TALKING WITH A DINOSAUR ,ARCHEOLOGIE OF A SYNTH

BOOMERANG

It’s the 21st century; about 3 to 5 million year after the invention of the first tools. It seemed important to me to face the experience. Doing this would influence the ‘concept’ (an anglo-french paradox…).

PARIS/MAIL

I got in touch with Christian Zanési of the GRM, on the subject of a rare and legendary machine: The COUPIGNY.

FROZEN AGE/FROZEN AIR

1997, the remains of a mammoth was found in the Siberian ice wastes, strips of hide and tiny crystallised plants were found in the ice.

The Coupigny is an analogue modular synthesiser that was built in the 60s by the engineer François Coupigny on the request of the GRM.
Its metal.
At the time this synthesizer was built into a console, an incredible invention in terms of analogic engineering.
Here its functional framework is all that could be dug up, the archaeologist in question would be bewitched by its audio possibilities.

BONES

The original Coupigny was dismantled; the console itself currently lies in state in the museum of music, only a few of the fundamental oscillators and some other modules remain in the rack.
It’s still metal.

CAVALCADE/CADAVRE

After 4 days of mutual “taming” between human and machine it felt like harvesting or even shaping flint tools out of granite, like sculpting electricity in its base form, conducting all electronic matter.
From raw, unshaped stone into tool.

PAUSE

I smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank almost as much coffee. This kind of machine makes your head spin. Yes, turn the knobs, start again, gestures that make up the ritual of both electronic music and factory floor. The composer never quite disappears but is taken hostage by the mechanisms and a certain lack of control. To transcend or take responsibility by exaggerating…
The result is littered with human and technical errors, children should be able to get this shouldn’t they? They already do… they play. Things degrade, one of the modules has faulty contacts, you have to leave a finger on it to maintain contact.

PARIS/BRUXELLES electric computer

I shall quote Mr. Deleuze, even if I hate doing that. He said that the problem with humans and domestic animals is that they are too human, not stupid enough.
In the end, the vinyl of this record had to be CUT, the main process, for me the only reliable means of archiving sound, in that it is possible to divine the turning speed of the potter’s wheel by simply observing his finger prints in the clay.

CURIOS

This record could find itself in the “CONSTRUCTED BY TIME” section.

Digital correspondence with Valèrie Vivancos, February 2011