Stéphane Marin
Soundscape artist / listening facilitator
Zealot of sonic arts in public spaces ​​​
composer of multi-phonic electroacoustic music
for live performance in free spaces,
Stéphane Marin has been involved since 2003 in site specific artistic adventures
which seek out atypical spaces to be discovered and listened to.
On the border between listening to the soundscape and "in situ" compositions,
in the porosity proposed by a work who rubs the real,
Stéphane MARIN's artistic, ecological and spiritual paths
approching each day a little closer to the silence.
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Following many collaborations and solo projects shared in France and represented internationally :
Singapour, Medellìn, Mexico, Suwon, Beyrouth, Poznan, Grätz,
Valladolid, Kilfinane, Manchester, Bruxelles, Saarbrüken...,
in 2008 Stéphane created ​Espaces Sonores,
an artistic company dedicated to contextual sound creation and arts of listening.
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His desire for spaces and his practice of sound push him to imagine devices and experiences that take the form of soundwalks or sound naps, listening ambulations with naked or « augmented » ears,
or performative architectural sound installations.
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Path :​
After studying philosophy with Daniel Charles and Clément Rosset, and having abandoned his master on the theme of "Philosophy of Encounter", Stéphane Marin started to take a passionate interest in the new possibilities of expression offered by computer-assisted music (C.A.M.). He began to compose music with a strong narrative and dramatic charge at the beginning of the new millennium, a “cinematic” music.
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​Initiated into the specific techniques of City's Music projects and of sonic art in public spaces, through his meetings with Pierre Sauvageot in 2003 (Lieux Publics, C.N.C.A.R., Marseille), Michel Risse (Décor Sonore - Paris), and Eryck Abecassis, he explored from this time on sonic forms related to places, to buildings, and to public spaces. He then encountered Serge Delaubier (Studios Puce Muse, Rungis) who trained him in the techniques of gestural spatialization of sound (Méta-Instrument), skills which he further enhanced through a course at the GMEM (Centre National de Création Musicale, Marseille) on the "Holophon" spatializer (Max/MSP).
He then decided to leave his personal studio projects to one side to dedicate himself to “ multi-channel” city-scale projects.
Following many collaborations with art in public spaces companies (Allegro Barbaro / Le Phun / Osmosis Cie / 2ème Groupe d'Intervention / Décor Sonore) on projects performed in the six corners of the French hexagon, and in international festivals held in cities such as Suwon, Beirut, Poznan, Grätz, Valladolid, Manchester, Saarbrüken, … Stéphane Marin created Espaces Sonores , a company dedicated to contextual sound creation and art of listening.
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Since 2008, Stéphane Marin's work includes " Un Pépin pour 2 " (An Umbrella For 2) audio walks to be shared by two people under an umbrella which was created for the Saint Charles train station in Marseille (Lieux Publics : National and European Centre for Creation in public space, Marseille) and the streets and underpasses of Singapore (Singapore Arts Festival - National Arts Council); "Elemental " an ecological and soundscaping nap (MNHN, Domaine de Chamarande, CCAS...) ;" listening walks: as "re_COMPOSED re_ALITY" (Le Cube, Lieu Multiple...) , or "Listening to spaces / Spaces of listenings" (I Love Science Festival - Bozar - Tour & Taxis - Bruxelles...); "Listening Yoga"; then architectural performatives installations ")) archi_teXtures sonores ((" (Maison Salvan - Labège, l'Usine CNAREP- Tournefeuille).
Listen to Diarmuid McIntyre, HearSay International Audio Arts Festival's director and co-founder talking about "The Unheard Walks" site specific augmented soundwalk by Stéphane Marin, ITV by Nikki Martin for KBOO (USA) .
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He also produces radio works for France Culture («La nuit infuse », « Un Promeneur écoutant ») Arte Radio (« Mingalabar ! »), RFI (« Écoutez (Öland /Bastia / Kandy / Galle / Rangoun) avec Stéphane Marin »), Framework Radio (Estonie), but also albums released physically and / or digitally on Belgian label Unfathomless (« Serendib rythms »), Italian label Galaverna (« Matins d’Ariège »), or Chinese label Bivouac Recording (« 60 minutes cities : Bidoune ») without forgetting his self-productions scattered over the net (« L’Oreille Nomade en Birmanie », « Comme un dimanche matin » …). Two of his pieces were nominated in 2017 and then in 2018 at Phonurgia Nova Awards - Field Recording / Soundscape price. And a duo album with Ludovic Medery will be released at the end of 2020 on the german label Gruenrekorder.
He is also the curator of « Each Morning of the World » project, where he invites a new artist every Sunday morning for this world wide tour of the mornings' soundscapes. (broadcasted each week since April 2017 on Radio Grenouille; Resonance Extra; Radio Panik; Radiocarbono).
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Interview by Bac Fary- SleepTalker (RRR - Australia)
environmental sound, field recording, sound art and listening,
circadian ryhms, Each morning of the world...
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Finally, he regularly gives lectures and workshops in universities (Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Toulouse, École Nationale Supérieure d'Audio Visuel de Toulouse, École Européenne Supérieure de l'Image de Poitiers, École Nationale Supérieure d'Art de Dijon...), sometimes in international festivals ( Semana de la Escucha - Medellìn - Colombia); in professional meetings, libraries, or schools, gathering a different kinds of audiences to listen.
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Within the framework of "L'Oreille Tendre"'s workshop he initiates young audiences to active listening and field recording (Passeport pour l'Art, Ville de Toulouse). His workshop "Listening to the soundscape" offers the most eclectic audiences different listening experiences and a practical introduction to phoNography (Observatoire PhoNographique Sensible des Paysages Sonores de la Garonne - Toulouse Métropole - Lycée Agricole Auch Beaulieu; Communauté de Commune de Marne et Gondoire...).
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Stéphane Marin has been awarded several times
for his unique approach,
his atypical contextual composing skills
and its relationship to eclectic audiences in situ:
2008 : Écrire pour la Rue (SACD-DMDTS);
2014 : Toulouse Up! (Ville de Toulouse);
2015 : DICRéAM (CNC).
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Approch(es):​
The purely technical aspects of creating and diffusing sound shouldn’t overshadow the potential for vibrancy and subtlety, which in the artistic work of Stéphane Marin is always linked to the poetic dimension. These technical medias serve the sonic qualities of the space they set in resonance, which they highlight and reveal.
Whether through using multi-diffusion of sound (octophonic, surrounding the audience through 360°, or hexaphonic, through levels at different depths with lateral transmission, or at different heights…), or original means of sound diffusion (parasons, amplified acoustic earmuffs, moving speakers…) or by exploring the possibilities of field recording (choreographed sound recording, non-conventional microphones, recording in a sewer drain, or in a gutter, or up against a wall, or inside an acoustic earmuffs…), or by using original techniques of live and in situ mixing and re-composition of the soudscape (digital audio workstation: ("re_COMPOSED re_ALITY"), all these different means are used to confront, inhabit and facilitate the collective listening to these transfigured sonic spaces.
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As a central aspect of his approach, composition is intimately linked, mixed with and always responsive to the particularities of a place or site.
He offers a process of listening, reflecting and reacting which is inextricably rooted in the physical context.
« The art of sound is an art of space"
Sensory Walks: interview by CHRISTIANA KAZAKOU
- Interartive ( Walking Art / Walking Aesthetics)
Learning by Walking, Thinking by Experiencing. When Art meets Science. BOZAR Lab |
From 2013, he radicalized his practice of field recording and composition, starting to develop a singular practice of auscultation of territories through field recording, phoNography and their re_compositions.
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By "phoNography" we are talking about "artistic field recording" or "field recording art".
The "field recording" is rather for us the set of techniques for recording sound in the field.
In this art, the development of a singular "point of listening" of the phoNographer is comparable to the original "point of view" of the phoTographer.
The phoNographic gesture must, therefore, be understood as the first compositional act.
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At the presumed hour of the Anthropocene (Capitalocene !?), rather than going to capture a Deanthropized, Wild (even Paradise ...) Nature, he rather works to explore the boundaries between these two worlds. Here, he relies on the areas of friction, meetings, porosity, which exist between them to compose pieces where desacralized nature welcomes the presence of man, not as an attack (or a rape), but as co-existence, the possibility of mutual listening. To this end, he deploys a poetics of banality (against a politics of the extraordinary) as well anchored in the spaces of our daily newspapers, as at the limits of elsewhere.
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The sharing of his phoNographic art is available inside and outside the walls, mediatized or immediate, in face-to-face experience by means of the loan of dedicated devices in situ or, of course, radio and podcast at home, each on one's own listening devices.
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These auscultations of more or less targeted territories (banks of the Garona river, Raymond Island, Ré island, Prade de Canohès ...) can feed both medium and large scale territorial projects (Observatoire sensible des paysages sonores de la Garonne -Sensitive Observatory of Soundscapes of the Garonne), sound naps, listening walks (augmented or with "bare ears"), and finally raw phonographies (short formats) or re-composed into sound pieces, radio or albums (long formats) released on different labels or radios and / or geotagged on the Radio Aporee platform.
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Community life :
Stéphane Marin is actively involved in several collectives of sound authors in France :
He is a founding member of CASO (Collectif des auteurs et autrices sonores en Occitanie)
which defends (among other things) the creation (then the steering) of a Regional Aid Fund for Sound Creation with the Region and the DRAC Occitanie, as well as in the visibility of sound creation in the diversity of all its forms in Occitanie.
He is an active member of Sons Fédérés (Collectif national d'artisan.es de toutes les expressions sonores). Within several struggles, actions, reflections and demands, the Sons Fédérés (the Federated Sounds) are fighting to represent ALL the sound expressions in the future "Fund for assistance with sound creation and innovation", and also that the sound authors can take part in the reflections for the creation of such a Fund.
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Finally, he is a member-donor of l'ASPAS (Association pour la protection des animaux sauvages (Association for the protection of wild animals).
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