Silent Echoes Le Mans - Bill Fontana

As part of Le Mans Sonore.

Californian artist Bill Fontana, patron of this fourth edition of the biennial, is extending his work on silent resonance with his new sound installation, this time capturing the city's sonic vibrations using ultra-sensitive sensors attached to the bells of Fontevraud Abbey, which have been specially moved to Le Mans for this biennial.

"What will be special for me about the interaction and tuning of this installation is that these bells will not only harmoniously echo ambient sounds from the cathedral gardens, but will also be broadcast through a loudspeaker installation in the large Place des Quinconces in the centre of Le Mans, allowing us to directly perceive the relationship between the ambient sounds amplified by the harmonic spectrum of the five bells and the resulting spatialised sound cloud. In previous Silent Echoes installations, this directly perceptible relationship between ambient sounds and the resulting harmonic sound cloud was not as directly perceptible.
At Le Mans, the fact that these bells 'listen' to make music will be clearly perceptible."

Co-production: Ircam Centre Pompidou,
Sound engineers: Luka Bagnoli, Lucas Ciret
Computer music producer: Dionysios Papanicolaou

Free admission.