HÉLÈNE PRÉVOST
24ZHEURES
2013
Biography
Hélène Prévost is a sound artist, musician and radio producer who is interested in sound (re)mixing, field recording and multi-speaker broadcasts. Her favourite instrument is one of her own devising, a cross between a radio studio and a laboratory in which sound and electricity interact. Among her recent projects are L'île flottante, MM/12ze, U/Onze, C/Onze,+-/_\-+, Travaux électroniques féminins, 24Gauche, Les fantômes des lots vacants, Calendar, TransgressiveTransmissions, a<varia>ctions, TAP, Vol qualifié, Simulcast, La Chute, Luigi’s Avatar, Jeudis tout ouïe, Montréal matière sonore and Victoriaville matière sonore.
From 1978 to 2007, as a radio producer, Prévost devoted herself to the recording and broadcasting of experimental and exploratory music at Radio-Canada (Musique Actuelle, Le Navire Night, Bande à part). She has also initiated web-based projects and coordinated Radio-Canada’s participation in such festivals as FIMAV, MUTEK and Montréal Musiques Actuelles, and such projects as Symphonies portuaires and Silophone, a project by the artist collective [The User]). In such publications as Circuit, Esse, Artexte and Musicworks, she has documented aspects of her audio art and shared her perspectives on listening.
About the work
For the 20th anniversary of Avatar.
According to my complex calculations:
365 (days) x 20 (years) x 24 (hours) x 60 (minutes) = 10,512,000
But all this time is impossible to add up. It is enshrined for all time.
So to continue:
1 + 5 + 1 + 2 = 9.
Eureka!
9 seconds (too short);
9 minutes (that’s better);
9 hours (that would be an installation);
9 days (a performance);
9 months (total gestation and it’s over);
9 years (a lease);
9 centuries (now we’re talking).
I have thus chosen 9 minutes, with interventions every 20 seconds and the same element, called Modded Farfisa (Dave Smith Instruments–Mopho) in a loop, in 2 forms with slight variations. A and B.
Then, at 6 minutes, 2 seconds, an intrusion, and at 7 minutes and 47 seconds, a vocal element, an excerpt from Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig, read aloud and recorded on CD. The CD is defective and the CD player stumbles on the word s'embrasser (“to kiss”); it can’t get past it. I take advantage of the situation by slipping away. The future has imposed its own special course, which is what I wish for Avatar in the near and distant future.
Result:
24ZHEURES
9 minutes, 1 second