Balcony and Listening Room
Sound Art Department

Programme march-april 2024

In 2024, the Sound Art Department increases its proposals. The “listening balcony” inaugurated in 2007 is reactivated and inaugurated by Sophie Berger. Winner of the Pierre Schaeffer Discovery Prize - Phonurgia nova 10 years ago, she is a sound engineer trained at ENSATT (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre), sound production section, and author for radio, live performance , installations. With her microphones, she traveled across France, on foot, along the Loire, to create an eponymous sound piece. She then embarked for three months on board a cargo ship bound for the China Sea, then in 2017 on a supply ship to the Kerguelen Islands and, more recently, to Easter Island. 

Each time, she brings back immersive sound pieces, which are above all an invitation to cast off the visual moorings to listen to the world. 

She also creates for live performance, notably with the director Anne Théron, and since 2022 has collaborated with Fabrice Melquiot on multidisciplinary stage and radio performances. His first novel, Bank of Fog, a reflection on family, the silence that punctures memory, mourning and generational transmissions was released by Gallimard in January 2024.

Listening Balcony, Loire (2013, 50’) 

“One day, I knew I had to hit the road. I was 26, I’d never done it before, and I didn’t know what I was going to find. I just knew I had to do it. I had to hit the road. It wasn’t rational, it wasn’t logical, but I had no choice. It was an emergency. Something inside me was screaming out “take to the road with your microphones”. I managed to find the time I needed, and as soon as I could, I left. It was still winter. I had chosen the Loire as my navigational path. I wanted to walk 621 miles (1,000 km) along it, from the source to the estuary, to get back to the town where I’d seen it flow when I was a kid - Nantes.” SB  

Listening Room, Cargo (2015, 62’)  

“I boarded a container ship for a full shift between Europe and China. At the port of Le Havre, I switched off my phone. I left a message on my answering machine and in my mailbox, saying that it wouldn’t be worth trying to contact me for three months. I set sail and left. On board, I lived at the rhythm of the container ship and its crew, as we circumnavigated the globe. On board, I was where I was, with the winds, with the oceans, with the containers and the engines. I tried to capture this with my microphones. Cargo is a journey to be listened to.” S.B.

Sophie Berger, 2023. Francesca Mantovani ® Gallimard