Inspired by David Tudor’s « Rainforest »
Ollivier Coupille
Thierry Madiot
Boris Allenou
Coproduction Lutherie Urbaine/Les Instants Chavirés
The departement of Seine-Saint-Denis (France) supported the creation of this work, (October 2016)
Ollivier Coupille joined Thierry Madiot and Boris Allenou to give new impetus to a long-standing sonic experimental project. For this, the three musicians based their exploration on Rainforest, a creation originally produced for the choreographer Merce Cunningham in 1968 by David Tudor. The work was resumed in 1973 (Rainforest Version IV) with « ready made » (reference to Marcel Duschamps) objects and an electro-acoustic sound type setting. This is indeed an evolutionary process of dynamic creation which is not intended to fully stabilize: its complexity and its evolutionary shape can be compared to the creation of a new eco-system.
This tribute to Rainforest IV, was created during my Musicology Masters degree. It inspired me a lot and I decided to focus my thesis on David Tudor’s work, sonic ecology and D.I.Y. I called it : »L’apport du mouvement Do It Yourself dans la creation musicale: l’exemple de Rainforest ». I even got the chance to give a talk during the internationnal coloquium « Musiques électriques, électricité et musique » organised by University of Paris 8. The title of this talk was : »Rainforest : dispositif électronique, Do It Yourself et décroissance »
For more informations on Rainforest and on David Tudor’s work in general I higly recommend the work of You Nakai.
« … I discovered that what I wanted was a forest – that’s why I called it Rainforest – it was a single voice forest. It became clear to me that I had to start at the end with the speakers. »
David Tudor
« One of the process of refinement was to collect the vibrations of one of these objects using contact microphones and reinjected at the entrance of the circuit to be mixed and mixed and then eventually diverted to another object or to a speaker conventional speaker. Then took place a recycling phenomenon that made Rainforest an ecologically balanced sound system. «
Gordon Mumma
Boris Allenou 