Zastrašujući uređaj koji zvukovima jede ruku kojom ga hraniš.
www.nicolasbernier.com/
• Mention, Prix Ars Electronica (2011)
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.
La chambre des machines stems from a desire to return to the
physical world in an environment of digital creation. The project also
refers back to the intonarumoris, sound machines built by Italian
futurists at the beginning of the 20th century. These machines contained
mysterious mechanisms, just as computers do today.
credits • Audio : Nicolas Bernier + Martin Messier • Intonarumoris (Machines) : Alexandre Landry • Video : foumalade.org • Production : Perte de signal
LA CHAMBRE DES MACHINES @ MUTEK
BANDES À PART @ RADIO-CANADA
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.
Nicolas Bernier:
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→ Performances and installations
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Sound and light performance, 2013
• Audiovisual composition, concept, performance, programmation and technical design : Nicolas BernierThis second installment of the frequencies series is an audiovisual composition purely based on digital synthetic sounds. The performance length vary from 15 to 40 minutes, being made of short sequences that the performer is organizing and processing in real time. Sound and light bursting within small acrylic structures have been tightly composed together, both sharing a sense of extreme precision where one can either hear the light or see the sound. _ CD published by Entr'acte _ • World Premiere: Mutek 2013 / CA _ Realized in 2012/2013. aknowledgements: daïmõn - entr'acte - mutek - perte de signal - university of huddersfield - fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (fqrsc) - pierre alexandre tremblay. |
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Sound and light performance, 2012
• Audiovisual composition, concept, performance, programmation, technical design and some electronics : Nicolas Bernier• Techical design : Olivier Lefebvre • Fabrication : Laurent Loison frequencies (a) is a sound performance combining the sound of mechanically triggered tuning forks with pure digital soundwaves. The performer is triggering sequences from the computer, activating solenoides that hits the tuning forks with high precision. Streams of light burst in synchronicity with the forks, creating a not-quite-minimal sound and light composition. • Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica 2013 / AT _ Realized between january 2011 and september 2012. aknowledgements: perte de signal - university of huddersfield - fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (fqrsc) - françois laflamme - martin messier - samuel st-aubin - pierre alexandre tremblay. thanks to the canada council for the art for their support of the "projet diapason". |
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Sound sculpture, 2011
• Concept and sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Technical 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. _ 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. Thanks to - fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (fqrsc) . |
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A/V Performance w/live electronics, intonarumoris and 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 / AT • Jury Selection, Japan Media Awards 2011 / JP _ 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. |
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CD available at Ahornfelder |
Music for folk acoustic guitar, surround sounds and live electronics, 2010 (35')
• Sound composition : Nicolas Bernier• Guitar : Simon Trottier • Light system : Alexandre Landry • Visual : urban9 • 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. _ 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. |
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Sound 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. _ Realized between june 2008 and September 2008 in the personal studio of the composer. |
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CD available at Electrocd.com |
Music for live electronics and acoustic instruments 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 / AT • CD of the year, Prix Opus, 2010 / CA _ Realized between 2004 and 2009 in the composer’s personal studio. Thanks to urban9, No Type and Mutek. |
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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 |
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Music/Video Trilogy, 2004-2005
• Video and sound composition : Nicolas Bernier + Delphine Measroch• Except Treelogy II This Is A Portrait by Nicolas Bernier 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. • 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 |
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frequencies (synthetic variations)
• Entr'acte (UK), September 2013, CD
Nicolas Bernier's first piece entirely made out of synthetic sounds,
breaking with his musique concrète/field recording tradition. The result
comprised 15 short movements of warped and crackling textures, of
vividly articulated sine wave and of rythmic pattern bursts made to be
listened to in random mode. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
→ Buy from Entr'acte → Buy from Boomkat
« It crackles, rumbles and grooves. [...] 24 minutes, 15 very
short tracks to be listened to in random mode,
a surprising record. »
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- Monsieur délire, CA |
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Music for a Piano / Music for a Book
• Home Normal (JP), July 2012, 2 CDs
Double album, the first part being ‘Music For A Piano’. The second
part ‘Music For A Book’ was written as a soundtrack for Marc-André
Moutquin's third novel ‘Entre l’aurore et la nuit’. Mastered by Thierry Gauthier.
→ Buy on iTunes → Buy on Norman Records (UK) → Buy at Home Normal (JP / SOLD OUT) → Buy on Electrocd (CA / SOLD OUT) → Buy on Boomkat (UK / SOLD OUT)
« an incredible place to be »
- Norman Records, UK |
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Travaux mécaniques
• empreintes DIGITALes (CA), February 2012, DVD 5.1
Mostly known for his performances, installations, and atmospheric music,
he signs here a first album of musique concrète / acousmatics. We will
again find his clever amalgam of aesthetic influences to which he has
accustomed us, but in his most daring bill. Mastered by Dominique
Bassal.
→ Buy on Electrocd (CA)
« vibrant music, swiftly moving about with a great sense of drama. » - Vital Weekly, NL
« a highly complex soundworld [...] not a single second of downtime. » - Monsieur Delire, CA
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usure.paysage
• Hrönir (DE), February 2011, LP
An expressive mix of lively field recordings, tiny and massive
electronics and sparkling relocations. The docker barks out aloud, the
little insect crawls through the 19th century woodworker's atelier,
forgotten voices vanish and the rest is no silence. Mastered by Rashad
Becker.
→ Buy on Electrocd (CA) → Buy on Metamkine (FR / SOLD OUT) → Buy on Rumpsti Pumsti (DE / SOLD OUT) → Buy on Boomkat (UK, SOLD OUT)
« utterly compelling » - The Wire, UK
« crunched abrasions and eerie footsteps, ruptured by ghostly noises. Excellent, through and through! » - Aquarius, US
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strings.lines
• Crónica (PT), October 2010, CD
strings.lines came to life from an obsession for old and forgotten
object-matter and the desire to produce music that exists in between the
new and the old. The starting point to the composition of this work
were acoustic tuning forks. Viola da gamba : Pierre-Yves Martel. Violin :
Chris Bartos. Mastered by MC.
→ On Bandcamp → Buy in the Crónica store (PT) → Buy on Electrocd (CA) → Buy on iTunes
« Sublime. » - Boomkat, UK
« a marvellous recording » - Cyclic Defrost, AU
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The Dancing Deer EP
• Home Normal (UK/JP), December 2010, CD
The Dancing Deer is a « pop concrète » collage, rhythm being the
cornerstone of the work, built around a constant pulse. It brings
together elements of drones, clicks, minimal, maximum, song writing,
poetry, post-rock, electronic and instrumental music in a strange and
uncommon atmospheric collage. The project is a musical translation of a
couple months spent in the Canadian West
→ Buy on Bandcamp → Buy on Electrocd → Buy on iTunes
« dreamy and destabilizing » - Monsieur Délire, CA
« totally unusual and exceedingly strange » - Boomkat, UK
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courant.air
• ahornfelder (DE), November 2010, CD
courant.air is a work intertwining folk acoustic guitar and electronic
music. 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 as sound,
invisible. Acoustic guitar : Simon Trottier.
→ On Bandcamp → Buy on Ahornfelder store (DE) → Buy on Electrocd (CA) → Buy on iTunes
« one of the more engaging electroacoustic pieces I've heard » - Emissions.com (US)
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silence.musique
• leerraum[] (CH), February 2010, DVD
silence.musique is an essay on silence.
→ Buy on lerraum[] store (CH) → Buy on iTunes
ultra limited surround sound DVD edition, 60 copies.
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Les arbres
• No Type (CA), June 2008, CD
Sonic landscapes and slow textures meet with precise articulations,
resting on a minimal orchestration made of guitars, brass instruments,
vibes, accordions and strings. A stimulating record, a remarkable
attention to detail and excellent production quality, making for an
unfailingly rewarding listening experience. Mastered by Paul Dolden.
→ On Bandcamp → Buy on Electrocd (CA)
Mention Prix Ars Electronica, 2009, AT
« an amazing CD, with great ideas, perfect execution » - Vitral Weekly, NL
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Compilation
In the midst of this eclecticism, his artistic concerns remain constant: the balance between the cerebral and the sensual, and between organic sound sources and digital processing. The sound of Nicolas Bernier is somewhere between the old and the new. It is electronic music made from objects of the past: typewriter, old machines, tuning forks, soundscape memories and, yes, musical instruments. It is made with a modern apparatus but feels like completely handmade. It is gently articulated textures alongside enormous masses. His works have been of interest for Prix Ars Electronica (Austria), SONAR (Spain), Mutek (Canada), DotMov Festival (Japan) and Transmediale (Germany) and have been published on lovely labels like Crónica (Portugal), Ahornfelder (Germany), leerraum (Switzerland) and Home Normal (UK). He his currently undertaking a PhD in sonic arts at the University of Huddersfield (UK) under the direction of Dr. Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Dr. Monty Adkins. He his a member of Perte de signal, a media arts research and development centre based in Montreal.
« Nicolas Bernier as a particularly inquisitive mind and creative sound artist » - The Milk Factory, UK
« Un savoir-composer hors-norme » - Goute mes disques , BE
Martin Messier:
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