PIERRE BASTIEN
Curation of the sound performance Une danse de sons para Raymond Roussel
Inspired by the "thermodynamic orchestra" meticulously described by Roussel in his work, Pierre Bastien's orchestra of automatons today has more than eighty pieces that serve as accompaniment in his shows.
These instruments are created from mechanical parts and strikers (drumsticks, bows, etc.). Using timers and small electric motors, they make percussion, string and wind musical instruments sound repetitively, like a loop ad infinitum. On this musical support, Bastien incorporates melodies with traditional instruments, such as the trumpet, or ethnic ones, such as the harp-lute from Mali, the Rubab mandolin from Uzbekistan or the Angklung from Indonesia.
On the occasion of the Locus Solus exhibition. Impressions of Raymond Roussel at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Bastien dedicates his last show, Une danse de sons, to Roussel. In it he uses a series of small video cameras to show on a screen the mechanisms of the sound automatons that accompany him, revealing the secret of their operation.
In the seventies, Pierre Bastien began his collaboration with Pascal Comelade in the Bel Canto Orchestra and composed music for dance and film shows. In 1980 he began to conceive the Mecanium orchestra while completing his doctoral thesis on the work of Raymond Roussel. His orchestra of automatons works both as musical accompaniment in his concerts and as an installation in exhibition projects. On the international music scene, Pierre Bastien is considered a pioneer of some of the current sound discourses of experimental or electronic music.