Dandrel Louis is a musician, founder of design studio and sound architectures Diasonic and unity sound design at IRCAM. Having been a music critic at Le Monde, he led France Music then became a founder of World Music and Radio Classique. He composed musical gardens, sculptures, musical sound stage sets for shows or events. To celebrate the year 2000 on the Champs-Elysees, he realized singing stars.
You created singing stars, a musical installation
developed from waves picked up by radio telescopes. What is it exactly? architect Patrick Bouchain had imagined a installation on the Champs Elysees composed of large wheels, in view of the Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. He was awarded a wheel art of dance, television, landscape etc..
He told me the wheel of music. It then asked me to the question: what music could be broadcast at the time of the changeover to the year 2000? There was a kind of hysteria, everything had to break down, computers break down, the station could no longer roll their trains, hysteria unbelievable! One wonders how, in this scientific world, we could commit such a large error. Something amazing. An absolutely tragic moment, thousands syndrome, where the sky was falling on our heads. So it was a moment that, symbolically, was quite special. Given the ambient hysteria, I thought it would be nice to do something lasting. And what is more durable than the sky? When we have been farting our land, it will remain the cosmos. I told myself that I would then look for the music of the stars and see how we could do.
I worked on electromagnetic waves. I called Giuseppe Di Giuno an Italian computer scientist, a genius uncontrollable uncontrolled and himself - an amazing individual. This guy had invented the 4 X, the first computer capable of producing both sound, and compose himself to music. You could program a fugue, with the subject, the subject cons, and bang! the computer was running away. A fabulous machine, which unfortunately has not stood the test of time too. So I immediately called and I told myself that there was a guy like that who could get into my topic! On top of that he is an amateur astronomer. I spoke to him, and next morning he rang at my door with three tons of luggage, stuff, and he stayed two months. He released a tool that can convert electromagnetic waves into sound. Because we have a problem. A little lesson in physics: the ear only works in a medium. The sound as you know, is a vibratory phenomenon. This vibration requires a medium because it is at times that are very low. So there, when I speak, I put in motion molecules of air, it comes up to your ear, it pushes the molecules bump against each other and strike your eardrum, and your eardrum is going to back and forth like a cone speaker. It is through this that you can hear me. You know the famous phrase: "In a vacuum, no one will hear you scream." So there is no sound that comes from the stars. The sky is perfectly silent, the auditory sense of the word.
This was one of my questions, what can be the song of the stars knowing that there is no sound in space? I noticed a sentence of Pascal is very beautiful "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me." Well it's not scary at all. Stanley Kubrick, in 2001 the
Space Odyssey , use the
Requiem György Ligeti when there out in space and in vacuum, and it's a beauty! It is a transposition. And I could myself make a transposition. For this he must descend electromagnetic waves picked up by radio telescopes in order to hear something. These are radio waves, those who are closest to our frequency audible field. That is what Giuseppe di Giuno did. But to achieve this, we must build a small tool, operators that return frequencies that look exactly the signal emitted by the radio telescope. And so it stuck me that. With that, he has had that I'm telling a story, because I could not do a raw music with which I fell from the sky, and it was that I incorporate this in my own image of heaven, that which j ' him since childhood.
What is this image that you have from childhood? We know that one leads his life with everything that was stored when we were children. The major attractions of childhood are perennial for me. And if things are not raw total and do not crush any of their past, there is a thread that takes them very far. As a kid, I was very intrigued by the sky. I slept a lot outside in the fields, watching the sky. It's fascinating, it's a real trip, especially when you start falling asleep. Anecdote: I was the last in a fairly large family, and my brothers were allowed to sleep under the stars. And every time they said "the stars", I wondered "What is the stars? It is still something intriguing. I wanted to know. So we must choose one. I chose my star, I made myself a star.
Post to galena
Other fascination as a kid during the war, there was no radio in the countryside. However, there were crystal sets. Galena is a rock, a mixture of coal and crystals, which has the property of behaving in fact as a radio and can concentrate the electro magnetic waves. To listen, it was invented, and you could buy it in trade, crystal set, consisting of a needle, a coil and a headphone amplifier. You ask the needle on the rock and the headphones on, and you could hear shortwave. I spent hours on this thing, I went around the world on this small rock. When you're brought up with this dream there was more logical to
The Song of the Stars. The composition you made, it is harmonic, disharmonic? I have a very harmonic and former world compared to contemporary music. Though I work at IRCAM, my world is a tonal universe. I am a great great grand son of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Do you inspired the Theory of Harmony of the spheres, based on the idea that the universe is governed by numerical relations harmonious, and the distances between planets corresponding to musical intervals? No, not at all! Whenever I see a figure appear, I have fear, two is complete terror! Numbers and me is impossible! In music, it goes three times, four times, I'm doing, but the world of numbers is not mine. Me is the world of wind on the hairs of my hands, walking around a city and listen ... I only work with the senses. I put myself Outside, I hear what sends me to heaven and I copied. Basically, it happens like that. I speak with words that speak to the music inside me. Do not ask me where it comes from, it's spontaneous and not very thoughtful. So it is not music that will sturdy the centuries. It is like I am.
You also directed music titles Jupiter
and Sun.
I'll show you some pictures. This is called a scepter. This is what comes out of machines of large antennas for radio telescopes. It's a very pretty story, I sent the net demand and people around the world sent me spectra, it was really interesting to compare them according to their origin. So what does that mean? The horizontal axis is time, ordinate is the height of frequencies, and color is the intensity. On one slice, you have a period of ten hours. To make music, I'm not going to take ten hours, so I selected a small fragment. When you go into the red, there are considerable strengths. Here there are lines, line spectra, where one is at low intensity. If I give you the version of music that's funny because it corresponds rather to the idea that they're done the sun spit.
For Jupiter, we are on the line spectra. Compared to the other, where one is on intensity variations that are extremely strong in a very short time here, we sound completely stable, that stretch. Imagine, a statement de10heures, the changes are not numerous. Here we see that there is a rougher time in the mids, and as soon as you climb, it is very airy.
spectrum of Jupiter
What this band at the bottom? Well I'll tell you: it is the initial noise is the famous big-bang residual found all over all records of electromagnetic waves. That is how we found out. When the first radio telescopes in the 1930s, questioned the sky, they wondered if their material was not a problem. Everywhere there was this crap that drags down. Well shit, that was the big bang. And that founded the theory of big bang. It is a residual sound is there. It's nice to see that.
You translate it musically through the machine Giuseppe? Exactly, and this means alone. The Giuseppe Di Giuno, I built an instrument, electric operators, a sound generator that is extremely simple stimulated by the equivalent of this vibration that is listed on it. Asked to read a converter takes the image and converts it into electrical impulses. So if it goes up, the electrical pulse will undergo a sine wave, it goes up and it sends a sequence based on the image. If I put it in place of the images of the curves of the scholarship, I can also set them to music. We could have fun listening to the madness bank! It is the operators before, and that will give audible signals compared to the hysteria of tradeurs.
spectrum sun
From there I obviously made changes. The simple oscillators that made me, I gave them other forms, I am making signs to the square and others, so now I'm part of it to make a play for my taste.
Installation Singing Star was also made of lights and domes.
Fachard Lawrence had made light wheel. I wanted that sound like a heaven, and yet when it turns, it makes lines, as when one leaves his camera open and that one draws with light. It worked very well. These domes you see here, they are 5 meters in diameter. They are like 'sky domes. You put the speaker to send the sound inside the dome, and it makes you a bundle at the exit, which, by the phenomenon of reflection, will be an extremely narrow beam. I sent the sound of the stars through it into the crowd. And it was moving. Sound shaving people's heads. It was incredibly accurate! Best speaker was the sound of music, my personal boiled, and I sent over real signals. The hard drives.
What research says it makes the sound? What does this mean? I started my research center called New Spaces. I've worked a thirty years. For example, we built a simulation chamber sound, a large sphere.
Sounds a bit sci-fi! Completely. The tower is made of mirror. It is a polyhedron to eighty facets. In every facet, there are a couple of speakers. You come in as a capsule, encased in black, with its top, bottom, back, front, left and right. This gives you a complete simulation. It has been used for architects, including Paul Andreu to the station at Roissy Charles de Gaulle.
Gare de Roissy Charles de Gaulle
Why an architect does he need to make a simulation? Take the train station at Roissy. It is served by the TER and crossed by the train. The architectural gesture of Paul Andreu was doing everything smooth concrete, and glass ceiling. The reflections in this place, so there will be lengthy and probably very ugly. When you enter a beautiful church, there is a great reverb, but if the church is beautiful, the color will be very pleasant, because the frequencies are very balanced. But this is not always the case. So with Andreu, I told him I think there will be problems, to do a simulation of the station. What does this allow? Taking all measures, making calculations, we brought Paul Andreu in the sphere, and it is as if he was in his station. It means passengers on the platform, pigeons, and a high speed train through the station! It'll be scary! When a bullet train will pass 140 km / h, if we do not control the thoughts, it's terrible for consumers! So in fact smooth concrete, it was manufactured absorbent panels, a series of plates that trap frequencies very specific frequencies to absorb the bad, aesthetically, I, I do not. I do not seek to reduce the time for reflection, it does not create a packet of cotton wool. The place is huge, he must leave its monumentality that is also expressed by the echo. The sound must last. But if it lasts, it must be beautiful. And we have the means to remove the nasty frequencies. He was well spread on the entire length of the station this type of coating. This is probably the place, which, in acoustics, has cost the most expensive in the world. Everything was done to measure. From haute couture.
Without the simulator, you would not know what to do? Exactly. A place becomes a sort of concert hall, a music venue. It's even better than a concert hall, because the concert hall must absorb everything, because it makes the orchestra sound. But when you're in a public place, the public makes the sound, and this is the place that must have its own personality, character, aesthetic sound. Architectural design work is not just the shapes and lights, but the sound identity.
You have created a sound library. This puzzles me. When I travel, I record the sounds of cities. From my first tape recorder. I've done with the Centre for Cultural Exchanges from Limoges. I am linked with the University who works sociology, and especially semiotics. Because the problem is that our sounds, we do not know their names. I put to them; an anthropological point of view, it is a source of information really interesting. We must listen to the world. All this will probably be gone in twenty years. It gives some indications that are impressive. I portraits of town. I had an exhibition in Rio de Janeiro when he had the first meeting for the world convention, the first Green Summit in Rio, as there was a section on sound, I thought shit, the sound of cities that still exists is also a strong identity. I then mounted an exhibition there, an exhibition sounds. Windows on the city. I did make windows for a window on Tokyo, a window to Beijing, a window on Cairo etc.. It was broadcast by infra red you approach the window helmet on his head, and presto the sound of the city triggered.
I had no idea of the existence of these possibilities. But you're not alone. Should musicians who put their talent to make the world of sound could be so organized and thought artistically or aesthetically.
Nympheas, Monet Musée de l'Orangerie
I had to do, in the Orangerie, music for
Nympheas by Monet. This is not pie Water Lilies. You know the two elliptical rooms? That giant, a unique pictorial. It is infinite, you do not know when it begins and when it stops, it's just paint, it is beyond the paint is terrible. And the answer I could do was ask to settle there and spend two months. The evening after the museum closed, I put myself in it. And then it's an exchange that done with the context, the architectural world. Elliptical halls relied heavily, take into account the specific bases for the spread. It is very difficult. I melt in the middle, I can not do otherwise. I shoot myself instead, I disappear into the thing. When I stop Gamberg, that's where I can work. I go, and I begin to write. For the Orangerie, I do not know if I make electro-acoustic music and finally it was harmonic, with an orchestra. But it could have been totally different.
"The most influential British group after the Beatles" the journalist Tim De Lisle and described in the documentary Roxy Music More Than This published a few months ago on DVD. In that same documentary you could see the figures as diverse as Steve Jones (Sex Pistols), Nile Rodgers (Chic), Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran) outsourcing have been influenced by Roxy. What other training can boast of having illegitimate children in genres as diverse as punk, disco, or pop for jaywalkers? 
Photos (C) GH 
