[ecrea] Call for Contributions: Bruits (Noises)

Call for Contributions: Bruits (Noises)
Within the framework of the transversal research program in sound arts 
at the Institut ACTE (Sorbonne Paris 1 & CNRS), and in partnership with 
the ENS Louis-Lumière, a conference is being organized for December 4 
and 5, 2014, at the Cité du Cinéma: BRUITS (NOISES).

Certain environmental or “installationist” creations, along with certain 
performances or concerts, have thematized the question of noise, 
presenting it as the ambivalent aspect of music and of all sounds 
organized for communication and aesthetic pleasure. Noise, understood as 
the “sonic unformed,” in allusion to Georges Bataille (“Informe,” 
documents 7, December 1929), can thus have a performative value that 
amounts to preventing the “aesthetic” assimilation of the objects 
classified under that rubric by altering the grids and structures for 
the reception of exhibitions or shows. Noise is then the very symbol of 
the unformed, the unverifiable, the non-hierarchized. This conference 
will seek to determine its subjects and techniques, its forms, 
functions, and uses, including those within a culturally administered 
context, with a plural approach that reflects the plural usage in the title.

The conference will be organized in half-days devoted to transversal 
themes that promote interdisciplinarity. The scholarly facet will be 
accompanied by exhibitions, performances, and workshops.

Prospective Themes

The four general lines of inquiry described below sketch out a tentative 
work plan, whose architecture will evolve in light of the proposals 
received.

· The first line would endeavor to grasp noise in terms of its 
resistance not only to the urge for systematization but also to 
taxonomic strategies, considering its potential disruption of these 
efforts through impurities, mixtures, excesses, rumblings, and dissonances…

· The second line would address the history of noise up to its 
contemporary manifestations, particularly from the perspective of its 
symbolic functions, its sensible regimes, and its political or even 
economic stakes, whether it is filtered, accepted, reified, or even 
essentialized, either as a musical anti-model or an adopted stance.

· The third line would encompass all types of disorder—ranging from the 
new poietics of noise, where noise is the central feature that feeds, 
supports, or fashions the works; to the musical genres of noise, 
grindcore, or industrial; and to experimental and improvised musics and 
noise performances: configurations outside the norm, escaping all 
classification by virtue of their fictions, diversions, games, detours, 
destructions.

· The fourth line would propose an ecological approach to noise in its 
relations to place; its connections not only with architecture, the 
environment, and nature but also with society and subjectivity; and, 
more generally, its essence as the link between music, sound, and the 
world: the background noise of civilization; sound archives; field 
recordings.

Contributions may be in the form of lectures, installations, or 
performances. The formal proposal must consist of a summary of no more 
than one page, accompanied by a short biography of the author (a website 
address alone will not suffice) and a list of technical specifications 
(for installations and performances) containing all the links necessary 
to give a full understanding of the project (website, visual and sound 
documents of the proposed piece); it should also note any potential 
requirement for transportation or lodging.

These materials should be emailed to Gérard L. Pelé at the following 
address:

(Gerard.Pele /at/ univ-paris1.fr)



(program selections will begin on March 31, 2014).

Proceedings of the conference are expected to be published in 2015; the 
publication will include articles drawn from the lectures and 
documentation of the installations and performances. Contributions 
selected by the academic committee that could not be included in the 
conference will be published in the online journal L’Autre musique, no. 
4 (to appear in the first half of 2015), and possibly in print as a 
complement to the conference proceedings; note that the digital 
publication will allow inclusion of audio and video, as well as other 
interactive, multimedia forms.

Conference Academic Committee

François Bonnet, member of GRM / INA, member of the Institut ACTE, 
teacher at Paris 1

Frédéric Mathevet, visual and sound artist, member of the Institut ACTE, 
founder of the journal LAM, art teacher

Célio Paillard, artist researcher, member of the Institut ACTE, founder 
of the journal LAM, art teacher

Gérard L. Pelé, director of the transversal program in sound arts at the 
Institut ACTE, university professor at the ENS Louis-Lumière

Matthieu Saladin, editorial director of the journal TACET, member of the 
Institut ACTE, professor at the Haute École des Arts du Rhin

Hélène Singer, visual artist, member of the Institut ACTE, art teacher 
at Paris 1 and at the Université de Lille



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