal
computer which took over a week, day and night, to render the
*Blue bird* image. Making this video in high definition would
require applying the same calculations over a much longer
period of time, not to mention the non-compressed internet
versions... I would have liked to live in less perturbed times,
technologically speaking, which would have enabled concen-
trating more on substance, even though this period is a sign of
an exciting mutation.

I realize this trajectory could stop at any time, for lack of means,
or simply as the expression not of an end, but rather of an
absence, a return to basics.

*More concretely, do you have any « compositional desires » for the future?*

I plan on transposing into music several contemporary concepts
taken from various intellectual fields, biology, astrophysics,
computing, acoustics, philosophy anthropology... As a simple
example, following an experiment in 2002, a team of physicists
from the University of Geneva wondered about the possibility of
time not existing at infinitely small scales of matter but nonethe-
less present on larger scales. This is an idea which could influ-
ence the imagining of a piece.

More generally, I feel that the use of memory as a cognitive
element in the creation of works has been left aside since the
appearance of atonal language in the 20th century, probably due
to historical necessity depending on the concept of non-repetition.
The challenge is important for the future, memory not necessarily
being interpreted as an element of return or even of deformation
of musical material, but as a cognitive means of renewing matter.
I also wish to continue working closely with technical evolution
which contributes to the possibility of imagining the present of
a work. It has been possible to invent a meta-language to unify the
writing of an interactive poly-sensorial matter in an immersive
environment, penetrate and interact with the piece in three dimen-
sions, or four when counting time (writing space time)..., to
better go astray in the abyss of composition/decomposition of
matter. Renewal of matter is necessary for the evolution of artis-
tic writing, like the writing of timbre since the 17th century or
micro-tonality in the 20th century. If there are to be poly-sensorial
artistic worlds in the future, there will have to be rules to enable
a coherent shift from sound to image, to smell... in composing
simulated matter on various scales, from particle physics to a
quantum apprehension of the world, from a classic Newtonian
vision to relativist or infinite simulations of cosmologic scales.
This fascinating prospect is not fundamentally new, but should
materialize thanks to technological evolutions and an outlook on
historical and aesthetic challenges linked to art. This project is
both close and far from my currents works, the terms
« composer » or « musical work » not being adequate terms here.
The link between my research and writing is currently defined
by the interaction between light (photons), sound (phonons)
and the observer (spectator – performer). The times when a
composer wrote a static piece to be interpreted are over. A piece
is now the product of an algorithm and determines its existence
on its own, always different by interacting with its environment:
the creative artist does not invent the piece, but rather the condi-
tions for multiple existences, between chance and determinism,
virtual worlds and actual performances... the link between Art,
Technology, Science and other fields..., the conceptual complex-
ification of creation, the associated means, the synergies put to
use may well be the sign of one of the greatest adventures of the
next decade, transforming our sensitive outlook on the world.
The immediate risk is to be absorbed into the ersatz of the
virtual with no story, with no imagination, with no questioning,
no possible errors.
If writing is often a silent and isolated act, it is also and more
than ever the result of a collective expression and capacity to
produce together. At various time scales, in a sense, one is never
alone when composing.
ILLUSTRATIONS

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>Figure 21: Extract from Hommage à Bach,
work for sib clarinet written based on J. S. Bach’s chorale
Passion selon St Jean (bold notes in the pppp marks
start every beat)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>Figure 22: Extract from the string trio,
Virtualité et conscience du vide</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

Figure 23: Primary scale of durations adapted for acoustic instrumental writing and used for the string trio, which is an experimental research written based on the differential thresholds of perception according to H. Woodrow and R. G. Chatterjea
Figure 24: See central section.

Diagram of the spacialization of the performers in the string trio

Virtualité et conscience du vide (placing and numbering of the stands,
viola, violin, cello, 21 stands and 1 rotating stool for the cellist)

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

Figure 25: Extract from Du sens au sens, for transverse flute
<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>Figure 26: Extract from Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir, for soprano, narrator and instrumental ensemble</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>Figure 27: Extract from Intumescence</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_22.png" /><figcaption>Figure 28: Extract from 6174, 3rd fragment</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>Figure 29: Extract from 6174, 4th fragment</figcaption></figure>
Figure 30: See central section.
Stage where Katanga was recorded
at Radio-France, studio 102, spatialization of the 15
brass instruments and two percussions in an arc of a circle

Figure 31: See central section.
Projection of virtual works at the
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Toulouse,
Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création 2008

Figure 32: See central section. Extract from the Intumescence video, image 1. Image 2, multimedia version (2008), composition of the same object

Figure 33: See central section. Blending of the virtual picture
White interior and the Blue bird multimedia work

Figure 34: See central section.
Extract from the multimedia picture Autoportrait
PART 2

PONDERING CREATION

– EXPERIENCING RESEARCH –
<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /></figure>
*Before continuing this interview about the imagination and the definition of a work, can you tell us how you see your work as a researcher as compared to that of a composer?*

This situation is twofold: both activities are linked<sup>47</sup> but are also clearly separated, because they involve specific skills, coherences and recognitions. It should be noted that in my case, these activities principally have an « institutional » quality to them since I attended higher education courses in full, both at university and at the Paris Conservatory. So I neither see myself as a researcher nor as a composer, even though the lack of composer status in France taught me to put the status of researcher into perspective. In other words, the important thing here is the work or the substance of research, confronting modalities of collective and individual evaluation.

Basically, these distinct experiences encouraged me to consider conceptual or other types of hypotheses, to attempt to develop and respect them, while also hoping to occasionally avoid them, at least partially. It is a way of deepening logical processes, of defining these actions within limits which are to be transcended, in the best of cases.

This double activity also made me realize that multiple coherences of a discourse are not necessarily the product of linear,

<footnote n="47">47. Applied research on the development of technological tools can, for example, have indirect implications on the creative process, while a work of a more artistic nature can enable avoiding dogmatic positions while enhancing the invention of coherences pertaining to each project.</footnote>
predictable and determined timeline<fnref n="48" />. *6ex1pen7sion4*, in its compositional principle, is the result of a simultaneous projection of the past and the future of the piece in relation to an ever changing present: this piece is also perceived as a succession of instants which have no direction or necessary and required situations.

My research on the concept of creation has some of the same characteristics: there is a shift from linear reading to a fragmented meaning, or inversely, starting from a locally ordered and globally disordered research we progressively favor the forming of a type of logical determinism linking cause to effect, standard founding of any demonstration in an academic setting.

But cause and effect are present to better affirm a principle of incertitude which puts into perspective any aesthetic finalism. This act of introducing, favoring, and respecting questions of unpredictability, both for methods of creation or research and for results, leads me to think that in my work meaning is all at once multiple, fragile, never final nor dogmatic; I no longer consciously fear joining conceptual pairs which on the face of things might have seemed antinomic: notions of « positioning » come along with a profound sense of doubt, like the question of presence being inseparable from that of absence; I will most likely come back to this idea.

*Even though it would be too technical to address your research concerning the algorithmic control of the computer generated sound synthesis*<fnref n="49" /> *and current questions of interaction between*

<footnote n="48">48. Let us not confuse the listening in haste or track playing of a piece with its creation process; for example, error, catastrophe, disorder, unconsciousness, lack of control, unpredictability, intuition, all contribute to the construction of an intellectual structure, or more specifically, an artistic structure.</footnote>

<footnote n="49">49. *Trajectoire oblique*, Bordeaux, 3icar/icarEditions, 2007.</footnote>
sound and light in an immersive environment (virtual reality), I would appreciate it if you could present, in this second part of the interview, your thoughts on the notion of creation, which is at the heart of your last publication, L'œuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept.

It is not easy to summarize a decade of research in a few pages, with references which are sometimes precise, often diverse - analytical, historic, aesthetic, epistemic, compositional, technological... But it is always interesting to analyse the essence of research by attempting to express it simply! Anecdotally, I have always felt an absence of limit in the contraction of what I could say, which brings us back, indirectly, to the essence of our problematic and to the feeling of absence... But let me address your question more directly, and attempt to avoid brutal short-cuts.

Originally, this reflection was part of one of the research themes presented during a viva to become habilitated thesis director (2005) and had the following premise: contemporary musical creation cannot be confused with the presence or existence of the piece.

To think creation through, I avoided the iterative idea of the piece on the piece by using an element which is exterior to the work: concept. The six chosen concepts did not belong to traditional musicological and analytical language, to « shatter the impulse of a reflex expression »<fnref n="50" /> and to « destroy within the non-debated convictions »<fnref n="51" />, as Bachelard would say.

L'œuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept is in three parts and presents the ultimate concept, that of creation:

<footnote n="50">50. Gaston Bachelard, *La psychanalyse du feu*, Paris, Gallimard, 1949, p. 186.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">51. *Ibidem*, p. 18.</footnote>
1. Variation on a binary theme: *Frontière* and *Apogée* then
   *Coda: Non répétition*

2. Three variations on a single concept: *Presence*

3. Variation on a binary theme: *Chance* and *Determinism*
   *Conclusion: Variation of the variation – Introduction to the*
   *concept of creation*

*The first concept tackled in this publication was that of frontier, which was a theme in an article*<fnref n="52" /> *in the Cahiers du Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherches sur l'Imaginaire appliquées à la Littérature en 2004 (LAPRIL). Can you remind us of the definition of this notion and the analyses of works that you wanted?*

The general concept of « musical frontier » defined a delimiting
or transition space between various states. Then three singular
concepts represented by critical analyses of contemporary works
were undertaken: the frontier interpreted as a bridge, the piece
with a frontier and the piece without a frontier.

The first example concerned an auditory commentary of the
string trio *Ikhoor* (1978) by Iannis Xenakis: the concept of fron-
tier was very clearly present as a transition or bridge participating
in the overall coherence of the piece. I was then reminded that this
notion of bridge existed prior to the 20th century and that it was
particularly developed in tonal times, namely as sonatas.

Oddly, the auditory analysis of the Xenakis trio underscored the
presence of frontiers and enabled the appearance of extremely
precise symmetric and teleological structures of the piece, a

<footnote n="52">52. « La notion de frontière dans l’œuvre musicale après 1945 : réalité ou utopie? - Exemples d’*Ikhoor* de Iannis Xenakis, d’*Anahit* de Giacinto Scelsi et de 4’33 de John Cage », *Frontières et seuils*, *Cahiers du Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherches sur l’Imaginaire appliquées à la Littérature* (L.A.P.R.I.L.), Bordeaux, Eidôlon, 2004, pp. 75-86.</footnote>
finalism a directionality of time symbolized by the return of the
first part at the end of the piece.

<caption>Figure 35: See central section.
Formal layout of Ikhoor by Iannis Xenakis</caption>

The succession of pitches and rhythms seemed to be the sign of
original writing, but this archetypal listening to the frontier
drew its references from a traditional architecture.

The second example, *Anahit* (1965), by Giancinto Scelsi, intro-
duced the concept of « frontier piece », a space closed by the
continuous and indivisible perception of the piece.

Following the discovery period of this continuous and indivisible
time often characteristic of Scelsi, the global perception of structure
revealed itself as being once again archetypal: a global crescendo
decrescendo, a chromatic tension, an agogic acceleration then
deceleration. Listening closely to *Anahit* revealed a fragmented
piece by a systematic repetition of alternations between solo violin
and orchestra. The chromatic melisma of micro-intervals, globally
ascending from D to G sharp of the solo violin, conveyed a sense of
dual structure, contrary to the idea of « frontier piece ».

<caption>Figure 36: See central section. Structure of Anahit</caption>

The last example – 4’33” (1952) by John Cage – illustrated the
concept of « piece without frontier » a continuum between exis-
tence and art. Cage likens the silence in this piece to « all the
sounds it does not define » and attempts to trigger an absence
of intentionality and finality through, for example, the chaotic
response of the audience. Art is life and vice-versa. Was this
compositional project, which showed the definition of the
concept of « piece without frontier », completed?

In the end, I noted that in its concert version and with the mute
presence of instruments on stage, the composer controlled
certain sound parameters: for example, it was unlikely that a member of the audience start singing while walking in circles around the auditorium during the performance. There were therefore stable and predictable parameters (timbre, specialization...), because they were not directly « activated » in the writing and performing process of 4'33".

What is more, and contrary to Cage's original project, still within the framework of a public performance, it was possible to very generally foresee the structure of 4'33": decrescendo (silence of the public before the start), crescendo (progressive sound, even minimal, of the public during the performance), decrescendo (end of the piece or of the instruments), crescendo (after the performance)... this determinist, cyclical, crescendo structure... conveys an archetype contrary to the 4'33" project. Later, starting in the 1960s, as if to echo these remarks, Cage wrote durations equivalent to 0'00".

4'33" became more a place of separation rather than a true continuum between existence and art, calling into question the concept of work without frontier.

Following the first part of this book and subject of a new publication<fnref n="53" /> in 2004, the second general theme of your thoughts was the concept of apogee, with the analysis of Lemme-Icône-Epigramme (1981) by Brian Ferneyhough.

As the second chosen concept, apogee was indeed developed based on the piece for piano *Lemme-Icône-Epigramme* (1981), by the English composer Brian Ferneyhough. Following a detailed analysis, I realized this concept was not always linked

<footnote n="53">53. « La notion d'apogée dans *Lemme-Icône-Epigramme* de Brian Ferneyhough », L'apogée, Cahiers du Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherches sur l'Imaginaire appliquées à la Littérature (L.A.P.R.I.L.), Bordeaux, Eidôlon, 2004, pp. 433-451.</footnote>
to the expression of tension. A more abstract definition of apogee became necessary for a composer and precisely locally in a piece as a category integrating various musical interpretations or situations, a symbolic and essential form for the diachronic outlook of the piece. I observed and listened to this renewal of invention of the musical concept of apogee which became polymorphous and of functional nature (combinatory of the piece, expression of the writing process). But the unease felt by the composer was shared: Ferneyhough speaks of the failure of his work describing the last beats like a resolution.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>Figure 37: End of Icône (m.159), « convulsion » structured in an apogee</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>Figure 38: End of the piece performed like a resolution</figcaption></figure>
This comment showed the work's reading as being prisoner of the traditional concept of apogee interpreted like a peak, a tension which culminated in the development of the structure. If *Lemme-Icône-Epigramme* was originally perceived as a network of multiple and endless sensations and meanings due to its extreme density, strong agogic, remarkable instrumental virtuosity, the trajectory of the piece lost its sense of mystery because the writing process was in and of itself contradictory. A first assessment was important: the concepts of frontier and apogee existed in contemporary music, conveying various interpretations depending on the context. But in the end, these same concepts were seen as a resurgence of the past, a stifling of invention. The presence of the chosen concepts became a feeling of absence, like Schönbergienne's attempt in 1909 to liberate music of all repetitions, structure, relation symbols and logic; this idea eventually led to a « rather silent period » from 1917 to 1923, until repetitions (structure, durations, themes, combinatory processes) were rendered an architec-tonic element of his work, which was a failure in terms of his initial project in 1909.

*This study of the concept of non-repetition in Schönberg's work for piano led you, in the second part of your book, towards a problematized concept of presence, through 3 studies reminiscing publications from L'analyse musicale and L'Éducation Musicale: popular repertoire in western music*<fnref n="54" />, *the opera after 1978*<fnref n="55" />, and

<footnote n="54">54. « Présence du répertoire populaire dans la musique occidentale savante – Points de repère concernant la période contemporaine », *Éducation musicale* n°499, Douains, E.M., 2003, pp. 29-35.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">55. « Quatre variations sur une mort annoncée – Penser l'existence de l'opéra contemporain après 1974 » ; *Analyse musicale* n°46, Paris, A.D.A.M., 2003, pp. 5-13.</footnote>
the choice of a new technical potential exploitable whilst
creating music<fnref n="56" />.

The previous part is echoed in that it came to light that a
discourse about a work which may initially be coherent can
suddenly lose its primary sense. This depended on the « observer's
perception », or on the way the notions are defined and put into
relation.

Concerning the first issue, i.e. the presence of popular repertoire in western music, the twenty some musical examples showed more or less consciously the notion of presence or influence of one repertoire on another. The first category referred to the link between extra-musical popular culture and modern western erudite music – presence of rituals and beliefs, nature, the circus and popular theatre – and the second referred to the relation between popular music and western erudite music where oral tradition, traditional music, hymns and non-European music are noticeable. The conclusion showed there were two different listening experiences of the work. As defined by Apollinaire K. Anakesa, « erudite world music » (« aesthetics of the diverse ») is a product of mixed heritage of various cultures, whereas the ethnomusicologist Simha Arom distinguished the true from the false, the original from the fake. In the end, deforming was in fact creating clichés. But was it possible to break away from the principle of endless deforming, as is noticeable in the various contemporary musical examples presented?

Two new studies were to strengthen an uncanny notion. I
branched off from the presence of opera after 1978 towards the

<footnote n="56">56. « Virtualité du son et écriture musicale : pour une création algorithmique de timbre », *Analyse Musicale* n°48, Paris, A.D.A.M., 2003, pp. 55-70.</footnote>
notion of musically non-exploited technical potential. Summarized
here is this second problematic about the notion of presence.

A broad historical assessment on voice treatment before 1978 announced an original musical situation. I then presented four operas by European and American composers who adhered to major singular aesthetic trends: *Europera 5* (1991) by John Cage, *Dédale* (1995) by Hugues Dufourt, *El Niño* (2000) by John Adams, *Das Mädchen Mit Den Schwefelhölzern* (1996) by Helmut Lachenmann. After a personal interpretation of the Cage (absence) and Dufourt (separation) operas, I evoked the projects of director Peter Sellars (« the dialogue ») and composer Lachenmann (« tone »). Again, the last part of the argument showed a distortion of the initial commentary, provoked by the introduction of two aesthetic conceptions from music history.

From progress in art (Theodor W. Adorno) to the metamorpho-
sis of a genre (Danielle Cohen-Levinas), I had concluded an
imaginary opera (virtual) that could nowadays be presented
outside the stages of research or courageous experimentations.
This ending triggered a technical and aesthetic study on models
of sound synthesis, which is the topic of another chapter. More
precisely I put the emphasis on the presence of a technical poten-
tial which was over forty years old in its digital version and not
yet fully exploited: additive synthesis represented the future of a
unified model between sound and image – polysemous
language, parametric continuity – pending the reunification of
all senses in the writing of virtual interactive artistic worlds. In
conclusion, the concept of presence was understood as the sign
of an absence: presence of a singular technological potential
belonging to an era, absence of the work as a reflection of this
technology and of a new type of unified control of parameters
of a « multi-sensory synthesis ».

Since the beginning of this research the same conclusion
systematically came out: the listening of the various concepts –
frontier, apogee, non-repetition, presence – and consequently
the imagination of the work did not seem to be able to invent or reinvent itself or even to exist. The three first parts referred to analytical commentaries of works or techniques. The following part concentrated more on introducing the question of link between concept and history, symbol of evolution and constancy hardly avoidable.

*Associated to this historical reading, why did you introduce the concepts of chance and determinism in the third part of your discussion?*

These two « very current » notions are described in science, philosophy and other fields as being the origin of a sort of logic and coherence which guides our actions and thought processes. More precisely, the objective was to define the musical chance and determinism concepts by means of looking into history and science. The analysis of a conceptual multidisciplinary context underscored the hegemonic character of determinism on the scale of human development. From cause and effect relations – implicitly understood by the fabrication of the trap in prehistoric times – to the mechanistic outlook on the world of the end of the 19th century, I brought to mind the appearance of an all-powerful and efficient idea based on three logical and infallible dimensions of time, past, present and future. In the baroque era, I had chosen the example of the fugue which music scholars questioned as truly being a structure, since every fugue seemed so different. *L'Art de la fugue* by Jean-Sébastien Bach, which is commonly accepted as the peak of musical creation, was placed in a determinist framework of history.

This hegemony of determinism was disrupted over the next half century. The English botanist Robert Brown noted in 1827 that suspended particles in static liquids were subject to incessant and erratic movements. Their movements were thereafter named Brownian. Their trajectory could not be precisely determined but
their overall movement was visible. The inherent complexity of
studying billions of microscopic particles was hard to imagine
with the scientific capabilities at hand. Statistical physics or
statistical mechanics were invented in 1872 by an Austrian physi-
cist Ludwig Boltzmann, who wrote the founding formula of
statistical mechanics. What was impossible to predict for an
isolated particle was in fact possible for billions of particles by
considering the system in its entirety rather than the microscopic
units. In 1900, Max Planck invented the « quantum theory »
which is the cradle of modern physics: radiant energy, just like
matter, has a discontinuous structure, and can only exist as
grains or quantum (minimum possible quantity of energy which
can be emitted, propagated or absorbed). As atomic physics
developed, scientists started realizing that at the level of the
atom, the elements (electrons, protons, neutrons) had a different
behavior than that of the subjects studied on a macroscopic level.
They became unable to draw determinist (« classical mechanics
») links between various states of a single system. In 1924,
Werner Karl Heisenberg exposed his infamous uncertainty prin-
ciple which said it is not possible to describe both the speed and
position of an electron: it is the idea of fundamental randomness
as constitutive of matter.

This period also came with a profound evolution in art. In
music, chance progressively appeared, almost insidiously and
indirectly. By associating chance, unpredictability and auton-
omy (determinist non-relation of elements), the evolution of
tonal language, which tended towards the systematic use of
chromatism or complex chords beginning in the middle of the
19th century, created an ambiguity of musical material favoring
a plurality of harmonic directions or resolutions (chords used in
*Tristan und Isold*, 1857, by Richard Wagner).

Also, harmony blended with timbre like the founding of an
acoustic space having a certain expressive autonomy through
the control of color (*Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune*, 1892, by
Claude Debussy). As a progressive manifestation of chance, I mentioned the idea of an independent blending of cause – 5th movement of the 2nd symphony (1902) by Charles Ives or his Central Park in the Dark (1911), the premises of open structure as seen in a piece like Hallowe'en by the same composer in 1911, the use of cluster or noise (acoustic manifestation of chance) in The Tides of Manaunaun (1912) by Henry Cowell, the contingent and unintentional choice of sound material asserted in L'Art des bruits, manifesto written by Luigi Russolo in 1913, the notion of indeterminate timbre of the piano prepared in Bacchanale by John Cage in 1938, ending with a piece fully generated by chance based on the Yi-King « method », Music of Changes (1951) by Cage.

Starting in the 1960s, computer applications showed that a simple determinist system could generate a chaotic state. A few years later, Brian Ferneyhough complexified a musical invention synonymous with unpredictability, renewal or even chaos, based on simple determinist systems, combinatory systems originally strictly opposed to the idea of chance<fnref n="57" />. Thanks to this « more open and stronger » understanding of chance and determinism, the debate on the aesthetic aspect of intellectual resources was reopened and questioned the dualist vision of the first part of the 20th century.

*To prolong this chapter and this outlook on creation you proposed to give a musical definition of chance and determinism; can you briefly summarize your idea?*

Four levels of perception described the listening of a piece. Each level symbolized a potentially different listening of concepts of

<footnote n="57">57. The aesthetic debate of the 1950's opposed serial music to stochastic music would not be pertinent nowadays.</footnote>
chance and determinism. Through a single listening of a work, I would hear its genesis (1), the writing techniques used (2), the relation between the score and the performance (3), and the reality of the finished work (4). Either the composer gave priority to unpredictability, as defined by the concept of chance, or he attempted cause to effect relations to generate predictability (determinism). He could also mix these concepts.

The definitions of chance and determinism are also part of a complex combination of these four levels of perception. As in the previous paragraph, I could perfectly well imagine an unpredictable piece as being the rendering of the accumulation of determinist gestures. A meaningful example is the genesis of the piece which could be the projection of a defined imagination (*mimesis*), the writing technique being combinatory, the score precisely written and the final perception of the piece contrary to any feeling of predictability.

*What intermediary assessment of this book can you draw?*

The definitions of musical determinism and chance were mainly oriented towards the notion of predictability and its contrary. As such, it again came to mind that these concepts within a musical piece had a story. The informed listener was able to date the writing of the piece based on the implemented concept: the listening of raw chance (1951) is not to be confused with directed or combined chance (1956) for example.

But there was no more unique and systematic relation between a particular writing technique and the final perception of the piece. Associated to the various layers in which the concept could be used in a more complex fashion (genesis, writing technique, relation between score and performance, listening of the piece), the birth of the piece concretely symbolized a point of hypothetical and fragile balance between these different constraints.
Furthermore, in the context of an erudite occidental culture, this research called to mind the inseparable and extremely tight links between the piece, the creation and these two concepts. Was it possible for the artist to choose to imagine a piece beyond these notions of chance and/or of determinism? Besides the ability to renew or transform itself, this dual concept formed the walls of a prison in which imagination and sensibility were confined. I concluded this topic with two important ideas: experience and invention.

*Why stress these notions?*

Experience was singled out as a means to approach and define the concept of creation. It did not allege universality and remained a simple ephemeral expression of time and partial memory. The conclusion of this research confirmed that experience was not a given; it is to be cultivated, learned, rationalized, and forgotten. Referring to Friedrich W. Nietzsche, the philosopher Bernard Sève speaks of musical experience as being « self-work presupposing will »<fnref n="58" /> « an appropriation of otherness or rather a confrontation with it »<fnref n="59" />. A work became a critical self-reference defining the experience of creation.

Concerning the notion of invention, one of the ways of looking at music history was to analyze the times of great shifts. According to Isabelle Stengers, when referring to history of science, invention is « a liberation from all social, historical, cultural... determinations»<fnref n="60" />. « The break from the common world is not only part of

<footnote n="58">58. Bernard Sève, *L'Altération musicale, Ce que la musique apprend au philosophe*, Paris, Seuil, 2002, p. 35.</footnote>

<footnote n="59">59. *Ibidem*, p. 34.</footnote>

<footnote n="60">60. Isabelle Stengers & Judith Schlangerf, *Les concepts scientifiques, Invention et pouvoir*, Paris, Gallimard, 1991, p. 150.</footnote>
the artist's vocation, it is also the result of his inventive activity and opposes the unprecedented to habit [...] »<fnref n="61" />.

Invention is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be able to refer to musical creation, since the inventor is not necessarily a composer. Music scholars stressed the historical importance of *Quatre études de rythme* for piano by Olivier Messiaen, to his great surprise, because it was the invention of a new musical language referred to as generalized serial. Messiaen's reaction is symptomatic, an excessive focus on a type of work possibly generating confusion between invention and major a musical piece.

*It remains that musical work and the very idea of creation also represent for you the expression of various types of conditions, which was the conclusion of your book...*

Borrowing singular aesthetic outlooks and based on the analysis of Pierre Cometti, Jacques Morizot and Roger Pouivet<fnref n="62" />, I stated in conclusion that there were six ways of tackling the notion of creation, domains of possible conditioning.

## 1. The role of institutions

In Western Europe, composers have a strong relation with public or private institutions. It is the notion of commissions by a few institutions for orchestras and high level ensembles which frequently perform contemporary music. Certain contemporary composers do not take the risk of writing for big ensembles because their writing style is not adapted to this institutional framework (psychology of orchestra musicians, decision and

<footnote n="61">61. *Ibidem*, p. 160.</footnote>

<footnote n="62">62. Jean-Pierre Cometti, Jacques Morizot & Roger Pouivet, *Questions d'esthétique*, Paris, PUF, 2000.</footnote>
policy processes of big symphony orchestras or operas, number of rehearsals...). Also, composers can be more or less isolated from institutions which can have immediate consequences on their work since they cannot « regularly » listen to their own pieces. A radical fracture is rarer, for example in the case of Charles Ives in the US during a good part of his life.

We can cite the works of Goerge Dickie (1992)<fnref n="63" /> about institu-
tional art, stressing the importance of recognition by institutions
which safeguard objective judgment criteria.

2. The public

To simplify, certain composers openly take into account the
public's reaction in their creative process, while others seem to
ignore it. Regardless of speeches or hasty interpretations, the
case of composers with no will of communication is extremely
marginal. Also, composers are mindful of the public's welcome,
a factor which contributes to the evolution of the individual and
collection imagination. Research on the evolution of writing
styles of composers such as Pierre Boulez, Mauricio Kagel,
Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis... is, in these
matters, significant.

The public's welcome is particularly important in Hans Robert
Jauss' (1978)<fnref n="64" /> research, in which he proposes aesthetics of
reception based on three reactions: immediate satisfaction,
deception or irritation, and the desire to change and to adapt to
the newly presented horizons of the work. These reactions

<footnote n="63">63. George Dickie, « Définir l'art », translated by Hary-Schaeffer, in *Esthétique et Poétique*, texts selected by G. Genette, Paris, Le Seuil (Points-Essais 249), 1992.</footnote>

<footnote n="64">64. Hans Robert Jauss, *Pour une esthétique de la réception*, Paris, Gallimard, 1978.</footnote>
determine the norms of quality and rank the works (balance between novelty and satisfaction).

### 3. The link between technique and creation

In an article called « *Science and technology as source of inspiration in the 20th century* »<fnref n="65" /> Marc Battier shows how the development of new technology – from electronic sound at the end of the 19th century to the birth of virtual worlds – influenced research and musical creation.

Still in the realm of a strong relation between technique and creation, Jürgen Habermas proposes aesthetics of communication using technological media for the renewal of aesthetic experiences and the possible rational influence on individuals<fnref n="66" />.

### 4. Evolution and dating of musical material

How to isolate the concept of creation, which is synonymous with invention, from any idea of evolution of musical material as pertaining to history? If we accept that material is a consequence of technique, then there is indeed a link between material and technique. Is it then possible to create something new with something old? Musical material participates actively in our listening to a piece of the creation concept, and we cannot therefore avoid a critical and historic vision. When listening, the musician is capable of dating the use of the sound material: a

<footnote n="65">65. Marc Battier, « *Science et technologie comme source d’inspiration au XXe siècle* », in *Musiques, une encyclopédie pour le XXIe siècle. Musiques du XXe siècle*, directed by J. J. Nattiez, Paris, Actes Sud/Cité de la musique, 2002, pp. 512-532.</footnote>

<footnote n="66">66. Jürgen Habermas, *Théorie de l'agir communicationnel*, trad. franç. J.-M. Ferry, Paris, Fayard, 2 vol., 1987.</footnote>
nuance, a timbre, a type of pitch sequence, the structure, these
are all elements constituting musical language which are
stamped with temporality.

There are here certain elements of a European aesthetic tradition strongly represented by Theodor W. Adorno who proposes an aesthetic of modernity encompassing the notion of progress of material<fnref n="67" /> (works from the Vienna School, Pierre Boulez, non-figurative painting, avant-garde literature – Stéphane Mallarmé, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry, James Joyce, Paul Celan, Samuel Beckett...). The analysis sheds light on the subversive nature of the works.

5. Mechanism of a work

A musical piece has its own logic which originates from the invention of new types of coherence. Symbolic and combinatory logic, introduction of chance in the piece, intuition, invention of psychoacoustic models as processes for inducing the piece, these are all mechanisms which either work or not; all these characteristics can enable understanding the concept of creation.

This compositional constraint is within the tradition of Anglo-Saxon aesthetics based on analytical philosophy and the works of the nominalist philosopher Nelson Goodman. Analytical philosophy proposes to analyze the structure of language as a series of signs and symbols rather than to ponder its meaning. Language says nothing to the world: it is a symbolic system which enables the creation of worlds, whether it is knowledge, nature or art. Ideas are not at the center of the aesthetic experience, and comprehension of

<footnote n="67">67. Theodor W. Adorno, *Philosophie de la nouvelle musique* (1948), translation by Hans Hildenbrand and Alex Lindenberg, Paris, Gallimard, 1962. *Théorie esthétique* (1970), translation by Marc Jimenez, Paris, Klincksieck, 1974.</footnote>
the aesthetic mechanism becomes fundamental. Arthur Danto<fnref n="68" />, like Nelson Goodman<fnref n="69" />, considers judging taste, subjective appreciation and quantitative evaluation to be superfluous and inadequate. This interpretation, which is unintelligible to the non-initiated, is not spontaneous and requires an informed public which would let itself be absorbed into an atmosphere of art theory.

## 6. Pure perception

The case of auditory illusions explored by Jean-Caude Risset (researcher – composer) in his works such as *Mutations*, *Contours*, *Electron-Positron*, *Little Boy* enable us to look at creation from the standpoint of cognitive sciences and of a reality linked to our psycho-physiological perspective abilities.
Researchers in this field pointed out limitations which are not only psychological, but also physiological due to the mechanism of ear perception.

Christopher Peacocke (1987)<fnref n="70" /> radically defends the theory of a non-cognitive pure perception which he calls depiction, a purely perceptual phenomena which does not require any mastering of symbolic systems of representation. It is a phenomenal skill as an intellectual disposition which is to be distinguished from a doxastic ability which consists in applying a concept (Dretske, 1995⁷¹ – Pouivet, 1996⁷²).

<footnote n="68">68. Arthur Danto, *La Transfiguration du banal*, french translation by Cl. Hary-Schaeffer, Paris, Seuil, 1989.</footnote>

<footnote n="69">69. Nelson Goodman, *Langages de l'art : Une approche de la théorie des symboles*, Paris, Hachette</footnote>

<footnote n="70">70. Christopher Peacocke, « Depiction », *Philosophical Review*, XCVI, n°3, 1987.</footnote>

<footnote n="71">71. Fred Dreske, *Naturalizing the Mind*, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1995.</footnote>

<footnote n="72">72. Roger Pouivet, *Esthétique et logique*, Liège, P. Mardaga, 1996.</footnote>
*Your research linked to a definition of the concept of creation seemed to differ from these types of categorizations, with various insights also based on your experience.*

It became clear that reflecting on creation could not be reduced to one of the aesthetic paradigms cited above. My various approaches showed that a piece or creation is simultaneously apparent to its institution, technique, material, functioning, perception... these concepts never becoming exclusive or contradictory. Aesthetics, like other fields of study, could engage in defining what could be referred to as the idea of a whole, an inherent complexity to the concept of creation.

*You mention a context which pre-exists creation, stating themes which are dear to certain philosophers like Alain Finkielkraut.*

The philosopher Alain Finkielkraut states that according to Johann Gottfried von Herder, there is no absolute, but rather « regional values and happened principles ». Herder wants to « stop the secular mistake of intelligence » which « decontextualizes human works of art, extracts them from where they were produced, and then judges them based on timeless criteria of Good, Truth, or the Beautiful »<fnref n="73" />. Finkielkraut goes on in his analysis stating that « society does not come from mankind, as far back as we can go in history, humans are born into an existing society. We are forced, instantly, to apply our own actions like we house our words and inner thoughts within a language which developed outside ourselves and which is beyond our control. Instantly: whether it is our nation or our language, we enter a game where rules are not ours to be decided, but rather

<footnote n="73">73. Alain Finkielkraut, *La défaite de la pensée*, Paris, Gallimard, 1992, p. 17.</footnote>
to be abided by »<fnref n="74" />. Given these conditions, we are not born
with free creative will, we acquire it « by overcoming the agita-
tion of ambitions, the narrowness of personal benefit and the
tyranny of common place »<fnref n="75" />.

Mircea Eliade indirectly sheds light on Finkielkraut's thought by showing how the development of cultures is a living incar-nation of myths. « Myths not only describe the origins of the World, animals, plants and mankind, but also all the funda-mental events which contributed to making mankind what it is today, that is a mortal, sexed, organized into societies, having to work to live, and working according to certain rules. If the world *exists*, if mankind *exists*, it is because Supernatural Beings deployed a creative activity at the « beginning ». But other events took place after the cosmogony and the anthropogony, and mankind, as it is today, is the direct result of these mythical events, it is made up from these events »<fnref n="76" />. Mankind is not born into a neutral environment, its existence is, according to Eliade, molded by myths, individual and collective memory being the rendering of the origin. Still in the same book, *Aspect du mythe*, he quotes the comic strips which present a modern version of mythological heroes, or otherwise describes the passion the elites have for *Finnegans Wake* or atonal music<fnref n="77" /> as an exam-ple of rituals of initiation: « the fascination by means of diffi-culty or even incomprehensibility of works of art exposes the desire to discover a new meaning, secret, so far unknown, of the World and human existence ».

<footnote n="74">74. *Ibidem*, p. 26.</footnote>

<footnote n="75">75. *Ibidem*, p. 168, phrase taken from the Enlightenment philosophers and cited by Alain Finkielkraut.</footnote>

<footnote n="76">76. Mircea Eliade, *Aspects du mythe*, Paris, Gallimard, 1963, pp. 23-24.</footnote>

<footnote n="77">77. *Ibidem*, p. 230.</footnote>
René Girard even evokes a « purism of innovation »<fnref n="78" /> referring to the birth of modern art: « the desire for novelty be devoid of any trace of imitation, is the same as wanting a plant to grow with its roots in the sky » [...] « the mimetic formula of innovation applies to our economic lives just as well as to all realms of cultural activity »<fnref n="79" />. He reminds us of the imitators of one generation which became the audacious innovators of the next<fnref n="80" />. In the conclusion of his book *La voix méconnue du réel*, Girard is more categorical: « the radicalism of the idea of an absolute invention is obviously flawed ». « The tendency to define innovation in more and more « radical » and anti-mimetic terms [...] reveals the abdication of modern intelligence in face of this mimetic pressure, a collective joining in self-deception which Marx, despite all his intuitions, illustrates perfectly »<fnref n="81" />.

As we have seen before, for Eliade, « the fascination by means of difficulty or even incomprehensibility of works of art » or the « desire to transcend one’s own personal and historic time and to dive into an unfamiliar time, whether ecstatic or imaginary, will never disappear. As long as this desire lives on, it can be said that modern man still preserves certain remnants of a mythological behavior. The traces of such behavior can be found in the desire to recapture the intensity with which one has experienced or known something for the first time; to recover the distant past, the bliss of the *beginnings* »<fnref n="82" />. This outlook on history shows, in its own way, the aesthetic debates opposing « retrograde » and « avant-garde » music: some tend to be in relation

<footnote n="78">78. René Girard, *La voix méconnue du réel, Une théorie des mythes archaïques et modernes*, Paris, Grasset, 2002, p. 299.</footnote>

<footnote n="79">79. *Ibidem*, p. 213.</footnote>

<footnote n="80">80. *Ibidem*, p. 304.</footnote>

<footnote n="81">81. *Ibidem*, p. 308.</footnote>

<footnote n="82">82. Mircea Eliade, *Aspects du mythe*, Paris, Gallimard, 1963, p. 235.</footnote>
with history, others advocate a break. In both cases we are faced
with a lively expression of mythical thought.

Eero Tarasti, a Finnish musicologist, concentrated his research
on the link between myth and music, and named his book
(released in France in 2003) accordingly. Inspired by Claude
Lévi-Strauss, he attempts to demonstrate that despite many
cultural and stylistic differences between the works of Richard
Wagner, Jean Sibelius and Igor Stravinski, there is a « mythical
dimension », « a stratum whose components – mythemes in
Levi Strauss’ terminology, or functions, in Vladimir Propp’s –
have their equivalent in music »<fnref n="83" />.

Art history shows us that all breaks or removals from context of
communication are not irrational. As with Judith Schlanger<fnref n="84" /> in
the field of science, there could be non-integrated novelty, and
deviance phenomena, in other terms, an artistic logic of rupture
based on the ability to integrate historical reality while altering it.
Whatever the vocabulary used in these various analyses may be,
these remarks confirmed my research and the presence of a
context which pre-exists creation, in a superficial way, or more
deeply integrated in a musical piece. Freedom to imagine seemed
irrevocably conditioned by history, technique, aesthetics,
culture... The artist was « clear » from this context in only two
ways: by conflicting or collaborating. Coming back to the
concepts of frontier and apogee, their presence disappeared
giving way to a feeling of absence by creating a stylistic artifact
which would destroy the coherence of the piece. Absence was not
the same as a vacuum. On the contrary, I see these concepts as
being part of the work, like the sign of past times or inevitable

<footnote n="83">83. Eero Tarasti, *Mythe et Musique, Wagner – Sibelius, Stravinsky*, Paris, Michel de Maule, 2003, p. 16.</footnote>

<footnote n="84">84. Isabelle Stengers & Judith Schlanger, *Les concepts scientifiques, Invention et pouvoir*, Paris, Gallimard, 1991.</footnote>
presence, the unfeasibility of altering imagination. As with the
chance and determinism duo which symbolizes both evolution
and a persistence without any true renewal. *L'œuvre musicale à
l'épreuve du concept* had cast an important doubt on the artist's
ability to cope with the concept of creation and invention. The
more I pondered the problem, the more the work revealed its
often irregular relation to the past. The imagination of the work
was imperfect, my sensibility was altered by thought, the mystery
of creation was crumbling leaving me facing the imaginary
threshold limit of time and memory. This imagining of a unique
time of creation evoked the question of myths, metaphysics or
religions. In astrophysics, I thought of 10⁻⁴³, the time as defined
by Planck, which indicates an extreme limit of knowledge and
the end of the voyage towards the origin.

*In the end, do you think the concept of creation exists?*

If I look at the case of so-called democratic societies<fnref n="85" />, creation
is confronted with the risk that the piece becomes the direct
expression of an all-powerful majority, generating a conformism
and oppressive power upon minorities. Also, the worldwide
economic crisis of 2008, with its extravagances and conse-
quences, reminds us that creation could spawn, thereby reflect-
ing an all-powerful economic might of minorities.

The composer inevitably collaborates, even though our societies
tend to diminish or even ignore this interested relation. Any
important creation on the material level depends, for example, on
the decision of a few private or public associates, and therefore on
the ability of the creator to not deceive them. Composers are not
alone in this situation, deciders having themselves the same type
of pressure from their employers..., as in a never-ending chain.

<footnote n="85">85. Analyzed by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th century.</footnote>
But it is not because the concept of musical creation does not convey a type of reality that it is obsolete. The idea of presence associated with the concept of creation also determines a presence, like in Schrödinger's story of the cat which is both dead and alive at the same time<fnref n="86" />.

The relation of the concept with musical works lets us foresee a double movement: the more memory – history – develops, the less the concept of fundamental creation exists, and the greater the ability to create becomes. This thought also confirms the presence of an asymptotic movement which defines the ability to create. Objective measures of this movement towards this utopian act seem possible: it is what comes out of *L'œuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept*, this conclusive, catastrophic somewhat systematic form linked in every chapter, not being only synonymous with the collapse of discourse, but also, of course, with a prolonged and objective attempt to evaluate the presence of the piece.

We must then wonder about the meaning of words and fight against common places. On the one side composers speak like almighty creators; in schools they boast the merits of « creation », creators flourish with the internet... on the other, the very idea of creation is associated with certain ideologies, and evoking the notion of a major work is seen as elitist, pondering cultural peculiarities is not fashionable.

The idea of a work in movement which would be defined by its ability to tend towards the concept of creation introduces challenges which go beyond the strict realm of art. In this trajectory, even if the final object is utopian, the positioning of each work is not clearly equivalent. Like an intellectual standpoint or a

<footnote n="86">86. As shown in the synoptic diagram which summarizes relations between concept and work in the last chapter of *L'œuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept*.</footnote>
singular piece of research, the composing of a piece is or
becomes, even beyond its own realm and in a form of ephemeral
mix, a social, economical and political act with consequences.

Figure 39: See central section.
*Diagram symbolizing the presence and the absence*
*of the work and creation*

It is indeed this context which is called for when listening to a
work, with neither judgment value nor feelings of progress or
superiority, but as a will to exist.

Ending my thought process, I had reminded the reader that our
outlook on a work is neither acquired nor a given. Its presence
is a manifestation of experience. To say that the definition of the
work is limited to its unique and finite characteristics would be
reductive: the concept of creation is the expression of condition-
ings of all sorts associated to our limited ability to function
outside the system. The simple will and pleasure of researching,
pondering, venturing, communicating and sharing are not in
vain: they still, in our times, express a courageous attitude.

A work tends towards creation in an asymptotic and utopian
manner: it is this trajectory which still allows me to believe in
the presence of creation, as well as in its absence.
POSTSCRIPTUM

Thanks to Yannick Poirier, Alain Bancquart and all those involved in this *Inactuelles* series, original, ambitious and courageous. This book and CD release has given me a unique chance to express a diversity within unity, which is what I strive for.
<figure><img src="image_30.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /></figure>
# APPENDIX 1

## STÉPHANE DE GÉRANDO
CATALOGUE

### Biography

Musical studies, international awards

Stéphane de Gérando was the top selected candidate for a composition curriculum at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP). He won the top prize for composition at the Paris Conservatory in 1993. He studied composition under Alain Bancquart, writing and analysis under Michel Philippot, orchestration under Gérard Grisey, musical computing under Tristan Murail, and electroacoustics under Guy Reibel and Laurent Cuniot.

In 1994, Stéphane de Gérando was the top selected candidate for a Composition PhD at the CNSMDP where he took master classes with Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Franco Donatoni, Emmanuel Nunes, Henri Dutilleux. He won the International Award at the Contemporary Music Festival of Darmstadt (1994), « Prix de l'Association des Anciens Elèves et Elèves des Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique et d'Art Dramatique de Paris » (1991), the « Prix Académique de la SACEM » (1995), and was the laureate of the « Fondation Sasakawa » in 1993 and 1994.
Stéphane de Gérando was trained as an orchestra director at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris by Claude Pichereau. He is also musical director of icarEnsemble and has recently recorded with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France.

Music and multimedia works, museum installations, monumental screenings

Stéphane de Gérando wrote several works for orchestras performed at Radio-France in Paris such as *Puisqu'il en est ainsi* for symphony orchestra and an 8 track magnetic tape, *En toi, avec lui et en lui* for four orchestra groups scattered around the public, *Intumescence*, commissioned by Radio-France and performed by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France coproduced by the INA-GRM. His latest works are *Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir* ordered by the 2E2M ensemble and performed at the Pompidou Center in Paris, *Du sens au sens* for flute, performed by P. Y. Artaud at the Contemporary Music Festival of Darmstadt, *Katanga*, for fifteen brass instruments and two percussions commissioned by Radio-France, *6ex1pen7sion4* commissioned by the French state, for ensemble and real time electronics performed in Paris by the 2E2M ensemble, *L'opéra de glace* commissioned by the French state, work for choir of teenagers, video and computer. His multimedia works have been exposed in contemporary art museums with outdoor and indoor monumental screenings. Among others *Binaurale, Blue bird, Intumescence* and lately CA – *Creative Algorithm*, a real time interactive process of creation of sound and image, presented at the « Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création 2007 ».

Research

While composing, his curriculum as a researcher started in 1991-92 by selecting further studies of musical computing at the
IRCAM (Paris); this led him to be a consultant there. In 1993, following research on computerized sound models syntheses, Stéphane de Gérando defended his PhD thesis on 20th century Music and Musicology at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales associated with the E.N.S., the I.R.C.A.M. and the C.N.R.S., and subsequently obtained Doctorate in « Aesthetics, Science and Technology of the Arts » from the Université Paris VIII in 1996 (Contingency and procedural determinism applied to computerized sound synthesis and musical writing).

The twenty some publications and the writing of a new thesis – Contemporary musical work in question – enabled him to obtain the habilitation to direct theses (Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches –HDR) in 2005. His work treats historical, aesthetic, pedagogical and institutional aspects linked to the notion of creation and of contemporary musical works on the one hand, and of modern technology on the other (algorithmic and synthesis control of sound and image aspects). Latest publications: L'oeuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept (2008), Trajectoire oblique (2007).

Deanships, teachings, juries, research

Stéphane de Gérando was director of the École de Musique et de Danse de Vaucressson (1999), Pedagogical Director of a higher education center which prepares future territorial government officials for the Diplôme d'Etat (CEFDEMA, 2000-05) exam, President of the Institut International pour l'Innovation, la Création Artistique et la Recherche (3icar) (since 2005).

He is currently director of the CFMI, a department of the UFR Arts de l'Université de Strasbourg.

Since 1998, he has been teaching composition, modern technology and programming, orchestration, history and analysis in the 20th century, history of cultural institutions, preparation for
CNFPT interviews, research methodology, directing musical ensembles at the following institutions (agrégation, CAPES, masters and undergraduate): IUT, CEFEDEM, CNSMDP. He also organized and participated in programs for returning students (CNFPT, CEFEDEM), preparing the *Certificat d'Aptitude*, and directed over forty theses.

Since 2005, he has directed research internships with “grandes écoles” and French universities like *Sciences Po*, the *École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, Informatique et Radiocommunication*, Paris IV Sorbonne, the *Université Télécom Lille 1*, the *Institut Supérieur Européen de Gestion*, the *Université Toulouse le Mirail*, and the *Université de Reims*.

As a member of the state orders commission of the *Ministère de la Culture* in 2008, he was invited to be a member of the jury for the *Certificat d'Aptitude de Professeur de Musique*, the *Diplômes d'Etat*, the CFNPT exams, and defenses of university theses. Stéphane de Gérando is also part of research laboratories such as LAPRIL and ARTES. He currently works with the computer and mathematics department of the *Université de Strasbourg* and participated in many international conferences on research.

## Catalogue of works

Publisher : 3icar /icarEditions

Score orders: 3icar@3icar.com

Online shop and internet downloads:

http://www.3icar.com/partitions_gerando.php

Presentation of the works (with extracts):

http://degerando.com/Presentation-oeuvre-sdg.html
# I. INSTRUMENTAL WORKS

## SOLO

### Sib Clarinet

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragment 1 (rapid) (2007)

Sib clarinet version / Duration: 3'

Hommage à Bach (1991)

Duration: 59" / Recorded CNSMDP 1991 / Pierre Dutrieu (cl.)

### Bass clarinet

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragment 4 (rapid) (2007)

Bass clarinet version / Duration: 5' / Creation: Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création 3icar / Aurélien Cescousse (cl. b.)

### Double bass

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragment 7 (rapide) (2007)

Double bass version / Duration: 7'

### Piccolo

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour (2007)

Piccolo version / Duration: 9' max. / fragment 1 (slow) / or fragment 7 (rapid) / Creation: 06/21/2007 / Carine Dupré (fl.) / or fragments 7 et 1

### Flute

Du sens au sens (1994)

For flute / Duration: 17' / Creation: 08/01/1994, Darmstadt
International Institute / Pierre-Yves Artaud (fl) / Recording of
the performance by Darmstadt, 1994 / Recording Inactuelles,
2008

Percussion

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragment 7 (rapid) (2006)

Percussion version / Duration: 7'

Piano

Metathesis (1988)

For piano / Duration: 12'/ Creation: 07/09/1998, international
piano meetings, Basque coast / Damien Michel (piano) /
Recording of the performance by Radio-France / Recording
CNSMDP 1990

Trumpet

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragment 7 (rapid) (2007)

Trumpet version / Duration: 7'

Violin

Virtualité et conscience du vide (2008)

Solo violin version (rapid) / Duration: 5'

Cello

Virtualité et conscience du vide (2008)

Solo cello version (rapid) / Duration: 2'
INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE

2 instruments

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour (2008):

Piccolo, bass clarinet version / Duration: 12 max. / fragment 7
(rapid) / or fragments 1 and 7 (slow, rapid) / or fragments 7, 4
(rapid, rapid)

Piccolo, double bass version (2006) / Duration: 14 max. / frag-
ment 7 (rapid) / or fragments 1 et 7 (slow, rapid) / or fragments
1, 7, 4 (slow, rapid, rapid)

Piccolo, trumpet version (2006) / Duration: 12 max. / fragment 7 (rapid) / or fragments 1 et 7 (slow, rapid) / or fragments 6,1,7 (slow, rapid, rapid)

Piccolo, percussion version (2006) / Duration: 9 max. / fragment 7 (rapid) / or fragments 1 et 7 (slow, rapid)

Trumpet, percussion version (2006) / Duration: 9 max. / frag-
ment 7 (rapid) / or fragments 1 et 7 (slow, rapid)

Double bass, percussion version (2006) / Duration: 12 max. /
fragment 7 (rapid) / or fragments 7 et 4 (slow, rapid)

3 instruments

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7,4 (2006)

Piccolo, sib clarinet /cl. b, percussions version / Duration: 15' max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7,4 (2006)

Piccolo, double bass, percussion version / Duration: 15' max.
sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour, (2006)

Piccolo, trumpet, double bass version / Duration: 15' max.

Virtualité et conscience du vide (1993)

String trio (violin, viola, cello) / fragment 2 (trio) and/or fragment 1 (Cello solo) / Duration: 15' max. / Creation: 1994, Journées de la musique contemporaine, CNSMDP / Recording CNSMDP / Recording inactuelles 2008

4 instruments

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7, 4 (2006)

Flute, trumpet, double bass, percussions version / Duration:
15' max.

7 instruments

Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir (1996)

For soprano, narrator, flute, clarinet, trumpet, cello, percussions and amplification system / Based on a poem by Adrian Miatlev / Duration: 15' / Creation: 05/29/1995, Centre Pompidou Paris 2e2M ensemble, director Tsung Yeh

Musique pour église, pécheur d'amour, le Christ et moi (1991)

Sextet for flute in G, English horn, harp, vibraphone, sib clarinet, viola and imposed reverberation / Duration: 11' / Creation: 05/16/1991, Studio 106 of Radio-France, Paris / CNSMDP ensemble / Director: Alain Bancquart / Recording CNSMDP

18 instruments

Katanga (2004)

15 brass instruments and two percussions / Duration: 10' /
Mandated by Radio-France / Radio-France Philharmonic
Orchestra / Director: Stéphane de Gérando / Recording Radio-France

## ORCHESTRA

### Pièce pour cordes (1996)

For string orchestra / Mandated by the Montpellier Philharmonic orchestra / Duration: 15' / Creation: 11/23/1996, Opéra Berlioz, Le Corum / Montpellier Philharmonic orchestra / Director: Jérôme Pillement / Recording: OPM

### En toi, avec lui et en lui (1992)

52 soloists and chamber auditorium (four orchestra groups scattered around the public) / Creation: 01/31/92, Présences 92, Grand Auditorium de Radio-France, Paris (version with two recorded groups) / CNSMDP Orchestra / Director: Pascal Rophé / Recording CNSMDP, directed by J. S. Béraud

## II. MIXED WORKS
(with computer, CD or DVD)

### SOLO AND ELECTROACOUSTICS

### sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour (2007)

Bass clarinet and differed time/real time electronics version / Duration: 8' max. / and/or fragment 6 / with computer (sound file) / and/or fragment 4 / with computer (real time) / Creation: 11/13/2007, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Toulouse, techniques 3icar / Aurélien Cescousse (cl. B.) / Video recording 3icar
sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragment 1 (slow) (2006) /
Piccolo with real time electronics version / Duration: 3'

INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE AND ELECTROACOUSTICS

2 instruments and electroacoustics

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7, 4 (2008)
Piccolo, bass clarinet, real time electronic tape version /
Duration: 15' max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7, 4 (2008)
Bass clarinet, keyboard (computer) version / fragment 7 (rapid) /
or fragment 4 (slow, rapid) / or fragment 7 and 4 (slow, rapid) /
Duration: 15' max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour (2007)
Piccolo, keyboard (computer) version / fragment 7 (rapid) / or
fragments 1 et 7 (slow, rapid) / Duration: 9' max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour (2007)
Trumpet, keyboard (computer) version / fragment 7 (rapid) / or
fragments 1 et 7 (slow, rapid) / Duration: 9' max.

3 instruments and electroacoustics

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7, 4 (2007)
Piccolo, clarinets (sib and bass), keyboard (computer) version /
Duration: 15' / Creation: 10/13/2006, Festival de
l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Art Moderne et
Contemporain of Toulouse, techniques 3icar / Director:
Stéphane de Gérando
sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7 (2006)
Piccolo, trumpet, percussion (with computer) version /
Duration: 12 max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7 (2006)
Piccolo, trumpet, keyboard (with computer) version / Duration:
12 max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 7, 4 (2006)
Double bass, percussion, keyboard (with computer) version /
Duration: 12 max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 7, 4 (2006)
Bass clarinet, percussion, keyboard (with computer) version /
Duration: 12 max.

4 instruments and electroacoustics

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 7, 4 (2006)
Piccolo, double bass, percussion, keyboard (with computer)
version / Duration: 12 max.

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour - fragments 6, 1, 7, 4 (2006)
Piccolo, clarinets (sib and bass), percussion, keyboard (with
computer) version / Duration: 15 max.

5 instruments and electroacoustics

sixEXonePENsevenSIONfour – fragments 6 1 7 4 (2006)
flute, trumpet, double bass, percussions, keyboard and real time
electronic / State commission / Duration: 15' / Creation:
06/19/2006, Eglise des Billettes, Paris / 2e2M ensemble/tech-
niques CCMIX / Director Pierre Roullier / Recording 2e2M
15 instruments and electroacoustics

*Intumescence* (1997)

Instrumental ensemble and two track digital tape / Mandated by Radio-France / Duration: 15' / Creation: 02/20/1997, Présences 97, studio 104, Radio-France / Philharmonic orchestra of Radio-France / coproduction Radio-France - GRM / Director: Tsung Yeh / Recording Radio-France

ORCHESTRA AND ELECTROACOUSTICS

*Puisqu'il en est ainsi* (1990)

For orchestra (one hundred instrumentalists) and eight track
magnetic tape / Duration: 30' / Creation: 03/08/1992, Présence
92, studio 104 of Radio-France Paris / CNSMDP orchestra,
coproduction GRM/Radio-France / Director: Mark Foster /
Recording Radio-France

CHORUS AND MULTIMEDIA

*L'opéra de glace* (2008)

Chorus of teenagers, tape and video / Order from the State and
order by the Collège Aliénor d'Aquitaine / Duration: 12' /
Creation: 06/05/2008, CNR of Bordeaux / Chorus with classes
from the CHAM and CHAD of the Collège Aliénor
d'Aquitaine of Bordeaux / Techniques 3icar - CNRB /
Director: Stéphane de Gérando / Recording CD and DVD
3icar
### III. MULTIMEDIAS AND ELECTROACOUSTICS WORKS
(with computer, cd or dvd)

#### MONUMENTAL SETUPS – SCREENINGS:
MULTIMEDIA WORKS (SOUND AND IMAGE)

For information on monumental screenings and setups please contact Stéphane de Gérando: gerando@degerando.com (requirements and quotes).

Museum setups: a cycle of over an hour currently exists (work in progress). The audience is immersed in a forest of virtual visual works, silenced and in slow motion (work on differential thresholds of perception) (HD screens), pseudo aleatorily disrupted space and time by monumental screening of various works (Blue bird, l'Opéra de glace, Intumescence, Binaurale...). Monumental screenings: each work is set up as a monumental projection adapted to the venue with an organized spatialization of sound (indoors and outdoors).

**CA – Creative algorithm** (2007) (real time)

Real time interactive piece (MAX-MSP-JITTER program) / Duration: undetermined / Presentation: 11/13/2007, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain of Toulouse, techniques 3icar

**Intumescence** (2008) (DVD or Video File (choice))

Multimedia version / Duration: 10' / Creation: 12/07/2008, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain of Toulouse, techniques 3icar

**L'opéra de glace** (2008)

Multimedia version / Duration 10' / Creation: 12/07/2008, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Aquitaine Bordeaux, techniques 3icar
### Blue bird (2007)

Mtimédia piece / Duration: 10' / Creation: 06/21/2007, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Aquitaine Bordeaux, techniques 3icar

### Binaurale – fragments 1 and 2 (2007)

Multimedia version, visuals based on a painting by Pierre Chaveau / Duration: 15' / Creation: 02/04/2007, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création, Musée d'Aquitaine Bordeaux, techniques 3icar

## ELECTROACOUSTIC WORKS ON CD OR SOUND FILE

### Binaurale (2007)

* Étude électronique 1(rapid) / Duration: 7' / Creation: 11/18/1999, Espace Hermès Muret / Entretemps ensemble
* Étude électronique 2 (slow) / Duration: 8'

### Intumescence

Tape only (CD) / Duration: 8' / Creation: 1996, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris

## Publications

### BOOKS

* L'œuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept, Bordeaux, 3icar / icarEditions, 2008, 200 p.

* Trajectoire oblique. Pour une expérience de l'écriture musicale et de la recherche, Bordeaux, 3icar / IcarEditions, 2006, 170 p.
Contingence et déterminisme procédural appliqués à la synthèse sonore informatique et l'écriture musicale, Villeneuve d'Ascq, Septentrion, Presses Universitaires, 1998, 470 p.

## ARTICLES

CA – *Creative Algorithm* – œuvre virtuelle interactive temps réel, Bordeaux, 3icar IcarEditions, 2007, 10 pages.

« Non répétition et œuvre musicale contemporaine. À partir de l'œuvre pour piano d'Arnold Schoenberg », *L'Éducation musicale* n°507/508, Vernon, Beauchesne, 2006, 10 p.

« La notion d'apogée dans Lemme-Icône-Epigramme de Brian Ferneyhough », *L'apogée, Cahiers du Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherches sur l'Imaginaire appliquées à la Littérature* (L.A.P.R.I.L.), Bordeaux, Eidôlon, 2004, 18 p.

« Création musicale, recherche, nouvelles technologies numériques et institution », Les cahiers d'A.R.T.E.S., Bordeaux, C.A.P.C., 2004, 10 p.

« La notion de frontière dans l'œuvre musicale après 1945: réalité ou utopie? - Exemples d'Ikhoor de Iannis Xenakis, d'Anahit de Giacinto Scelsi et de 4'33 de John Cage », Frontières et seuils, Cahiers du Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherches sur l'Imaginaire appliquées à la Littérature (L.A.P.R.I.L.), Bordeaux, Eidôlon, 2004, 15 p.

« À propos de l'œuvre pour bande seule et de l'écriture musicale de Jean-Claude Risset » (1/2), *L'Éducation musicale* n°507/508, Vernon, Beauchesne, 2003, 10 p.

« À propos de l'œuvre pour bande seule et de l'écriture musicale de Jean-Claude Risset» (2/2), *L'Éducation musicale* n°509/510, Vernon, Beauchesne, 2004, 4 p.

« Modèles de synthèse sonore informatique – Présentation des techniques de synthèse numérique et introduction à une esthétique du timbre synthétique », Analyse Musicale n°47, Paris, A.D.A.M., 2003, 13 p.
« Virtualité du son et écriture musicale: pour une création algo-
rithmique du timbre », Analyse Musicale, n°48, Paris,
A.D.A.M., 2003, 15 p.

« Modèles de synthèse sonore informatique - Présentation des techniques de synthèse numérique et introduction à une esthétique du timbre synthétique », Analyse Musicale n°4, Paris, ADAM, 2003, 13 p.

« Quatre variations sur une mort annoncée - Penser l'existence de l'opéra contemporain après 1978 », Analyse musicale n°46, Paris, A.D.A.M., 2003, 10 p.

« Présence du répertoire populaire dans la musique occidentale savante - Points de repère concernant la période contemporaine », L'Éducation musicale n°499, Vernon, Beauchesne, 2003, 6 p.

« Se séparer pour découvrir un imaginaire – L’expérience d’une écriture musicale », *Imaginaire et inconscient* n°8, revue d’études psychothérapeutiques, Bègles, L’Esprit du Temps, 2002, 6 p.

DICTIONARY

Dictionnaire Larousse (rédacteur)

Dictionnaire de la Musique et de la Danse, Paris, Larousse/
Bordas, 1999. Dix articles biographiques: Bussotti Sylvano, p.
78, Carter Elliott, p. 84, Janacek Leos, p. 223, Jolivet André, p.
226, Kodaly Zoltan, p. 238, Part Arvo, p. 328, Schaeffer Pierre,
p. 382, Schnittke Alfred, p. 384, Varèse Edgar, p. 429,
Zimmermann Bernd -Aloïs, p. 455.
# APPENDIX 2

## Biographies
Musicians who performed on the monographic CD

**Pierre-Yves Artaud**, flutist (Du sens au sens)

First prize in chamber music at the Paris Conservatory, Pierre-Yves Artaud currently is a concert artist and professor.

He is a soloist with 2e2m for which he was the artistic director from 1994 to 1997. In 1981, Pierre Boulez named him director of the research studio of the IRCAM which he directed until 1986.

As a great performer of the contemporary repertoire, Pierre-Yves Artaud inspired and created many works (Gilbert Amy, Alain Bancuart, André Boucourechliev, Franco Donatoni, Brian Ferneyhough, Sofia Goubaïdoulina, Klaus Huber, Betsy Jolas, Michaël Levinas, Paul Méfano, Emmanuel Nunes, Luis de Pablo or Yoshihisa Taira...).

As a flute and chamber music professor at the Paris Conservatory and École normale de musique de Paris, Pierre-Yves Artaud has taught many master classes (in Europe and Asia, Japan in particular).

He authored many educational treaties such as *Flûtes au Présent* and teaches didactics at the Paris Conservatory.

He won several awards such as the “prix de l'Académie Charles-Cros” which he won three times, the “grand prix d'interprétation de la musique française d'aujourd'hui” of the SACEM (1982), the “grand prix japonais du disque” (1984) and the “prix de la réalisation pédagogique” of the SACEM (1998).
### Gilles Burgos, flutist (6ex1pen7sion4)

After having received the first prize for flute and chamber music from the Paris Conservatory while working with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Christian Lardé, Gilles Burgos, dedicated himself to studying flute repertoires on original instruments, like the Hotteterre and Boehm flutes, managing to reconcile musicology and contemporary creation, favoring the solo repertoires and chamber music.

In 1978 he joined the Kaleidocollage Ensemble, a Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire formation, which is dedicated to 20th century chamber music. He was a member until 1998. He participated in concerts and did recordings with most chamber music ensembles: *Itinéraire* from 1986 to 1993, the Der blaue Reiter Ensemble (since 1998), and more rarely with the Modern Ensemble (Frankfurt am Main), 2e2m, GERM, the *Ensemble Intercontemporain... His bond with Laurent Cuniot led him to be part of the TM+ adventure very early on. He was awarded at the *Concours Internationaux de Genève et Paris*.

As a pedagogue and professor, Gilles Burgos currently teaches modern flute and the traverse at the *École Nationale de Musique et de Danse d'Evry*. He is also responsible for the Methodology for Teaching Flute at the *Département Formation à l'Enseignement* at the CNSM of Paris.

### Aurélien Cescousse, clarinetist

Aurélien Cescousse was trained by Michel Delattre at the École Nationale de Musique of Dax, and won two Medals of Honor from the city of Bordeaux during his advanced curriculum; one while in Richard Rimbert's program, and one while with José Soler for bass clarinet and one Medal of Honor in contemporary music while in Marie Bernadette Charrier's program. He went on to perfect his skills in Paris with Michel Arrignon, Romain Guyot and in bass clarinet with Jean-Marc Volta and Philippe-Olivier Devaux.
Aurélien Cescousse is a professor at the École Nationale de Musique de Dordogne (State Degree as Music Professor) and a soloist with the orchestre de l'Armée de l'air de Bordeaux and is regularly invited to perform with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. He performed under various orchestra directors like Yutaka Sado, Hans Graaf, Paul Meyer... and with various ensembles like the Ensemble Orchestral de Bordeaux, the Quatuors de clarinettes Métaphora and Appassionati, and the Quintette à vent de l'Armée de l'Air. He has been a member of the icarEnsemble since its creation, which is directed by Stéphane de Gérando and specialized in interaction with modern technology.

**Sona Kochafian**, violinist (Virtualité et conscience du vide, string trio)

Sona Kochafian studied music at Alep (Syria) and Beirut (Lebanon). She was a Fondation Gulbenkian scholarship recipient and laureate of the Paris Conservatory. She is both a teacher and a performer of chamber music in France as well as abroad. Sona Kochafian is currently part of the Kaleidoscope, A Tempo, 2e2m and Alternance ensembles.

**Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France** (Intumescence, Katanga)

The Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France, along with the National French Orchestra, the Chœur de Radio France and the Maîtrise de Radio France, one of the four permanent ensembles of Radio-France. It has 138 musicians and is flexible: it can be divided in two or three to adapt to the repertoire at hand and in particular to contemporary music.

**Pascal Robault**, violist

Pascal Robault studied with Michel Auclair at the Paris Conservatory and studied the viola at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon in Gérard Caussé's program. As of 1988, he perfected his skills with Hatto Beyerle.
Pascal Robault stood out in various international competitions and was the laureate of the « Maurice Vieux » viola international competition in 1983 in Paris. The same year, he was laureate of the Fondation Menuhin and became a member of the Ensemble Instrumental de France. He regularly performs as a soloist in France and abroad and is mainly involved in chamber music, teaching and contemporary music.

### Pierre Strauch, cellist

Pierre Strauch studied cello with Jean Deplace and won the Concours Rostropovitch of La Rochelle in 1977. He created, performed and recorded many major works of 20th century composers like Iannis Xenakis, Luciano Berio, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Olivier Messiaen. In Paris he delivered *Time and Motion Study II* by Brian Ferneyhough and *Ritorno degli Snovidenia* by Luciano Berio. His activity as a pedagogue and orchestra director is fueled by presenting, analyzing and transmitting. His intense activity as a composer led him to write works for soloists, for chamber ensembles (*la Folie de Jocelin*, *Preludio imaginario*, *Faute d'un royaume* for violin solo and seven instruments, *Deux Portraits* for five violas, *Trois Odes Funèbres* for five instruments, *Quatre miniatures* for cello and piano 2003), as well as vocal pieces (*Impromptu acrostiche* for mezzo and three instruments, *la Beauté*, *Excès*, for three women vocalists and eight instruments). The inter-contemporary ensemble mandated him to write a piece for fifteen instruments, *La Escalera del dragón* (In memoriam Julio Cortázar) which was created in 2004 by Jonathan Nott. He is, with composers like Diogène Rivas and Antonio Pileggi, the cofounder of the Festival A Tempo of Caracas.

### Tsung Yeh, Orchestra director (*Intumescence*)

Tsung Yeh has been musical director with the Chinese Orchestra of Singapore since 2002. With her, the orchestra's repertoire expanded rapidly. Innovative concerts enabled them to be
discovered in many new spheres (Barbican Centre in London, The Sage, Gateshead, Budapest Spring Festival, Beijing Music Festival, China Shanghai International Arts Festival, Macau International Festival, the most prestigious concert halls - Guangdong, Zhongshan, Shenzhen...).
INDEX NOMINUM

A

Adams (John), 88

Adorno (Theodor W.), 88, 97

Anakesa (Apollinaire K.), 87

Arom (Simha), 87

Artaud (Pierre-Yves), 31, 33

B

Bach (Jean-Sebastien), 22, 36, 69, 89

Bachelard (Gaston), 81

Bancquart (Alain), 17, 20, 107

Battier (Marc), 96

Beckett (Samuel), 97

Beethoven (Ludwig van), 15

Boltzmann (Ludwig), 90

Boujut (Pierre), 21

Boulez (Pierre), 95, 97, 109, 125

Bouyer (Jean-Jacques), 23, 24

Brown (Robert), 89

Buser (Pierre), 23

Bussotti (Sylvano), 124

C

Cage (John), 30, 50, 82, 83, 84, 88, 91, 95, 123

Celan (Paul), 97
Chabert (Pierre), 21
Chaleix (Pierre), 21
Chaveau (Pierre), 52, 122
Cohen-Levinas (Danielle), 88
Cowell (Henry), 91

D

Danto (Arthur), 98
Debussy (Claude), 91
Dickie (Goerge), 95
Donatoni (Franco), 109
Dufourt (Hugues), 22, 88

E

Eliade (Mircea), 100, 101

F

Feneyrou (Laurent), 18
Ferneyhough (Brian), 84, 85, 91, 123, 125
Finkielkraut (Alain), 99, 100

G

Garrec (Clément), 16
Garrec (Jean), 16
Gauthiez (André), 45
Girard (René), 101
Goodman (Nelson), 97, 98
Grauwet (Laurence), 49
Grisey (Gérard), 22, 109
H

Habermas (Jürgen), 96
Heisenberg (Werner Karl), 90
Herder (Johann Gottfried von), 99
Humeau (Edmond), 21

I

Imbert (Michel), 23
Ives (Charles), 50, 91, 94

J

Jeanmarie (Roger), 16
Joyce (James), 50, 97

K

Kafka (Franz), 97
Kagel (Mauricio), 95

L

Lachenmann (Helmut), 88
Lévi-Strauss (Claude), 102
Ligeti (György), 21

M

Maderna (Bruno), 22
Mallarmé (Stéphane), 50, 51, 97
Marx (Karl), 101
Méfano (Paul), 125
Messiaen (Olivier), 21, 27, 40, 46, 94

Miatlev (Adrian), 21

Michel (Damien), 69, 114

N

Nietzsche (Friedrich), 93

Nono (Luigi), 18

P

Peacocke (Arthur), 98

Planck (Max), 90, 103

Pollin (Pierre), 16

Pottier (Laurent), 31

Pouivet (Roger), 94, 98

Propp (Vladimir), 102

Proust (Marcel), 97

R

Raveton (Roland), 21

Risset (Jean-Claude), 98, 123

Russolo (Luigi), 91

S

Scelsi (Giacinto), 82, 83, 123

Schaeffer (Pierre), 124

Schlanger (Judith), 102

Schnittke (Alfred), 124

Schoenberg (Arnold), 123

Sellars (Peter), 88

Sève (Bernard), 93
Sibelius (Jean), 102

Stengers (Isabelle), 93, 102

Stockhausen (Karlheinz), 95, 109

Stravinsky (Igor), 102

T

Tarasti (Eero), 102

V

Valéry (Paul), 97

Varèse (Edgar), 124

W

Wagner (Richard), 90, 102

X

Xenakis (Iannis), 21, 30, 82, 83, 95, 123, 128

Z

Zimmermann (Bernd Alois), 124, 128
<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_37.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_39.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1 : « Photographie » du contexte intérieur préexistant à l'imagination d'une œuvre</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /><figcaption>Figure 9 : Construction de la forme par projection dans le passé et le futur de l'œuvre (durées en m.s. combinées à partir du procédé tendant vers 6 1 7 4)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>Figure 11 : Interface utilisateur de CA réalisée
dans Max-MSP-JITTER</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>Figure 13 : Synthétiseur sonore hybride temps réel
sur la base du modèle additif</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_43.png" /><figcaption>Figure 15 : Synthétiseur image,
21 paramètres de contrôle de la transformation de l'image du public</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_44.png" /><figcaption>Figure 17 : Programme du contrôle du temps de CA dans MAX-MSP-JITTER</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>Figure 18 : Programme de synchronisation des clics</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_46.png" /><figcaption>Figure 20 : Empreinte pianistique « tentaculaire »
– les doigts entremêlés – à l’origine de l’imaginaire de l’œuvre
pour piano Methatesis
(mains du pianiste Damien Michel, créateur de l’œuvre)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_47.png" /></figure>

Figure 24 : Schéma de spatialisation des instrumentistes dans le trio à cordes Virtualité et conscience du vide (positionnement et numérotation des pupitres, alto, violon, violoncelle, 21 pupitres et 1 tabouret tournant pour le violoncelliste).
<figure><img src="image_48.png" /></figure>

Figure 30 : Plateau de l'enregistrement de Katanga à Radio-France, studio 102, spatialisation des 15 cuivres et deux percussions en arc de cercle

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>

Figure 31 : Projections des tableaux virtuels au Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Toulouse, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création 2008
<figure><img src="image_50.png" /></figure>

Figure 32 : Extraits de la vidéo d'Intumescence, image 1 et image 2, version multimédia (2008), composition du même objet.
<figure><img src="image_51.png" /><figcaption>Figure 33 : Rencontre entre les tableaux virtuels
White interior et l'œuvre multimédia Blue bird</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_52.png" /><figcaption>Figure 34 : Extrait du tableau virtuel Autoportrait</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_53.png" /><figcaption>Figure 35 : Plan formel d'Ikhoor de Iannis Xenakis</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_54.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_55.png" /><figcaption>Figure 36 : Représentation de la forme d'Anahit</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_56.png" /></figure>

Figure 39 : Schéma symbolisant la présence et l'absence de l'œuvre et de la création
<figure><img src="image_57.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_58.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_59.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_60.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_61.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_62.png" /></figure>
« State of being » (4)

<figure><img src="image_63.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: « Photography »
of the inner state preceding the imagining of a work</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_64.png" /><figcaption>Figure 9: Construction of the structure by projecting the piece in the past and future (durations in combined milliseconds based on the 6 1 7 4 formula)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_65.png" /><figcaption>Figure 11: User interface of CA created with Max-MSP-JITTER</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_66.png" /><figcaption>Figure 13: Hybrid real time sound synthesizer based on the additive model</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_67.png" /><figcaption>Figure 15: Image synthesizer, 21 control parameters for the alteration of the image of the public</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_68.png" /><figcaption>Figure 17: Program to control the duration CA with MAX-MSP-JITTER</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_69.png" /><figcaption>Figure 18: Program for synchronizing clicks</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_70.png" /><figcaption>Figure 20 : « Tentacular » position – tangled fingers – triggered the imagination of the work for piano Methatesis (hands of the pianist Damien Michel, who performed the piece)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_71.png" /></figure>

Figure 24 : Diagram of the spacialization of the performers
in the string trio Virtualité et conscience du vide
(placing and numbering of the stands, viola, violin, cello, 21 stands
and 1 rotating stool for the cellist)
<figure><img src="image_72.png" /></figure>

Figure 30 : Stage where Katanga was recorded at Radio-France, studio 102, spatialization of the 15 brass instruments and two percussions in an arc of a circle

<figure><img src="image_73.png" /></figure>

Figure 31 : Projection of virtual works at the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Toulouse, Festival de l'Innovation et de la Création 2008
<figure><img src="image_74.png" /></figure>

Figure 32 : Extract from the Intumescence video, image 1. Image 2, multimedia version (2008), composition of the same object
<figure><img src="image_75.png" /><figcaption>Figure 33 : Blending of the virtual picture
White interior and the Blue bird multimedia work</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_76.png" /><figcaption>Figure 34 : Extract from the multimedia picture Autoportrait</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_77.png" /><figcaption>Figure 35 : Formal layout of Ikhoor by Iannis Xenakis</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_78.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_79.png" /><figcaption>Figure 36 : Structure of Anahit</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_80.png" /><figcaption>Figure 39 : Diagram symbolizing the presence and the absence of the work and creation</figcaption></figure>