Interview with Bruno Duplant

 


1. What is your background in terms of sound design and art? How was your path towards what you are doing at the moment? Were there some substantial moments in your life that actually helped you to move on towards something that is your own language?


I have been making music for more than 20 years using all I what was within easy reach: guitar, organ, percussion, piano, double bass, electronics… and I discovered the way to record sound easily with some cheap equipment. I always been inspired, not necessary by music, but more by literature and movies. Music for me is a way to tell a story, to create fictions. That’s my own language according to me. So for me there is not gap in my creative process. Finally like a river which follows its course and is enriched during its progression, by the contribution of rain and the meeting with other rivers.

2. Today we are living in tomorrow. The distribution of music and artists’ work has changed immensely. How does it affect you as a person working with sound?


Sure, even I produce and being produced a lot, things have changed for the recent years. I have the chance to have a side job (teacher /librarian) that give me some time and money to live. Being musicians in the field of experimental music today is something difficult.


3. What importance is an interface you are using- the software and hardware? How does it affect your progress and understanding the core values of your self-expression?



I am today more and more using my computer as an instruments, so of course software and hardware to transform, modify sounds, whether they come from field recordings instruments or samples. I try to push all these processes and procedures beyond their limits. In the end I feel a bit like a chemist, or even better like an alchemist trying to turn lead into gold. 



4. You have numerous collaborations in your discography. How does work with others influence you?


To work with others is, since the beginning, a way to explore, to to explore other territories, to think outside the box, to seek new methods, new tools, to work at a different pace. It is also a moment to exchange, to talk, to put words on concepts. But sometimes it misfires and we remember Beckett “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” 


5. What inspires you in artistic world and the world of modern media?


I already answerd upper, litterature (fiction, poetry & philosophy) with authors like Francis Ponge, Gaston Bachelard  Georges Perec, Mallarmé, Beckett(justly), movies & series like Twin Peaks and all David Lynch cinema, the Nouvelle Vague. Not really music itself, except some great sound artists/musicians/theorists  as John Cage, Luc Ferrari, Rolf Julius, Raymond Murray Schafer. Last things and not the least, graphic arts in general and architecture. All not truly modern.


6. How does the current obstacles related to geopolitical situation affect your activity?


More the world/the planet in itself in general and how human live on/over it. Such a shame! I have always been optimistic, but for years now I became truly pessimist. My friend David Velez tells me that I am a pessimistic optimist, what is felt in the titles and my music for some time (Élégie du temps présent , our seasons reverse , L’incertitude , Soleils Noirs , preservation, des illusions…). We are coming (I hope) to the end of a capitalist world, of a savage liberalism, but, at the same time, we can see, here and there, the resurgence of authoritarian regimes. I would like to be able to leave my children and grandchildren a fairer world that respects nature, a world of harmony, but I very much doubt it.



7. Plans for the future…?

Both full and not really. Plainly to continue to make music, to compose, to share my emotions, thoughts through music. To continue to share this also through writing and photography. 

Art is sharing without concession.



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