Quadri + Chromies
2006 - MATERIALI SONORI

HECTOR ZAZOU & BERNARD CAILLAUD
QUADRI + CHROMIES
Materiali Sonori / TakTic Music
maso 90139
CD + DVD + 10 cards in a special box.
total playing time: 67’ 30” + 56’ 10” approx.

Track listing :
CD
1. Chutes géométriques
2. Matière pensante
3. Lignes et rectangles
4. Elipses
5. Horizontales/Verticales
6. Chromatisme Horizontal
7. Textures
8. Carrés du noir au bleu
9. Noir, blanc, gris
10. Triangles
11. Arc en ciel vertical

DVD
1. Noir, blanc, gris
2. Carrés du noir au bleu
3. Arc en ciel vertical
4. Chutes géométriques
5. Chromatisme Horizontal
6. Matière pensante
7. Horizontales/Verticales
8. Triangles
9. Lignes et rectangles
10. Texture

Composed, arranged and performed by:
Hector Zazou
with
Peter Buck (tracks 2-3-6)
Brian Eno (tracks 4-5-7)
Bill Rieflin (tracks 5-6-8-9)
Ryuichi Sakamoto (tracks 1-3-4-6-8)
David Sylvian (track 2)

and Archea Strings:
Mauro Fabbrucci, Vieri Bugli – violins; Marcello Puliti – viola; Damiano Puliti – cello; Filippo Pedol – double bass

Digital paintings are by Bernard Caillaud
Produced by HECTOR ZAZOU
Executive producer : Jean-Michel Reusser


Quadri + Chromies unisce le immagini video di Bernard Caillaud e la musica elettronica di Hector Zazou. Immagini e musica, pur essendo generate dal computer non vanno verso la ricerca sistematica di una sincronia. Suoni e colori, in una sorta di dialogo meccanico guidato dal caso, divengono improvvisamente significativi o “comprensibili” agli occhi dello spettatore-uditore.
Nato “sul palco”, a Firenze nel 2002, Quadri+Chromies è stato presentato in due modi:
- una installazione in cui ogni monitor rappresenta un quadro e una musica che evolvono verso l’infinito, mai uguali a loro stessi;
- un concerto in cui i quadri sono proiettati su due o quattro schermi e la musica è trasmessa in quadrifonia.
Il musicista e il pittore intervengono attraverso forme e suoni, in tempo reale.
Il lavoro discografico vuole riprodurre tutto questo.
Zazou e Caillaud scrivono di Quadri+Chromies:
“La novità dell’operazione non sta nell’indagine sulla interazione tra forme e colori. Questo tipo di relazione ha storicamente affascinato ogni tipo di sensibilità artistica e scientifica: da Newton a Criabine, da Valensi a Xenakis, da Schönberg a Baranoff-Rossinè. Basti un nome per tutti a richiamare questo tipo di indagine artistica: il “suono giallo” di Kandinski.
Il processo inverso inizia ora con la sintesi grafica del suono. In ogni caso, la relazione deve essere leggibile/visibile, o almeno guidata da un processo che può essere complesso ma che deve comunque essere giustificabile, dimostrabile e quindi comprensibile.
Non siamo sicuri che questa ricerca di corrispondenze fra le Arti abbia senso, ma è qualcosa che viene tenacemente e costantemente investigato attraverso il concetto di interattività e della sua danza di segni.
Sappiamo tutti, però, che l’interattività è solo un’illusione. C’è sempre un padrone e uno schiavo. Uno decide e l’altro obbedisce. Distruggere questa relazione significa disconnettere un ordine per meglio comunicare, significa rendere libero il campo ai dialoghi nati dal caso per applaudire gli incidenti della sincronia e per far sì che tali incidenti risultino eccitanti e unici.
Con Quadri+Chromies abbiamo preferito la sovrapposizione alla connessione.
Vogliamo scuotere le corrispondenze imposte dal nostro bagaglio culturale, vogliamo liberarci dal nostro desiderio ossessivo di capire le cose per poterle percepire meglio. Vogliamo suggerire un nuovo modo di creare senso che nasca da incontri sensoriali che siano casuali e unici.
L’unica certezza è che questo lavoro è una creazione solo parzialmente controllabile che nasce dal lavoro del musicista e del pittore, dalle macchine e da programmi guidati dal caso.”

About Quadri + Chromies:
Quadri + Chromies brings together the video pictures of Bernard Caillaud and the electronic music of Hector Zazou.
Images and music are generated by computer and there is no systematic search for syncronicity.
Colors and sounds seem to dialogue in a strange mechanical music that becomes, by pure chance, suddenly understood by the spectator. Quadri+Chromies was created as a live performance in Florence (Festival Fabbrica Europa) in May 2002 and performed again in Moscow in October 2003, Monterrey (Mexico) in October 2004 and Sofia in March 2005. The album, which realizes this work, is now released.
Zazou and Caillaud wrote about it:
“Several works are necessary to resume the efforts to marry these two sensorially constructed spaces. The relationships between sounds and colours, frequencies and wavelenghts have been explored by everyone from Newton to Scriabine, Valensi to Xenakis, Scönberg to Baranoff- Rossiné (…).
Inverse feedback is beginning with the graphic synthesis of sounds. In any case the liaison must be legible/visible or at least driven by a process that is often complex but justifiable, demonstrable thus comprehensible.
We are not sure if the correspondence between the Arts makes sense, but it’s endlessly and hungrily investigated through the concept of interactivity and its dance of signals (…).
But we all know that interactivity is an illusion. There is always a master and a slave. One decides and the other obeys. To destroy this relationship is to disconnect in order to better communicate, to give free reign to dialogues born of chance, to cheer at accidents of synchronicity, to render the incidents of this path exciting and unique.
With Quadri+Chromies we have chosen juxtaposition over connection. We want to shatter the correspondance imposed by our cultural references, to liberate ourselves from our obsessive desire to understand in order to better perceive.
We want to suggest a way of making sense of sensorial encounters that are fortuitous and rare (…).”


Hector Zazou
Hector Zazou has always dedicated himself to contemporary electronic music, research into the music of the world and a global concept of making music. Born in Algeria, Hector Zazou has had an enviable career as a musician, composer, arranger and producer, giving life to projects of great cultural depth.
Since the 1980s ha has enjoied great popularity and acclaim, collaborating with many varied and prestigious artists, voyaging from the discovery of African music to the radiance of Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses to the musical poetry of Rimbaud with “Sahara Blue” to the unknown north of “Chansons Des Mers Froides”, visiting on his wqay ancient celtic voices (“Lights In The Dark”), Tibetan and Siberian sounds and arriving at the record of PGR, “Per Grazia Ricevuta”.
Zazou has often worked with Materiali Sonori. He has been involved in the planning of special live events, as well as partecipating in the cds of Sonora and several of the cds in the Drop series.
In 2003 he realized “Strong Currents/Sonora Portraits”, a project in collaboration with Giampiero Bigazzi.

Bernard Caillaud
Deceased in July 2004, Bernard Caillaud trained as a physician. He devoted himself to painting and photography in the early 1960s and discovered the act of creation via computer programming in the early 1980s. His work is especially focused on cellular robots, which he considers to be irreplaceable motors of exploration.
He simultaneously pursued research on colour and sound, and tempolral algorithmic creation, wich led him Algocinetic Painting. “This is,” he explains, “about establishing algorithms marked by randomness which, during a voluntary limited length of time (the program goes in a loop with a meter) reveal an identity without strict repetition. This is about one of the facets of my research on temporal paintings which emphazises the perception of colour in evolution”.
He is the author of several articles and two books, “Couleur et Aléatoire” (1988) and “La création numérique visuelle. Aspects du Computer Art (2001). His works have been exhibited worldwide and his audiovisional pieces have been projected throughout Europe.

Web Info:
www.musicoperator.com