A/V Performances, Installations & Video Works
Sound sculpture, 2011
• Concept and sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Tech direction : Francis Laporte
• Curator : Érick d'Orion
L'usure du clocher (Wear of the Belfry) is a sound installation in which a 7 foot high aluminum structure holds three moving horn speakers. Their motion is a mechanical sway driven by motors. In this sound projection sculpture, the downward facing speakers evoke the church bells that produced the main sound material used for the audio composition. Nowadays — at least in north america, a belfry that wears out is a belfry that disappears, as an increasing number of them are replaced by electronic belfries.
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Realized between november 2010 and april 2011 in the composers personal studio. Warm thanks to FIMAV, Érick d'Orion, Alexandre Landry, Laurier Gardner, François Laflamme, Francis Laporte, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Perte de signal.
A/V Performance w/live electronics, intonarumoris & video, 2010 (30')
• Concept, composition and performance : Nicolas Bernier + Martin Messier• Intonarumoris : Alexandre Landry
• Video footage : Foumalade.org
• Production : Perte de signal
La chambre des machines (The mechanical room) stems from a desire to return to the physical world in an environment of digital creation. Machines made of gears and cranks are manipulated to produce a sound construction at the crossroads of acoustics and electronics. Submerged in sound, the audience discovers the interaction between mechanical and synthetic sound. With specifically tailored programming, digital processing are enlarging the sound palette of the machines.
• Mention, Prix Ars Electronica 2011 /AU
• Jury Selection, Japan Media Awards 2011 /JP
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New V2 realized for 2011 European Tour starting at Ars Electronica in September 2011. V1 was realized between December 2009 and January 2010 in residency at Perte de signal's Rustines|Lab. Thanks to Perte de signal, Alexandre Landry, Isabelle Gardner, Ekumen, SONAR, MUTEK, Prix Ars Electronica and Transmediale.
Performance w/live electronics and intonarumori, 2008 (15')
• Concept, composition and performance : Nicolas Bernier• Intonarumori : Alexandre Landry
• Curator : Érick d'Orion, Mois Multi
At the beginning of the 20th century, when Italian futurist Luigi Russolo began to include “noise” in musical composition, he made a box into a musical instrument. This box, the intonarumori, concealed mysterious mechanisms. A century later, “noise” is ever-present in music and my own instrument remains a box. Indeed, the computer is a closed container of enigmatic mechanisms. Contrary to the intonarumori, the box designed by my friend Alexandre Landry is open. The mechanisms are revealed and perhaps allow us to better understand the music created through the open box and the closed digital box. Thus, I will bring you into my “box” for a little while, to share with you the heart of its mechanisms.
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Realized between june 2008 and September 2008 in the personal studio of the composer.
CD available at Ahornfelder
A/V Performance w/live electronics, 4 channel tape and folk acoustic guitar, 2010 (35')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Guitar : Simon Trottier
• Light system : Alexandre Landry
• Commission : Réseaux, Naisa
• Financial support : CALQ, CAC
courant.air is the continuation of a body of work intertwining instrumental and electronic music : a complex and demanding surround sound electronic composition is flowing alongside folk inspired guitar.
Conceptually, the piece is wind powered. Wind is used as a constructive/destructive agent. Wind as a propulsion engine of particles in constant movement in the air. Wind as noise. Wind is sound, invisible.
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Realized between August 22, 2008 and October 2010 in the composer’s personal studio as well as the Banff Centre. Thanks to Simon Trottier, Olivier Girouard, Pierre-Alexandre Tremblay and Alexander Schubert at Ahornfelder, Réseaux and NAISA.
CD available at Electrocd.com
A/V Performance w/live electronics and live instruments, 2008 (40')
• Sound composition and instruments : Nicolas Bernier• Visual : urban9
• Financial support : CAC
Soundscapes and slow, woven textures accompany precise articulations, all entwined in a minimalist orchestration of guitars, brass instruments, vibraphones, accordions and strings. Since I began working in electroacoustic music, I have tried to bring together digitally processed sound textures and traditional instruments. They include the complex tones and sophisticated treatment of materials from acousmatic music merged with the simple melodies often encountered in pop music.
• Mention, Prix Ars Electronica, 2009 /AU
• CD of the year, Prix Opus, 2010 /CA
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Realized between 2004 and 2009 in the composer’s personal studio. Thanks to urban9, No Type and Mutek.
Underwater installation w/ video, 2006
• Concept and sound composition : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch• 3 channels video : Nicolas Bernier
• Comission : Réseaux
• Financial support : CALQ
sub•a•quat•ic is a sound installation proposing a unusual way of experiencing music: the underwater listening. Submerged in water, it’s the entire body which perceives the music, the sound seeming as if coming directly from inside the skull. The aquatic world also perturbs and blurs the music. What the listener perceives becomes a difformed reality which can seem strangely faint and distant, as would do memories.
The listener-swimmer choses its own journey, hovering at the surface where both spaces merge, or dives in one world to then re-emerge in the other.
• Selection, IMEB Bourges, 2007 /FR
Available on Tricycle DVD
A/V performance w/live electronics, insrtuments and video, 2005 (30')
• Sound composition and performance : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch• Video : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch + urban9
Le microsillon des vagues is an audio-visual performance by Milliseconde topographie. The two musicians playing accordeon, electric guitar daxophone and found sounds are improvising directly on short poetic and silent movies. Inpired by the ocean, the waves come and go, nostalgic melodies and small particles of noises merge into a serene counterpoint.
Poster and CD's available on Electrocd.com
Urban installation, 2006
• Concept and sound composition : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch• Street posters : urban9
A trilogy of urban posters by Urban9 with a soundtrack by Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch. The music evoke ambiant atmospheres with glitchy clicks reminiscent blending electronic with popular music. Integrating piano, voices, guitare, accordeon and sampling, the music is willingly welcoming imperfections. The ambiance is given by the nostalgia of Urban9 work. Urban9 blend modern design with old photography to create a timeless piece.
• Prix, Concours Graphika, Special project (urban9) /CA
Available on Tricycle DVD
Video and music, 2004-2005 (20')
• Video and sound composition : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measrochexcept "This Is A Portrait", sound and video by Nicolas Bernier
Mainly based on photography, Treelogy is a serie of three eulogy-movies around discreet movements and growing things. The project, in the first place, was meant to be purely aestetic, witnessing our fascination for the open landscapes. It is a tribute to the "micro but not quite invisible" movements which appears when we stop to catch them.
Treelgy I : She Under A Sherrington Tree (2004) 7’40
Treelgy II : This Is A Portrait (2005) 7’40
Treelgy III: Orchid (2005) 4’40
• Nomination, Qwartz 2009, Treelogy III /FR
• Prize, Visionaria 2005, Treelogy II /FR
• 1st prize, Visionaria 2004, Treelogy I /IT
• Best Video Art, Chicago Motion Graphic 2004, Trelogy I /US
Audio and musique concrète works
Musique concrète, 2011 (11')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Voice : Mario Savio
Wood, metal, electricity, frequencies, water, flesh, fuel, violence. The Machine is very much alive. Amid its organized chaos lies an unfitness to operate objectively. It can trap us in its inescapable cogs in a momentary lapse of concentration or, worse, a moment of bad luck. It is at that moment that this piece was composed, when I felt like a prisoner of the Machine, unable to stop it, unable to escape from her belly, to focus my energies where I needed. The resulting work shows the undeniable presence of the body; gestures are torn between will, lethargy, and spastic frenzy before the last breath dies. The basic materials were generated in a live session with a loudspeakers-and-piezo-microphones system that produced feedback, and a machine built by my friend Alexandre Landry. This machine full of cogs, wheels and levers always brings to mind Mario Savio’s famous speech from 1964, in which he vigorously talked about freedom and resistance: “There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop, And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
Dans le ventre de la machine (In the Belly of the Machine, 2011) is the final piece in a composition cycle about machines, which also includes Writing Machine (2005), Liaisons mécaniques (Mechanical linkage, 2007), and Les chambres de l'atelier (The workshop rooms, 2008). The whole project is aimed at transcending the sterility of computers to create a sound work full of imperfections, where humanity is obvious, despite the acousmatic approach.
• 2nd prize, Destellos Competition /AR
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Realized in the composer’s personal studio between june 2010 and april 2011. Thanks to Olivier Girouard, Gilles Gobeil and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay for their valued ears.
strings.lines
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Viola da Gamba : Pierre-Yves Martel
• Violin : Chris Bartos
On one side, the antique musical instrument and on the other, electronic paraphernalia. On one hand, this obsession with old objects, obsolescence, dust. On the other, a fascination for bareness, sobriety and purity. The tuning fork: symbol of tonal music, object used for centuries. It produces a sound close to the sine wave, elementary sound of electronic music. The acoustic tuning fork is an endangered species, soon to be replaced by the electronic tuner.
Based on recordings of strings and tuning forks, string.lines is a linear path around the dichotomies of acoustic/electronic, tainted/pure, ancient/modern. The sine wave is graphically represented by a line.
The line is a boundary.
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Realized between September 2008 and Febuary 2010 in the artist personal studio. Thanks to Chris Bartos, Pierre-Yves Martel & Crónica. Dedicated to my friend urban9.
CD available at Crónica.
Pop concrète, 2009 (25')
• Sound composition and instruments : Nicolas Bernier• Vox : Virginie Thomas and Theater Junction RCA
• Words : Virginie Thomas and Nicolas Bernier
This work is a "pop concrète" collage. As says the title, rhythm is the cornerstone of The Dancing Deer. Even tough it is sometimes quite subtle, the piece is built on a constant pulse. In an 18 minutes pathway through diverging states, it brings together - in a coherent way - elements of drones, clicks, mini/max/imal, song writing, poetry, post-rock, electronic, instrumental and musique concrète in a strange and uncommon atmospheric collage. The Dead Deer is the antithesis of the title piece. It is a relatively static soundtrack, despite being composed of micro-details. The project is a musical translation of a couple months spent in the Canadian West.
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Realized between March and August 2009 in various places in the Canadian West. Thanks to Theatre Junction RCA and Staff, Mark Lawes, urban9, Banff Centre, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Ian Hawgood, Home Normal & to the dancing deer.
CD available at Home Normal
Musique concrète, 2009 (40')
• Sound composition : Nicolas BernierAn essay on silence.
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Realized between August 1st to september 30th, 2009 in the composer’s studio and at the Banff Centre. Thanks to Nina and Zimoun at Leerraum[], Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand, Banff Center and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
DVD Available at lerraum[]
Musique concrète, 2008 (10')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Comission : Perte de signal
• Financial support : CAC
Here, people pass by. Some hastily, others lingering. Most of them, curious, listen to only a few excerpts, a few passages. Holding attention. Being brief, concise and intriguing, pausing and changing directions. 10 miniatures movements for the same number of states, sensations or situations. Maybe a story of elusive things that brush up against us. Irrational, indissociable and integral things. A story at the intersection of absence and presence.
01 ......................... Le passage
02 ......................... Musical
03 ......................... Secret
04 ......................... Interdit
05 ......................... À vide
06 ......................... Souterrain
07 ......................... Dans l’au-delà
08 ......................... Liturgique
09 ......................... Nuageux
10 ......................... Note de passage
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Realized between September 27 and October 14, 2008 in the composer’s personal studio and in a Calgary hotel room, in Canada. The work is a commission from Perte de Signal with financial support from the Canada Arts Council.
Available on vinyl usure.paysage, Hrönir (DE).
Musique concrète, 2008 (10')
• Sound composition : Nicolas BernierThe workshop. A place of sudden agitation, of ideas both clear and unclear that disappear just as quickly as they surge. A place inhabited by reflection, frustration, near-silence, hypnosis and obsession. The piece’s structure is revealed as through the lens of a camera, flipping from one room/states to another. Les chambres de l'atelier (The rooms of the workshop) is embedded in a cycle of compositions inspired by machines – real ones – that operate through physical mechanisms.
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Realized between December 17th 2007 and April 10th 2008 (reworked in July 2010 and January 2011 ) in the personal studio of the composer and in the Université de Montréal studios. Thanks to Réseaux.
Musique concrète, 2007 (10')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Comission : Musiques & Recherches
• Financial support : CALQ
Krrrchstchack. The event is triggered by a profound attachment to physical matter and nostalgia of an era I did not live through: the era of machines, real ones, set in motion by physical mechanisms. I proceeded to gather peaces of machines and gears. My collection held reminiscent objects: cameras, 8mm projectors, music boxes and antique toys. I discovered naturally rich materials made of different granular textures and an abundance of micro-articulations. The gears are expressive and precise; they engage a defined process. I sampled the small objects before deconstructing them, splitting them, dividing them up. From these fragments, I constructed new gears. I wanted to maintain, as much as possible, the essence of the physical characteristics of the sounds. The only thing left to do was to activate the musical mechanics. In this context, the gears are release mechanisms. They engage a change in space, a material transformation, a stop, a change of direction or simply another mechanism. They play a double role: sound material and transition between events, just as the ties and slurs of musical writing. The structure of Liaisons mécaniques is inspired by the circular and repetitive movements of the gears. The arc form presents the same elements at the beginning and at the end, which brings to light the antithesis evoked by the work: stability and recurrence.
• Mention, Digital Art Awards 2007 /JP
• Mention, Musica Vica 2007 /PT
• 2nd prize, CIMESP 2007 /BR
• Mention, IMEB Bourges 2007 /FR
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Liaisons mécaniques was realized from December 2006 to April 2007 in the studios of the Université de Montréal (Québec) and Musiques & Recherches (Belgique) and premiered on April 27, 2007 at Petit théâtre Mercelis in Brussels (Belgium).
Soundwalk, 2006 (12')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch• Comission : Champ libre
In a radiophonic style, Big Wheel is a half-fiction half-documentary soundwalk based on anecdotes and hearsay. The sources largely come from concrete sounds, soundscapes and talking voices in relation with the past and present history of the Great Library neighborhood. This peculiar guided walk combines the principal musical activities of the Milliseconde topographie duet : acousmatic music, instrumental music and soundscapes. In a playful way, Big Wheel builds links between people from yesterday and people from today and lets them intersect in the the same urban manege. Big Wheel appears to the listener as an hybrid mosaic of rumours and anecdotes seized in flight, as if coming out disorderedly.
Musique concrète, 2005 (15')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Vox : André Garant
• Comission : ZKM
• Financial support : ZKM, CALQ
Writing Machine is inspired by the American writer William S Burroughs and by some similarities between his writing method and electroacoustic composition. The starting point was his “cut-up” technique which consists of taking several text sources, cutting some parts of text, and reorganizing them into new structures and getting a new text. So I applied Burroughs’ technique to his own words focusing on the notion of language deconstruction. I have used the words for their material, morphological and musical properties rather than only for their semantic qualities.
The following quotation from Robin Lydenberg’s text Sound Identity Fading Out William Burroughs’ Tape Experiments summarizes my intention:
[…] Burroughs’ tape cut-ups often produce an assaultive pulsation […] leaving the listener unable to construct context, linear sequence, or even syntax from what he hears and thus liberating him or her from these imposed patterns of thought. As he (Burroughs) explains in The Ticket That Exploded, “The content of the tape doesn’t seem to effect the result”; the power resides instead in the rhythm, in patterns of alternation at specific intervals.
Aside from spoken words, Writing Machine is built around the sounds of Writing Machines. Sounds that have been electrified, metalized, pulsed and distorted in order to create the sound universe evoked by my reading of Burroughs’ books.
• Mention, IMEB Bourges 2007 /FR
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Realized in the studio of the Université de Montréal and in the ZKM studios between december 2004 and Febuary 2005. Thanks to ZKM and André Garant