Spoken Word (une chanson parlée)

Intro (digression on a psycho acoustic chord)

My uncle’s an astronomer.
I’ve always thought it was fabulous having an astrologer uncle,
being an astrologer
I remember the time when he told me a lot of what he did was just sitting at his computer observing black dwarfs, which are stars – or planets, I’m not sure – that you can’t see.
– “But what do you look at, then?” I asked him.
– “I look at curves. And when they bend out of shape it’s a sign that there are masses present, which means heavenly bodies.”
Since that day I’ve been convinced that my uncle and his fellow astronomers are some of the most dedicated observers of abstraction there are.

1^st verse (the heroine)

She’s a woman, she’s 35
She’s an artist
She’s a musician
She’s a publisher too
She’s Felicia Atkinson
For La Criée she’s created Spoken Word

Refrain

It’s an exhibition
It’s a landscape you never get to
It’s a sound work/desert island you can stroll about in
It’s a silent film hiding unheard-of music
It’s a series of sculptures you can activate to no end
It’s a game for two with no rules
It’s a frieze of distorting mirrors

2^nd verse (for the white room)

There are three big sculptures
You can lean on them, go under them
They’re rocks trees instruments cacti totems furniture
There are also ten sculptures that can fit in your hand
That two people can play with sitting at a table
You can grab the art, touch it, stroke it
There’s the (rocky) desert
There are maps with no memory, too, which are big digital prints on aluminium, hung on the wall
They’re collages of words and simple shapes, triggers for stories, clues
You can almost see yourself in them
And then there are coloured shapes growing on the walls

Refrain

It’s an exhibition
It’s a landscape you never get to
It’s a sound work/desert island you can stroll about in
It’s a silent film hiding unheard-of music
It’s a series of sculptures you can activate to no end
It’s a game for two with no rules

3^rd verse (for the whole space)

There’s a sound track
that keeps exhibition hours every day
(travel time and dream time)
There’s the (Sonora) desert
The sound track is sometimes electronic (a modular synthesiser)
Sometimes it’s the sound of the California desert
Sometimes of the wild islands of Brittany
Sometimes samples from audio books
It’s a sound track that sings a scattered narrative with no beginning or end or middle and no plot
There’s the (miraculous) desert

Refrain

It’s an exhibition
It’s a landscape you never get to
….

4^th verse (for the black room)

There’s a silent film (behind a heavy fluid molten-coloured curtain)
There are the giant cacti of the Saguaro desert
They’re totems sculptures humans trees instruments
There’s the desert (listen to it)
Felicia is playing for the cacti
Felicia makes slow movements for the cacti, sculptor’s movements
There’s the desert (look at it)
There’s the beauty of the movements
Beauty is a decision and an inexplicable desire

Refrain

It’s an exhibition
It’s a landscape you never get to
….

5^th verse (the Green Flashes)

Other works spring from the exhibition
On May 10th Felicia is inviting the poet and artist Hanne Lippard to speak among the works
Litanies melodies timbre range
The voice is an instrument
The invention of the verbual
On May 20th she is inviting the dancer Élise Ladoué to dance slowly amid the exhibition
She accompanies her with her sounds,
Almost a concert
And there’s the book, too, that she’s published with Shelter Press, her publishing house, it’s called Audio Book,
at the same time it’s an outline of the exhibition, and of its sources and continuation

Sophie Kaplan, January 2017