Geneva's Archipel festival welcomes its audience for ten days of non-stop music, from midday to midnight, in a single venue, the Maison communale de Plainpalais, a space multiplied to offer as many listening experiences and moments of conviviality.

Denis Schuler's interest in written music, Marie Jeanson's expertise in installations, performance and electroacoustics, have brought the two directors together to concoct their second edition (with the public): " Rather than thinking in terms of a theme, we work by associating and cross-referencing ideas, from which the main lines of the program eventually emerge ", they explain. In this 2023 edition, which seamlessly blends installations, performances, "acousmatic conversations" and instrumental concerts, particular attention is paid to (small) objects(Living Objects) and their power of attraction. Conversely, there's a tendency to excess, with Mio Chareteau's thirty snare drums, the 80 musicians of the Basel Sinfonietta and the four-hour Corals, a service station, the installation and performance by Léo Collin and his Kollektiv International totem that opens the event.
As every year, the Archipel festival is linked to the composition students of the Geneva HEM, whose works can be heard in the Salon d'écoute, where the acousmonium (loudspeaker orchestra) is installed. Archipel is also a place for children, with a playroom and participatory concerts featuring young musicians from Geneva's Conservatoire Populaire, all led with great energy and charisma by Kaisa Pousset.

Four installations rotate continuously throughout the festival: the one by Japanese painter Tami Ichino catches the eye as soon as you enter the building. Superb unbleached canvas drums of all sizes descend from the ceiling. Long drumsticks of various qualities are available to the public to set them in resonance. Upstairs, we're invited to lie down on the wooden platform, built for the purpose by Zurich-based visual artist Dimitri de Perrot, commissioned by the festival: " lie down on the floor and take the time to listen to what's happening at foot level, because the floor speaks ", says de Perrot... No cushions, which would alter the conditions of this immersive experience! The 3D sound images are breathtaking, actively stimulating perception and imagination. In the cursive entrance to the Grande Salle, where Vincent de Roguin has his (particularly rich!) bookseller's stall, The Handphone Table (1978) by the American Laurie Anderson is an invitation to sit at the table, with both elbows at strategic points and hands over the ears to pick up the vibrations of sound transmitted through the bones. L'orchestre de papier (2022) is 14 pieces of machine music by Frenchman Pierre Bastien, one of the latest inventions of this musician/builder of musical instruments as fragile as they are boisterous. Paper drums are set in vibration by a fan, joined by six paper organs and as many flutes, which sound in turn before joining in the final tutti.

Performance as a place for acoustic experience

The fruit of the designers' imagination and meticulous craftsmanship, objects powered by various sources of energy come to life under the fingers, feet and gestures of the performers on the afternoon of Saturday, April 1, as a frenetic succession of five propositions take over as many appropriate spaces.

Geneva-based artist Mio Chareteau 's performance in the Grande Salle brings together thirty snare drums (metal drums and white drumheads) and as many students from the Conservatoire Populaire, joined by soloists fromEklekto (a contemporary percussion collective) and volunteer amateurs.
Children and adults, driven by a relentless pulse, make the drumheads sound with a large black felt-tip pen, which imprints its mark on the instrument with each impact. A resonant sound fills the entire space, a heavy sound in the medium-grave that lasts for half an hour, while the skins create drawings of their own making, each one a personal contribution to the final collective work: the "canvas" is both magnificent and ephemeral, but will remain visible as it is until the end of the day.

Field drum by Mia Chareteau with the Eklekto ensemble and students from the Conservatoire Populaire

For Dead Plants, the performance by Pierre Berthet and Rie Nakajima, the sound artists use the staircase of the Maison Communale as a support structure: "To listen to the sounds of things is to get closer to their soul," say these two dreamers of the unheard-of, who multiply the manipulations of objects to make them audible.
Maria Komarova's delicate, poetic anthill of found objects powered by electricity, whose trajectory she constantly modifies to diversify the soundscape: rustling, creaking, soft squeaking... Engineering fascinates the eye as much as the ear. If the minimal frequencies of Failed Experiments 06 by Ryoko Akama and Anne-F Jacques, featuring the interaction of light and heat, leave us a little perplexed, the Lotus duo Eddé Khouri and Jean-Luc Guionnet (dancer and saxophonist) impress us with their economy of means and the osmosis between the instrumental action and that of the dancer, who evolves on the spot, via the plasticity and expressivity of her body movements.

The intermittences of sound

Corals, a service station for the Kollektiv International totem created in Zurich in 2022, is the highlight of this first Geneva weekend. Conceived and written by French composer Léo Collin, the show for instruments, electronics, actors, video and smartphone is part installation, part performance, part theater, part concert, including a participatory dimension for the audience. For those who wish, an app can be downloaded onto their smartphone at the entrance to the Grande Salle, inviting them to come on stage and giving them precise instructions on what to do: get a cup of coffee from the vending machine, which emits bizarre sounds, buy a pack of cigarettes from the saleswoman (who has surrounded herself with a number of sound objects, whistles, bells, recorders, etc.) or play with a pair of earphones.), or play with a pair of cymbals while following the video monitoring on her smartphone... In the fictional (entirely cardboard) yet colorful setting of this gas station, there are four characters: the security guard, the technician (in charge of the electronics), the waitress and the maintenance worker. They evolve in their daily zones of activity, with gestures and automatic acts that are stereotypical: like the waitress's systematic, noisy and nervous labeling of the boxes that arrive in a continuous flow.

But everyone has their own secret garden, that part of themselves that escapes existential monotony and gives them access to a phantasmagorical sphere that also passes through video images. Such are the privileged moments of the waitress(Kay Zhang) when she can chat with her community on the Internet. She seems to float on a little cloud, with that delightful, crooning voice obtained through Auto-Tune software: a hum that punctuates the journey like a refrain. As for the surface agent (embodied by the composer), he seeks to transgress reality by any means necessary. His vacuum cleaner and cleaning utensils are all pretexts for triggering interesting sound situations; he even has contact microphones in his joints, enabling him to play with his steps and gestures just as he plays with his remote-controlled cars and small helicopter, bringing back the poetry of childhood and wonder. There are real bursts of dramatic acceleration, generating jets of smoke coming out of the cardboard car's exhaust pipe, between humor and derision, poetry and second degree. Musical instruments also make an appearance, with a horn, a flute, the waitress's saxophone and a piano set up outside the auditorium. It appears on the multi-channel screen that dominates the set via live video capture. These are pieces (compilations) by Léo Collin written long before the show, whose musical time offers welcome breaks in the overall articulation. Very funny are the two theatrical moments visible on the screen, two videoconference sessions between four lambda participants and an expert (actor) whose speech, adopting the tics of the German language (hm? ja genau, etc.) cancels out any possibility of response on the part of the listeners. The composer (who also wrote the text) was inspired by the creation of the Amazone unions. The idea here is to set up gas station unions to learn how to say no! The highlight of the show is the appearance of Stuttgart's Neue Vocalsolisten, equipped with VR headsets (which enable them to read the score in real time) on the face of six small boxes. In fact, it's they who bring the show to a close, twice performing songs by Léo Collin, who is responsible for this crazy adventure, as risky as it is well articulated, a metaphor for a possible utopia in a place with no future.

Staging the music

The festival team includes two scenographers, Yvonne Harder and Lukas Stucki, who have helped to improve the often highly reverberant acoustics of the Maison Communale by distributing floor-to-ceiling pieces of mouse-grey felt in the most vulnerable spaces. They were also keen to optimize listening conditions. We're lying down in Le salon d'écoute, to share some of his favorite sounds with Jérémy Chevalier at lunchtime. The Geneva-based artist, visual artist, performer and all-round inventor is in residence throughout the festival.

Equally essential, for the two scenographers, was to diversify the locations according to acoustic requirements and to prepare them visually: more reverberant (the Grande salle) for instruments, drier (the salle de jeux) for amplified music, close to the bookshop for performances with text, etc. In this way, the Sunday afternoon duets were distributed throughout all the spaces of the Maison Communale, modifying the set-up and the listening angle for each of the formations.

The twelve duets (the one with the two harpists will unfortunately be cancelled) cover a large part of Helvetia's cantons geographically, as well as a wide range of musical genres (written, improvised, electroacoustic, live electronic, mixed, etc.) and duet formations. The first three duets we were able to hear bear witness to this.

In the listening room, at the heart of the acousmonium, the duo of voice (Aurélie Emery also at the helm) and double bass (Dragos Tara), including a substantial electroacoustic section, was commissioned by the festival. It is based on a subtle cross-fade between field recording (recorded natural sounds) and the playing of the two protagonists. The double bass and then the sung voice are processed live, before a further shift from the instrumental to the sounds of nature.

Martina Berther 's performance on electric bass and that of actress Simone Lappert, with their fine craftsmanship, are even more enchanting. Heard over German poems, the voice is beautiful, clearly articulated, in a rhythm that spares long, inhabited silences. The electric bass adds its grain, acceleration and color, always discreet yet sensitive to the words and flow of our singer.

Slovenian accordionist Nejc Grm completed his training in Basel and Fribourg. He duets with Basel's Bettina Berger in a low-voltage piece, evolving from dall'niente al niente: music of fragility and instability in which the two instrumentalists complement each other and exchange roles, from the high frequencies of their instruments (the aeolian sound of the bass flute) to the dark grain of their lower registers: the sound and listening quality are optimal.

Crossing genres and aesthetics, generations and practices, welcoming the bizarre, the strange and the unconventional without compromising on the quality and strength of the proposals... this is the DNA of the Archipel festival in Geneva, which runs until April 9, from noon to midnight.

Report by Michèle Tosi

Festival Archipel, Geneva, Maison communale de Plainpalais 31 - 2-04:
31-03: Léo Collin (b. 1990): Corals, une station service; Kollektiv International totem.
1-04: Sharing a listening experience with Jérémie Chevalier; Performances by Mio Chareteau, Maria Komarova, Pierre Berthet and Rie Nakajima; Ryoko Akama and Anne-F Jacques, Lotus Eddé Khouri and Jean-Luc Guionnet.
2-04 Three duos: Aurélie Emery and Dragos Tara, vocals, double bass and electroacoustics; Martina Berther and Simone Lappert, electric bass and vocals; Bettina Berger and Nejc Grm, bass flute and accordion.

Photos © Arthur Miserez
Photos © Elena Petit Pierre
Photos © Amadeus Kapp