Thomas Germanaud

Réveil d’une capitale
01.12–02.18.2017

Thomas Germanaud’s multidisciplinary practice is currently guided by his focus on the city and his desire to experiment with its various elements and scale, the way one might experiment with materials in the studio. To achieve this, he creates projects that observe and question the urban environment in different ways, such as through the city’s aural and cartographical dimensions. Video and audio installations, maps, graphic scores and audio works are developed according to the unique properties of each project. His work oscillates between generative art, graphic elements and sound composition; between the random samplings of a flâneur and the precise orchestration of a musician. He readily uses visual art strategies to create audio works, and conversely, musical techniques in the production of visual art.

Initiated in 2014, this project is a recreation of the emblematic 1914 composition Risveglio di una Città (Awakening of a City), by the Italian painter and founding father of noise music, Luigi Russolo. By reimagining Russolo’s piece, which proposed a sonic interpretation of the city more than a century ago, Germanaud’s version offers fresh insight into the modern city through both sound and visual elements, with Montreal as its exploratory field, yielding several hours of recorded urban noise. By reinterpreting Luigi Russolo’s score through his own compositional protocols, modern technologies and numerous recordings throughout the city, a new audio piece has been created. Visitors are encouraged to hear their city with fresh ears, and to see it transcribed and recomposed anew in the form of a cartographical score.