“Noise has the power to call us back to life… », writes Luigi Russolo, artist, composer and author, in 1913, of the futurist manifesto The Art of Noises. Between his extraordinary lists of ordinary noises and the poems of the iconoclastic writer Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996), I slipped my voice and the sounds of the world. First sound poem around the senses of “listening” and the procession of verbs it carries: rustle, slam, howl, murmur, grumble, laugh…
The series “A thousand and one gills”
“Mille et une ouïes” is a series of five episodes devoted to the multiple and complex meanings of the verb “to listen”. What does it mean to “listen”? Does noise have the power to call us back to life? Why don’t the ears have eyelids? Is listening and listening to oneself the same thing? Texts by poets, philosophers, composers, intertwined with my reflections, but also sounds and words from the sound vocabulary weave a discourse with several voices. If there are a thousand and one hearings, a thousand and one ways of describing them must also be able to be expressed. From the dreams of Gaston Bachelard to those of Roland Barthes or Peter Szendy; poems by Walt Whitman and Susanne Doppelt, studies by futurist composer Luigi Russolo and contemporary Nicolas Frize… What secrets does listening reveal?
Noise has the power to call us back to life…
Genesis of the idea “A thousand and one gills”
“Listener” to world sounds, for ten years I have been composing sound pieces for RFI for the program “Ecouter le monde”, all shared on this page. Listening is therefore my job, this daily practice is accompanied by readings, often by poets, which nourish my reflection, increase my ability to listen. The sound material is by definition invisible and elusive, difficult to describe, words are often missing or remain unused. With this new series I want to listen to words chosen from my small literary and poetic library in resonance with the sounds of the world. “Mille et une ouïes” is an intimate and semantic exploration of the verb “to listen” and the various ways of listening and saying it.
Bibliography of citations
Etel Adnan NUIT, translated from the American by Françoise Despalles, Editions of Waiting, 2017
Goliarda Sapieza, Ancestral, translated by Nathalie Castagné, Editions Gallimard, 2021
Gaston Bachelard, The right to dream, Editions Presses Universitaires de France, 1er edition: 1970
Italo Calvino, The Invisible Cities, translated by Jean Thibaudeau, Editions Gallimard, 2013
Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises, Futurist Manifesto, 1913, Allia Editions, 2003, 2013
Nicolas Frize, Study of contemporary cultural references that surrounded and defined the notion of noise, the actions of hearing and listening – Volume 1/3 – Terminology – Unpublished study carried out by the association “Les Musiques de la Boulangère” directed by the composer Nicolas Frize, as part of research projects on the urban sound environment.
Peter Szendy, Lending the Ear, A Short Lecture on Listening, Bayard Editions, 2017
Roland Dubillard, Notebooks in the margin, Editions Gallimard, 1998
Roland Barthes, L’Obvie et l’Obtus. Critical Essays III, Editions du Seuil, Paris 1982
Susanne Doppelt, Mechanical Amusements, POL Publishing, 2014
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Leaves of Grass, original publication date 1855
And more words gleaned and intertwined from Arthur Rimbaud, Colette, Marcel Proust, Francis James, Victor Hugo, Romain Rolland…
Production team
Design, writing, editing, mixing: Monica Fantini
Voice recording and mixing assistance: Laurence Allanic and Pascal Boungo – Creation Unit
Listen to The World on
Both a radio program broadcast every Sunday in RFI’s news bulletin and a participatory platform, Ecouter le monde lets people hear the cultures of the world through everyday sounds. Hundreds of programs can be listened to as podcasts on this page, while the evolving platform www.ecouterlemonde.net offers sound postcards and recordings. To date, 245 sound recordings are available for free access.