«Sigmund Freud noho ma ka pale umauma» emitted the necrophone*!
Tuesday's books - Anaïs Sierro
Who's there? is certainly the question one might ask author Carla Demierre when reading her ten fictions. Who's in her head when she's writing these lines? We're sailing through a universe that's completely zany-pleasing, sometimes totally scientific-serious, often witty-perched and, above all, truthful-sounding. Such a sentence could - without any pretension whatsoever - be found in this collection of fictions that share a common theme: sound and its study, in an absurd way. Recording a shaman, a woman speaking Martian or Hawaiian (we haven't figured it out ourselves yet), a conversion of strange memories, a voice from the dead... in short, anything that can be recorded. And the author's talent is that she embarks us not just on stories, but above all on a literary artistic performance. «When words translate sounds», nothing could better sum up this book, this objet d'art. Oh, and I promise I'll translate the title for you later...
When you close this book, you're left wondering who is - or isn't - behind these words. Carla Demierre is an artist before she is an author. Trained in Geneva and Montreal in art and literary creation, there's no doubt that a book is a work of art for her. But if she is an artist, she is also and above all an art researcher or explorer. Whether it's sounds, printed forms, sound and visuals, or technical facts and historical notions, she experiments with an artistic genre by mixing it all up and bringing it back to words.
His pen, in Who's there?, is so sonorous that the background sometimes fades into the background. Sometimes it's madness, sometimes poetry, sometimes a form of literary spirituality. And just like poetry, this skilful blend is best enjoyed read aloud... In this way, the writer plunges us into a strange trance, lost between incomprehension and madness, or between visibly documented background, with the technical and historical precision of the recording processes of the time, and invented form. We don't really know where we stand anymore. But what a delight!
«The medium concentrated her mind on an idea: concentrate her mind on this idea (concentrate her mind on an idea).
This idea
An idea
This idea
An idea
This idea
An idea
Focusing
Etc.»
Beyond Carla Demierre's writing, which appears to us as a literate opium with delectable sonorities, the underlying criticism is steely. Is this the author's intention? Or is our reading biased, unable not to play the expert? letter who only wish to lend authors intentions of a certain literary nobility? Be that as it may, the obsession of the «sound hunter» characters (or machines) with recording the voices of ghosts, traditional chants or artificial intelligence users is strangely uncomfortable. Since we feel a need to go beyond the simple sounds captured, it's actually the intimacy of these sounds that we're looking for. Carla Demierre has such an ability to name and qualify them precisely that they go beyond their simple nature. They are heritages, knowledge and madness, memories, knowledge and megalomania. They are. Sounds are. Recording then becomes violation, appropriation and immiscion. As if, by capturing a sound, we take possession of its secrets, the hidden knowledge behind its creation. The unease is there. So perhaps it's the latter «that's there».
«The breath swelled, alternately on the letter F and on the letter S, each time louder. [...] It was both comical and unpleasant to hear, for the breath contained a wet, jerky rattle that made the anatomy of the throat all too present to the mind.»
An outdoor art object - the noble hallmark of the publishing house art&fiction - as well as inside. This collection is an artistic performance in which we take part with our eyes and ears. Fictions that we don't really understand, but that we ask again and again, as if already addicted to the opiate of these plots. The incomprehension remains delicious, as we find ourselves in the shoes of a madman who doesn't quite understand what's going on around him, but who, with sounds, images and words, escapes into a crisis of madness, into a "madness" of his own. pas-si-bad trip. Who's there? or write a delirium and provoke it.
«A: Listen to this: [C’.e.s.t.t.o.u.t.b.i.z.a.r.r.e]. The finger [click] and the tape recorder [frgtch-grt-g.rcht-ftt]. C’.e.s.t.t.o.u.t.b.i.z.a.r.r.e.
B: Yes
C: Once again, in slow motion. C’...e...s...t...t...o...u...t...b...i...z...a...r...r...e...
A: Ha-ha! It sounds like Breton...
B: But he's not from Brittany?
C: No, it must be the tape but sometimes.»
P.S.: As promised, «Sigmund Freud noho ma ka pale umauma »*.2 means: ???
Read the book and find out!
*1 The necrophone is a recording device whose purpose was to record the voices of the dead in order to communicate with them.
*2 French translation: Sigmund Freud camps at the hairdresser's.
Write to the author: anais.sierro@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: illustration from the book Pick-up and Musical Amplification by P. Hémardinquer
Carla Demierre
Who's there?
art&fiction
2020
156 pages
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