film soundtrack composer, sound / installation artist, curator – An architect designs works that occupy spaces; I create sound sculptures that fit in the flow of time and perception
Canadian artist, celebrated sound sculptor, works released (under the moniker “i8u”) on leading labels of the genre such as and/OAR, ATAK, Contour Editions, Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Non Visual Objects, Room40 and many others.
And as if that weren’t enough, France Jobin also excels in the audio-visual field: performances and video installations at noteworthy festivals (Mutek, Victoriaville, Send + Receive, Club Transmediale, Immersound etc.) and important art venues (Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec etc.).
Her recent audio release, “Surface Tension” on Murmur Records, must necessarily be included among the best albums of the past year. The latest one, published first under her real name and out in February on L-ne, is titled “Valence”: sounds with references to the world of chemistry and perceptible departure from those compositional schemes that we got used to.
A gleaming gem, substance radiating sweetness and light, three long pieces that maintain an inimitable identity, purity, ravishing musicality.
Rigorous aesthetic sensibility, superb skills in sound processing, minimalist imprint as common denominator of most of her work, marked by an amazing simplicity/complexity, rich in subtle, barely audible elements: all that offers an immersive listening experience, all that makes France Jobin a unique figure in this area of exploration.
The Montreal based sound artist and curator, France Jobin, has been releasing albums for well over a decade. Devoted explorers of the finer sides of noise will have likely come across the name i8u — Jobin’s exclusive nom-de-plume up to this point. i8u has been an effective outlet for Jobin, where she’s shown an aptitude for transforming analog and digital geekery into music with substance.
The press release for Valence — Jobin’s first work to break from the i8u guise — claims the album was created entirely from “transformed field recordings.” While neither Jobin nor the label hint at the source of these recordings, fans of i8u needn’t fear a drastic change from the spectrum-spanning minimalism that’s become her signature sound. In fact, Valence, from start to finish, feels like a further honed version of i8u’s pointillist analog-synth explorations, as opposed to a shifting of paradigms.
While it’s not a drastic change, the music feels more congealed than past efforts; the reticent mids and ear-piercing highs of i8u’s 2010 effort, 29 Palms, for example, tended to float along nicely enough in parallel, but didn’t posses the same give-and-take relationship expressed on Valence. This refined sound likely is linked to Jobin’s transformation of the more digestible low to high-mid frequencies; they flutter, cascade, and always translate a hint of effervescence in the way that heavily time-stretched field recordings do.
While ambient and drone focused music in general dictates a sort of unspoken modesty, Valence, in its scope, is not a humble record. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of a number of epic Eliane Radigue works. But this doesn’t always come easily for Jobin, as the liner notes explain her struggles in always finding the right mental and emotional state in order create her art. Considering she decided to include these thoughts here, I’d imagine Valence was of particular challenge. Perhaps then, this album does represent a sort of shift for Jobin — not overtly in terms of ideology, but in terms of an emotional weight, one that has never carried so transparently into her music.
Working exclusively with processed field recordings taken from across North America and Europe, Jobin’s conscious mind dances cautiously with her source material; she is compelled by its potential significance but reluctant to unveil its mystique by sparing it too much thought. As she states herself: “there is a likelihood of finding a certain emotion in a piece, but it is not guaranteed, nor do I know exactly when or where I will find it. The act of looking for that emotion in of itself will distort it. Although one would think experimental music grants complete freedom, when composing, I feel constrained by both my mental state and the way in which I build the piece.”
There is therefore a paradoxically heavy tension present within the practically weightless ambience. Jobin wrestles with her own curiosity, letting impulse prise the reins from the heavy steering and assertion of rational thought and letting the decision-making process flow as it will. Each of the three pieces goes through a most delicate evolution, guided gently between harmonies and into higher volumes by intricate tilts of axis. Comparisons are understandably drawn with the microscopic drone modulations of Eliane Radigue, with Jobin’s music carrying a similar attentiveness to the tiniest details; gaseous sonic emissions mutate at an imperceptibly slow speed, drawing both composer and listener into a micro-world of heightened focus.
Despite originating from the recordings of actual spaces, attributing Valence to a particular type of landscape is difficult. The gentle flickers of drone feels as though they’re drifting around the perimeter of a space in nature – perhaps a large open field or desolate green forest – yet those occasional beeps of ultra-high frequency reside outside of an organic frequency spectrum, tugging the mental visuals toward the realms of artificial machinery and laboratory electronics. But just as Jobin avoids trying to excavate the “meaning” within her work, it’s perhaps wise for the recipient to question the music with care; the ethereal, intangible beauty of Valence is brittle and always ready to unravel at the hands of any heavy-handed attempt to decipher its implications. (ATTN:Magazine, UK)
E l disco de la pareja feliz no es lo único que ha aparecido por las líneas dirigidas por Richard Chartier. Con la misma fecha, febrero de este año, sale editado el estreno de la artista canadiense France Jobin en Line,y que además es el primer disco bajo su nombre real. Jobin es una músico de Montreal que desde hace unos diez años viene editando bajo I8U. Más de una decena de trabajos, la mayoría desconocidos para mí, y que por tanto hacen que mi ingreso en su vocabulario sea del todo nuevo. “Valence” fue creado enteramente desde grabaciones de campo transformadas, inspirado tanto en los enlaces de valencia (VB) y las teorías orbitales moleculares (MO. “Una órbita atómica es una función matemática que describe el comportamiento ondulado de un electrón o de un par de electrones en un átomo. Esta función se puede utilizar para calcular la probabilidad de encontrar cualquier electrón de un átomo en cualquier región específica alrededor del núcleo del átomo. El término puede también referir a la región física definida por la función donde el electrón es probable que esté”. Buscando las zonas en donde se cree se encuentran las partículas más pequeñas de la vida, France crea una órbita en donde los sonidos viajan en campos donde la percepción no es la misma, más cercana al silencio que al ruido, en perfecta sintonía con lo que el mismo Chartier hace. Sin llegar al nivel se sutileza sonora a los alcanza el jefe del sello, los postulados de Jobin de todas maneras obligan a permanecer atentos para no descuidar el instante en que los rumores mudos dejan de ser tal y pasan a ser la banda sonora para este viaje de búsqueda atómica. Siguiendo trayectorias circulares quizás pueda parecer extraño, para mí lo fue, pero efectivamente uno al escuchar cuidadosamente estas tres piezas –entre los dieciocho y los veintisiete minutos– siente y sobre todo imagina a aquella partícula, la más ligera de todas viajar alrededor del núcleo, me imagino orbitando y dando destellos de luz en la eternidad de lo invisible al ojo, ajeno a la vista, pero palpable al oído, el sentido que nos perite ver más allá de todo. Una verdadera y agradable sorpresa la que nos tenía deparada France Jobin, quien crea un universo a partir de lo microscópico, que contrarresta con las inmensidades al vacío teñidas de gris de Stephan Mathieu y Caro Mikalef. Line por dos en el comienzo del año, diez sobre diez.
*Limited edition of 500* Montreal’s I8U, known for releases on Room40 and Atak, presents her first recordings as France Jobin. This switch to her own name signifies a purification of aesthetic on ‘Valence’, offering three beautifully deep and meditative compositions swimming in the same infinitely tranquil waters as Eliane Radigue, Franca Sacchi or Celer. The work overall takes it’s inspiration from her interests in quantum physics and digital composition, and finds parallels between the “wacky world of subatomic dimensions” and the elusive emotions she encounters within experimental electronic music. We’d love to delve deeper into this, but our quantum physics diplomas were actually bought in the Arndale market. Instead we can tell you this is a beautiful piece of work to behold, defined by incredibly subtle microtonal shifts and pure, tactile frequency isolations which are thrilling to experience (if you’re thrilled by that kind of thing), all delicately strung between icily crisp digital highs and lushly resonant harmonic coloration.
Audio Screening Studio 04 Saturday, March 3, from Noon to 7:30 pm
Live Performances
Studio 01
Saturday, March 3, from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm (pass required, available at OBORO from Tuesday, February 28)
Curators: Helen Frosi, France Jobin and Yann Novak
Sublimation: An Exercise in the Immersive is an exhibition featuring a range of audio-visual works that respond to the idea of the sublime. The exhibition presents eight international artists: Mark + Laura Cetilia (US), Ryan Connor (US), Robert Crouch (US), Gary James Joynes/Clinker (CA), Mimosa|Moize (TW, UK) and Tu M’ (IT). These works saturate the sonic and visual landscape, drenching and enveloping the audience and must be experienced to be truly understood.
The six audio-visual works on view in Sublimation: An Exercise in the Immersive explore the sublime through their creation of expansive, saturated and meditative environments. Each artist’s work accentuates an understanding and appreciation of multi-sensory experiences.
The artists in this exhibition explore a wide range of artistic styles and practices, from audio and video field recordings (Morning by Mimosa|Moize), the utilization of broken lenses for light and sound manipulation (Letterlens to Kid Eyes by Ryan Connor), and the incorporation of ceremony and ritual (Provody by Gary James Joynes/Clinker).
One of the more well know works in the exhibition comes from artist duo Tu M’ (Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli) who contribute a work from their Monochrome series: Monochrome # 09+V06, a reductive landscape that has been distilled down to fragile atmospheric shades of blue. Robert Crouch pushes the idea of traditional landscape further with his work Dusk, which presents an impossible landscape where a single surface shifts from land formation to skyline and back again. Landscape leads to location based work in Mark + Laura Cetilia’s Visiting Hours where the piece is formed from recordings within the Museums of Bat Yam, Israel where the piece was first exhibited.
The opening night of Sublimation: An Exercise in the Immersive is accompanied by two complementary programs; an audio screening including works by: Katherine Bennett (US), Celer (US, JP), Stéphane Claude (CA), Heribert Friedl (AT), Robin Parmar (UK, CA, IE), Tomas Phillips + Craig Hilton (US), Scant Intone (CA) & Tom White (UK); and a concert consisting of live performances by: Robert Crouch (US), David Kristian (CA) and Mimosa|Moize (UK). The audio screening serves to highlight a larger range of work that fits into the idea of the sublime. The live performances is a chance for both artist and audience to be consumed by the same visceral experience, to be drawn into and among the same heights and depths of the sonic and emotional spectrum.
Helen Frosi is an artist and curator with an interest in sonic and olfactory arts, currently based in London (UK). Helen is co-founder and creative director at SoundFjord the UK’s first sound-devoted gallery and research unit. As a serial collaborator with nomadic tendencies, Helen has programmed internationally for organisations and festivals as well as creative and unconventional arts spaces. Recent projects include screenings, performance and installations for, among others, Apiary Studios (UK), Café Oto (UK), Dragonfly Festival (SE), Galerie8 (UK), Gorey Arts and Film Festival (IE), ICA (UK), Pigeon Wing (UK). Helen is currently a nominator at Supersonix (UK).
soundfjord.org.uk
France Jobin (1958) is a sound/installation artist and curator residing in Montreal. She has created solo recordings for ROOM40 (AUS), nvo (AT), ATAK (JP), murmur records (JP) and LINE (USA). Her sound installation Entre-Deux presented within the new media exhibit DATA/FIELDS, was met with critical acclaim in Washington DC. Curated by Richard Chartier, DATA/FIELDS included Ryoji Ikeda and Mark Fell among others. As a curator, she has presented several events, amongst those: emptiness at Monkeytown, New York (2006), Nocturne 3, Mutek in 2007 (co-curator) and her latest endeavour Immerson (2011) at OBORO, a concert event/philosophy which she initiated and is curating.
francejobin.com
Yann Novak is a sound, video and installation artist based in Los Angeles. He has presented his installation work through solo exhibitions at 323 Projects (CA), Armory Center for the Arts (CA), Las Cienegas Projects (CA), Lawrimore Project (WA), Soundfjord (London, UK) and in two person exhibitions at the Henry Art Gallery (WA) and Pøst (CA). In 2005, Novak re-launched his father’s Dragon’s Eye Recordings imprint with a new focus on limited edition releases by emerging and mid-carrier sound artists, composers and producers. Since its re-launch, Dragon’s Eye has published over 60 releases and has received critical acclaim.
In conversation with Richard Chartier after the concert @ 19:30. Open to all!
Concert Immerson 2 at Oboro Thursday, February 24 and Friday, February 25, 2011, at 6 pm, limited seating!Tickets on sale at OBORO for $10 (cash only), from Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 5 pm. You can also dial 514 844-3250 to make a reservation with credit card.
The Artists:
Richard Chartier (b.1971), sound and installation artist, is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist electronic sound art which has been termed both “microsound” and Neo-Modernist. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself.
Chartier’s critically acclaimed sound works have been published over the past 12 years as 40 compact discs on labels such as 12k/LINE (US), Raster-Noton (Germany), Spekk (Japan), Non Visual Objects (Austria), Room40 (Australia), Die Stadt (Germany), DSP (Italy), ERS (Netherlands), and Trente Oiseaux (Germany). He has collaborated with noted sound artists Taylor Deupree, William Basinski, CoH, and German pioneer Asmus Tietchens, as well as installation artists Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand, and visual artist Linn Meyers. His work currently appears on 38 international sound art and electronic music compilations.
Chartier’s sound works and installations continue to be presented internationally. His work has been exhibited in the 2002 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (US), Sounding Spaces at NTT/ICC (Japan), I Moderni / The Moderns at Castello di Rivoli (Italy), Resynthesis at The Art Institute of Chicago and with the traveling sound exhibit Invisible Cities. His solo and collaborative installations have been shown at the Art Gallery of University of Maryland (US), Media Lab Enschede (Netherlands), Montalvo Arts Center (US), G Fine Art (US), Die Schachtel (Italy), The Contemporary Museum of Baltimore (US), Fusebox (US), and Diapason (US). Chartier continues to perform his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America. He has performed at noted art spaces/electronic music festivals including: MUTEK (Canada), GRM/Maison de Radio France (France), Musiktriennale Koeln (Germany), Observatori (Spain), DEAF (Ireland), Transmediale (Germany), NETMAGE (Italy), Lovebytes (UK), The Leeds International Film Festival (UK), The Rotterdam International Film Festival (Netherlands), REDCAT (US), and La Batie (Switzerland) and at art museums including: ICA (UK), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (DC), ICC (Japan), CAPC Musée D’Art Contemporain De Bordeaux (France), Musee d’Art Contemporain (Canada), The Contemporary Art Centre (Lithuania), and Sculpture Center (NY). His live performances have taken place in conjunction with the exhibits Frequenzen [Hz] at the Schirn Kunsthalle (Germany) and A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968 and Visual Music at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (US). Since 2000, Chartier has continued to curate his influential recording label LINE, publishing 45 CDs and DVDs documenting the compositional and installation work of international sound artists who explore the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism. Chartier’s Series, the premiere release on LINE, was awarded an Honorable Mention for Digital Music by Austria’s prestigious Prix Ars Electronica in 2001.
In 2006, Chartier was invited by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to create a sound work in conjunction with the Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit. Titled Specification.Fifteen and composed with musician Taylor Deupree, this work is inspired by Sugimoto’s Seascape series. The audio performance premiere in the museum’s curved Lerner Room at sunset reflected the duality and stillness of Sugimoto’s series. The live recording was released on compact disc through Chartier’s LINE label. The work was awarded one of five Honorable Mentions for outstanding contemporary artistic positions in digital media art by the Jury of Transmediale.07 Award (Germany). With a special slowly shifting video piece incorporating Sugimoto’s Seascapes, a new version of Specifiation.Fifteen premiered at Berlin’s Akademie der Kuenste (Germany) in 2007. This audio/visual performance has subsequently been presented at Issue Project Room (NY) and Torun’s Center for Contemporary Art (Poland) and continues to be adapted.
http://www.3particles.com/
Monique Jeanlives and works in Montréal. She studied electroacoustic composition at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Francis Dhomont.
In addition to her acousmatic compositions, her work is also regularly associated with video and experimental films, with dance and with installations. Her harbour symphony L’Appel des machines soufflantes (“The Call of Blowing Machines”), a commission of Radio-Canada, was premiered in March 1998 at the Port of Montréal and in 1999 she was an invited composer during the Rien à voir (5) concert series produced by Réseaux (Montréal).
Finalist in the Ciber@rt (Valencia, Spain, 1999), Musica Nova (Prague, Czech Republic, 2001) and Bourges (France, 2002) competitions, her works are regularly performed and broadcast during numerous national and international concerts and festivals.
nathan mcninch is a consummate tinkerer whom on occasion makes art and music. nathan has released sound work for a handful of independent record labels including: oral, important records, moar and his own petite sono. he has also produced sound works for a variety of other mediums including: installation, video radio, and the internet.
http://petitesono.com/
About immerson:
immerson is a concert event and philosophy initiated by France Jobin that proposes creating an environment dedicated to an enhanced listening experience through the physical comfort of the audience by means of a specifically designed space.
Jobin initiated immerson in February 2011, in partnership with OBORO and in close collaboration with Stéphane Claude.
France Jobin is an audio / installation artist, composer and curator. Her audio art, qualified as “sound sculpture”, distinguishes itself in a minimalist approach of complex sound environments at the intersection of analog and digital. She participates in festivals, as well as presents installations and events internationally. Jobin has produced numerous solo albums with renowned labels such as ROOM40 (AU), LINE (US), popmuzik records and ATAK (JP). France Jobin was a Sonic Arts Awards 2014 finalist in the category Sonic Research.
France Jobin
Valence
LINE_054
CD + Digital
Edition of 500
February 14th 2012
LINE is proud to present a new work by Montreal sound artist France Jobin. Having released under her moniker i8u, Valence is her first release under her own name. Created entirely from transformed field recordings, this collection of three compositions has an elegant flowing simplicity. Slow harmonic modulations of a similar essence to the works of Eliane Radigue and Celer.
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Valence is inspired by both the valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital (MO) theories.
An atomic orbital is a mathematical function that describes the wave-like behavior of either one electron or a pair of electrons in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in any specific region around the atom’s nucleus. The term may also refer to the physical region defined by the function where the electron is likely to be.
Often, my compositions start with a feeling or emotional state. There is a likelihood of finding a certain emotion in a piece, but it is not guaranteed, nor do I know exactly when or where I will find it. The act of looking for that emotion in of itself will distort it. Although one would think experimental music grants complete freedom, when composing, I feel constrained by both my mental state and the way in which I build the piece.
I find an unlikely parallel in quantum theory and composing. The electron that can exist on a different orbital plain can never have it’s velocity measured or even its exact location known, due to the intimate connection between particles and waves in the wacky world of subatomic dimensions.
All sounds recorded at various locations in North America and Europe.
Special thanks to Richard Chartier and Mark Hogben.
Cover image by Mark Hogben.
Created by Tedi Tafel (conception/direction) In collaboration with Leslie Baker, Bill Coleman, Dean Makarenko, Lin Snelling, Monique Jean, France Jobin (I8U) et Yan Lee Chan
January 13-14-15 & 20-21-22, 6 p. m. to 9 p. m.
661, Rose-de-Lima,
Montreal (metro Lionel-Groulx)
Janvier by Tedi Tafel
Janvier is what happens when talented artists from various disciplines collaborate and use their fertile imaginations to explore in depth the sensuality and mystery that is January. Winter dictates the pace of this piece, in which images unfold slowly. In this atmosphere of ambiguity and shifting shadows, where even the architecture is in perpetual flux, bodies rise slowly from the cold, like winter light emerging ever so gradually from darkness. check video
For artist Tedi Tafel, Janvier represents the culmination of more than twenty years of researching the evocative potential of bodies in non-traditional venues. First presented as part of Calendar, a series of multidisciplinary performances offered throughout the city, each month at a different site, Janvier is back in all its magically suggestive splendour, further enriched by the cumulative experience of a year of Calendar performances.
NB: Janvier flows continuously over a period of three hours. The public is invited to move throughout the site freely, and to come and go as it pleases. However, space is limited. Reservations recommended.
Biography
Tedi Tafel is a Montreal-based choreographer and teacher whose current research interests include site-specific performance and video installation. Her work investigates the expressive potential of the human body in direct relationship to place. Inspired by being in nature, she creates from a need to translate something of this experience back into the city. She transforms public sites into spaces of heightened attention, imagination, and metaphor, thereby diverting us from our habitual, merely functional mode of moving through the city, and awakening in us a more sensual and enchanted engagement with our surroundings. With her latest works, Life-World (2007) and Calendar (2010), Tedi departs from conventional notions of ‘spectacle.’ She invents new forms of presentation that blur the separations between performer and audience, between art and life. Her work has been shown across Canada and in New York, Iceland, Mexico, Germany and Wales.
Surface tension is a new “sound sculpture” from renown audio installation artist i8u aka France Jobin. Based on field recordings taken from Canada and the EU, the prolific Jobin freely integrates digital, analog, glitch and drone into a field of aural vision that simultaneously exhibits micro and macro perspectives on a complex, yet inviting, environmental theme.
i8u’s art is about juxtapositions, analogue to digital, aural to visual, technological to philosophical. Her installations can often be experienced in live events and festivals across the Canada, the United States, South America and Europe.
Track Listing
01. water 72.86
02. toluene 28.52
03. ethanol 22.29
