U70 | philippe neau | étang donné
étang donné_excerpt1
étang donné_excerpt2
format : CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies/Digital
Regular edition of 170 copies packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert + an additional art card both on 350gr satin paper
Special edition of 30 copies packaged in black mass-tinted cardboard digisleeve with frame.
it holds a unique hand-numbered and signed painting from the artist himself + a folded copy of a graphic sketch as a kind of memory note of the process behind the work.
more details/possible modifications TBA
release year : 2021
length : 35′
track : étang donné
status : still available
>>> order via Paypal : chalkdc@unfathomless.net
Regular edition
(Belgium) : 14 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 15 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 16 € (inc.postage)
Special ultra ltd edition : SOLD OUT
(Belgium) : 17 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 18 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 19 € (inc.postage)
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: info :
Saisir la densité impassible de l’eau. Le jour. Le chant des oiseaux. La nuit. La clameur des nuages. L’été. Le souffle des arbres. Au printemps. Celui des poissons, à l’automne. Le bourgeonnement des arbres. Soleil zénithal. L’éclosion des fleurs, un soir de pleine lune. Les vaguelettes poussées par le vent sur la surface écarlate de l’étang. Le déplacement furtif des branches des saules sous une pluie diurne. Le saut des insectes à la lumière chaude. Le cri rauque du coq. En hiver. L’air lourd un matin brumeux … l’ombre fine des grenouilles sautant au passage du vent …
Cartographier par le son un lieu. Arpenter soniquement … sonder sonorement un paysage … PhonoGraphier l’étang du village où je vis, m’est apparu comme une évidence pour ce projet. Cet élément naturel, morceau de paysage à la fois liquide et organique, travaillait déjà mon imaginaire pictural et mental depuis plusieurs années. Se situant à quelques pas de l’atelier, je m’y rends pour respirer, observer, enregistrer des images, prendre des matériaux, enregistrer des sons. Il existe un lien caché entre ce lieu et un autre imaginaire que j’ai appelé muori pour un cycle de peintures. Un lien caché avec les îles de la Réunion et des Antilles habitées un temps. Du reste, l’étang de Saint Jean sur Erve, à la sortie du premier confinement, a vu en son centre émergé une île. Etrangeté de la tectonique des plaques et des rencontres imagées, imaginaires.
Cette captation s’est étendue sur un temps assez long, finalement. Plusieurs années, par petites touches afin de former des croquis, vagues, des esquisses incomplètes, sourdes à certaines fréquences ou couleurs du lieu. Les prises donnent lieu parfois à quelques gestes ou rituels avec ou dans la matière organique de l’étang. L’eau clapote. Les pas se font moelleux. Les oiseaux enchantent l’espace. Les gouttes glissent sur le bois du chêne. L’écureuil s’enfuit à mon approche. Le couple de hérons traverse sur l’autre rive en fonction de mes arrêts. Les marches sont plus ou moins longues. Elles ont lieux à divers moments. A la recherche d’une surprise, d’un son nouveau, d’une révélation. Le paysage est saisi dans un mouvement continu et cyclique.
Les matières sont ensuite confrontées, assemblées, découpées, développées, remodelées, juxtaposées, superposées pour former un paysage, autour de l’étang, mémoire phonique et réserve d’images. Couches après couches le paysage imaginaire se transforme, bouge et finalement il mue en peinture fragile et tangible.
Etang donné* apparait ou voudrait apparaitre comme un paysage mental, un espace sensible, une peinture sonore non pas réaliste, ni narrative du lieu visité, sondé, regardé, arpenté, traversé, vécu mais l’aboutissement d’une expérience de cet étang. Une pièce sonore aux allées et venues contractées, aux mouvements de balancements, aux « retours » incessants, aux cercles concentriques formées par les multiples passages. Le morceau éclot. La peinture se fait dense. Les sons enflent. Une « présence » résonne en nous. On entre dans la matière du lieu, composite, organique.
(*Le titre du morceau rejoue celui de Marcel Duchamp, histoire d’eau aussi)
(philippe neau, 25 June 2021)
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Capture the unshaken density of water. The day. Birdsongs. The night. The clamour of the clouds. Summer. The breath of the trees. In spring. That of the fish, in the fall. Budding trees. Zenith sun. The blooming of flowers on a full moon night. The ripples blown by the wind across the scarlet surface of the pond. The furtive swing of the willow branches under a diurnal rain. Leaping insects in warm light. The hoarse cry of the rooster. In winter. The heavy air on a misty morning … the flimsy shadow of the frogs jumping in the breeze …
Mapping a place by sound. Sonically pacing … sounding a landscape … PhonoGraphing the pond in the village where I live seemed obvious to me for this project. This natural element, a piece of landscape both liquid and organic, had already fuelled my pictorial and mental imagination for several years. The pond being a few steps away from the workshop, I often go there to breathe, observe, record images, take materials, record sounds. There is a hidden link between this place and another imaginary world that I called Muori for a cycle of paintings. A hidden link with the islands of Reunion and the West Indies that were once inhabited. Moreover, an island surprisingly appeared right in the centre of the pond of Saint Jean sur Erve, at the end of the first lockdown. Strangeness of imagery plate and picture tectonics. Oddity of imaginary encounters.
This capture went on for quite a long time, after all. Several years, by small touches, in order to form sketches, waves, incomplete sketches, deaf to certain frequencies or colours of the place. The takes sometimes trigger gestures or rituals with or within the organic matter of the pond. The water is lapping. The steps are soft. Birds enchant the space. The drips glide over the oak wood. The squirrel fled as I approached. The pair of herons crosses to the other side mirroring my wanderings. These walks vary in length. They take place at various times. Looking for a surprise, a new sound, a revelation. The landscape is captured in a continuous and cyclical movement.
The materials are then confronted, assembled, cut, developed, remodelled, juxtaposed, superimposed to form a landscape, around the pond, a collection of sound memory, a stockpile of images. Layer after layer, the imaginary landscape transforms, moves and eventually turns into a fragile and tangible painting.
Etang donné* appears -or would like to appear- as a mental landscape, a sensitive space, a sound painting that is neither realistic nor narrative of the place that was visited, probed, contemplated, surveyed, crossed, lived in, but simply the outcome of an experience of this pond. A sound piece with condensed comings and goings, swaying movements, endless “come backs”, concentric circles formed by multiple visits.
The song hatches. The painting becomes dense. The sounds swell. A “presence” resonates within us. We enter the material of the place, composite, organic.
*(The title of the piece aludes to that of Marcel Duchamp, Histoire d’Eau Aussi -, meaning “also a story of water”. Etang-Donné translates as « Given Pond » with a pun in French meaning « Given that»)
( translated by Florence Collobert, June 2021)
: reviews :
When one has lived in one location for a stable amount of time, one begins to form attachments to particular places: a stretch of shore, a magnificent tree, a patch of perennials. For Philippe Neau, a village pond is the object of attachment. Year after year and season after season, he has returned to this pond for reflection, for comfort, for perspective. As the pandemic unfolded, the pond became a symbol not only of consistency, but of wonder, as an old forgotten island emerged in the center.
étang donné (given pond) is Neau’s ode to the pond of Saint Jean sur Erve, but also a meditation on memory and time. This 35-minute piece was recorded over a series of seasons and years. The birds in one segment may be the ancestors of those in another. The water may have just fallen from the sky or may have been in the pond for years. Only the church bell remains constant, a human marker of time, in this case removed from the contexts of days and hours. Some samples repeat, doubling back on themselves like recollections and reevaluations. What is eternal? If something lasts for the course of a human life, is it “eternal” enough?
While Neau does not anthropomorphize the pond, he loves it, and selects its finest moments and most representative sounds for this collage. Water sounds are a constant presence, while birds, insects and frogs drop by during their appointed seasons and hours. Night and day coalesce and create a sense of suspension; this is not a biography of the pond, but a painting. Twelve minutes into the piece, a sketching can be heard. The artist pauses, drawn to a certain spot and sound.
What must it have meant to see the island emerge? The most obvious metaphor is that of a hidden reservoir. While the artist scores the life of a pond, he also scores his own inner life, apparent in the choices he makes: more placid than turgid, more sun than rain, more birdsong than human speech. This collection of memories, now stirred beyond the sequential, is now an interactive thread: the pond, giving without intention; the artist, reflecting the pond.
Richard Allen
A Closer Listen
Unfathomless 