A work about helplessness and confusion in the face of destruction: that of the individual, that of the individual’s points of reference.

We hear voices that cross temporalities, that appear suddenly like interferences, and that intrude to a greater and greater extent until they become omnipresent.

“In the City everything is as it was in the time of the destruction of Byzantium, as it was in the time of the destruction of the Temple.
Everything is desecrated, pillaged, ruined. Little girls tremble, the children and men have their hands sliced off, the inferno devours the living and dead alike,
as it was in the religious wars, as it was in the pogroms, as it is in time.” — Hélène Cixous

Texts by Hélène Cixous, in “Beethoven à jamais” (Des femmes-Antoinette Fouque, Paris, 1993) and by Alejo Carpentier, in “Varèse vivant” (Le nouveau commerce, Paris, 1980). With the processed voices of Sylvio Archambault, Emmanuel Madan, Pascale Malaterre, Marie-France Marcotte, and Alain Pelletier.

— Monique Jean [English translation: Sean Ferguson, Traçantes]

13’13 pour voix défigurées [13’13 for Disfigured Voices] was realized in 1997 at the PRIM studio — with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and the PRIM, centre d’arts médiatiques — and premiered September 25, 1997, in its original version for tape and three-screen video as part of the third Manifestation vidéo et art électronique de Montréal. The texts are © 1993, Cixous / Des femmes-Antoinette Fouque; © 1980, Carpentier / Le nouveau commerce.

Premiere

• September 25, 1997, Manifestation vidéo et art électronique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)