Textura
(2005)
There's no
exaggeration in calling -40 a remarkable multi-media
project; its luxuriously packaged case includes
a detailed booklet (featuring texts and descriptive
detail) and two discs, each about fifty-four
minutes long: a CD featuring the work of ten
electronic artists (well-known figures Akufen,
Deadbeat, Lowfish, and Venetian Snares joined
by relative newcomers like Prhizzm and Knifehandchop)
and a DVD that not only couples their tracks
with sections of individually selected films,
specifically school propaganda films produced
by The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) during
the 1940s, but follows them with a second set
of works by ten video artists (thus the first
set amounts to “original films with reworked
audio,” the second “original audio
with reworked video”). A curatorial statement
clarifies that artists were required to work
“exclusively in either the audio or visual
medium. The curators' intent was to create a
condition where the artist was referred back
to the original aim and meaning of their chosen
film and confronted with the challenge of integrating
their creation with an unchanged element of
the film.” Predictably, the contributors
have no difficulty adhering to the guideline,
given their fluency in the language of remix
culture.
While it's
the music that impresses strongly on disc one,
it's also fascinating to witness the diverse
ways the ten contributors merge their sounds
with the film content. At the start of “Divide
and Fragment Remix,” Lorne Greene's booming
voiceover is presented intact but, once Knifehandchop's
frenetic jungle beats appear, Greene's voice
is chopped in unison with them. Though there's
little connection here between the music and
the war footage (Hitler by The Eiffel Tower,
tanks, etc.), there's a stronger concord between
Secret Mommy's Autechre stylings (asymmetric
throbs, pinballing beats, steely clatter) and
the film imagery (propulsive pounding beats
paired with a train moving through the mountainous
countryside, and industrial clockwork beats
accompanying workers building trains). In “Definitely
Not Internment Camps,” Meek incorporates
subtle fragments of exotic melody into his track,
a natural complement to the colour film footage
of imprisoned Japanese-Canadians shown throughout
the segment. Phrizzm's cold, surgical sounds
complement footage of stark, frozen Northern
Canada while Venetian Snares aligns jarring
clusters of piano tonalities with disturbing
images of facially disfigured WWII veterans.
Deadbeat's “Trees That Touch the Sky”
is the disc's musical peak, a beautiful and
slowly building piece of atmospheric dub shadowed
by a wavering two-tone theme, and the tree-cutting
footage it accompanies is equally captivating.
In addition, DJ Dopey adds a hip-hop dimension
with his track's scratching and plodding beats
while Lowfish's acidy synth bump is less Suction-styled
'robot music' and more The Chemical Brothers.
Video manipulation
is the focus on disc two; orchestral elements
are relegated to the background, ceding prominence
to the voiceovers. The artists typically treat
the archival footage boldly, sometimes colourizing
it (Creatrix's “Oil + Water”), sometimes
posterizing and overlapping it (Wayne Yung's
“Postcard to an Unknown Soldier”).
In an unusual move, Martin Lalonde occasionally
juxtaposes old and new footage in “Bonjour
Voisin,” while Nadia Duguay includes herself
as a separate figure from the archival footage
(sometimes outside of the older footage, sometimes
on top of it) in “Volontaire.” The
most extreme treatment of the original film
material emerges in Cinétik's “Engrenages”
where rapidly mutating abstractions are smothered
by dust and static in a visual analogue to an
Autechre composition.
Beyond its
aesthetic impact, the project possesses a strong
socio-political resonance, given the ongoing
relevance of issues like nationalism, lethal
weaponry, propaganda, and so on. In his booklet
essay, Marc Glassman astutely notes that, while
Hitler and Goebbels were recognized as masterful
manipulators who used media to further their
evil goals, the NFB's films were equally though
less blatantly manipulative under the direction
of founder John Grierson, who used the NFB as
a weapon to help combat Fascism. With the onset
of WWII, films produced by young filmmakers
hand-picked by Grierson increasingly resembled
didactic propaganda that promoted the Allies'
cause. But the films included on these discs
aren't wholly fixated on war; there's beautiful
footage of trains moving through the Canadian
landscape and skiers zig-zagging down expansive
snow-draped mountainsides, too. Consequently,
the project casts an invaluable spotlight on
a country's evolving identity. As a footnote,
Canadians of a certain age who remember Lorne
Greene for his iconic role as the Cartwright
patriarch in the television series Bonanza (and
Ponderosa) may be surprised to discover how
often his booming voice was used for the narration
of the NFB's films.
Octopus
(France, 2005)
En bousculant
la logique des sources sonores qu'elle utilise
et réorganise, la culture digitale, qu'elle
soit audio ou visuelle, s'inscrit dans une certaine
tradition de la manipulation. En s'attaquant
à des films de propagande canadiens datant
de la deuxième guerre mondiale, le projet
DVD -40 - réunissant la crème
des artistes canadiens actuels (Akufen, Deadbeat,
Venetian Snares, etc.) - perpétue à
sa façon ce principe actif de détournement
partagé de l'objet et du sens.
Dans
les années 40, la nécessité
de maintenir intacts le moral et la dynamique
de nations soumises à la dureté
de la guerre a conduit la plupart des gouvernements
a réalisé divers films documentaires
de propagande. Le Canada n'a pas dérogé
à la règle et s'est montré
prolixe dans la médiatisation d'un effort
de guerre soucieux de triompher du nazisme tout
en soulignant l'image d'un Canada humain, tolérant
et travailleur. Nul doute que les concepteurs
de ces films ignoraient que 60 ans après,
leur entreprise de conditionnement des masses
allaient servir de terrain d'exercice à
une kyrielle de créateurs digitaux, vidéastes
comme Shawn Chappelle ou Wayne Chung et musiciens
comme Marc Leclair (Akufen) ou Aaron Funk (Venetian
Snares), prêts à s'approprier leur
travail. Présenté de manière
dichotomique, créations visuelles et
redéfinitions sonores de part et d'autre,
-40 n'est pas seulement un exercice créatif.
En posant comme paradigme fort le respect intégral
d'un des composants, l'image ou le son, il répond
sans doute aux interrogations curieuses de ces
jeunes artistes sur leur propre passé.
A la façon d'un Venetian Snares, imposant
les brisures de sa musique comme un masque vacillant
sur les gueules cassés des soldats estropiés
au front, -40 creuse derrière le matériau,
le défie pour mieux pister le malaise
ou l'inconscient. Derrière les visages
souriants des canadiens et japonais parqués
dans leur camp de concentration, Meek discerne
le doute, et l'angoisse, qui transparaît
dans les sinuosités visqueuses d'une
musique jouant de la même ambiguïté.
Mais derrière les arbres que les bûcherons
conduisent sur les flots rugissants, c'est également
à une certaine forme de poésie,
larvée, pionnière et organique
que Deadbeat nous convie. De quoi entretenir
le subtil amalgame d'évocation et de
provocation que sous-tend ce précieux
projet.
Laurent Catala
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