1 Stone Flute (7:40)
2Stones (5:08)
Oto-Date [Listening Points] Parcours Diurne [Daytime Trail] [10 a.m. - 6 p.m.] (12:42)
3 1 (1:23)
4 2 (0:38)
5 3 (0:39)
6 4 (0:29)
7 5 (0:43)
8 6 (0:51)
9 7 (0:43)
10 8 (0:48)
11 9 (1:18)
12 10 (0:48)
13 11 (0:42)
14 12 (0:59)
15 13 (0:39)
16 14 (0:45)
17 15 (1:17)
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18 Analapos (4:26)
19 From One Bamboo (5:05)
Oto-Date [Listening Points] Paris, Parcours Nocturne [Nighttime Trail] [9 p.m. - 4 a.m.] (18:11)
20 16 (0:44)
21 17 (0:35)
22 18 (0:42)
23 19 (1:14)
24 20 (0:49)
25 21 (0:52)
26 22 (0:43)
27 23 (0:47)
28 24 (0:33)
29 25 (0:34)
30 26 (0:44)
31 27 (0:44)
32 28 (0:55)
33 29 (0:39)
34 30 (0:40)
35 31 (0:45)
36 32 (0:48)
37 33 (0:42)
38 34 (0:43)
39 35 (0:44)
40 36 (0:42)
41 37 (0:43)
42 38 (0:47)
43 39
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44 Suzuki Type Glass Harmonica (14:03)
At first impression there might not seem to be much in common between sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1890 – 1967) and Japanese sound artist Akio Suzuki (born in Pyongyang, 1941), but just as music was a recurring influence on Zadkine – he sculpted no fewer than nine versions of Orpheus – the deceptive simplicity of Suzuki's work is as much about space and light as it is about sound. "Come and see," wrote Zadkine, inviting a friend to the studio on rue d'Assas he moved into in 1928, now the museum bearing his name: "You'll understand how a man's life can be changed by a dovecote, by a tree." Or by a piece of bamboo: Akio Suzuki's "From one bamboo" and "Bamboo Harp" occupy a bright, spacious room in the museum's secluded gardens. Visitors are encouraged to pick up and put down (gently) the 25 irregular bamboo cylinders on their concrete plinths to discover their individual sonic identities. "It is very important that each segment is different," Suzuki comments: "People are different, one from another; each comes with his/her imagination and sensibility. Everyone becomes a musician." A basic human gesture – what could be more commonplace than just picking something up and putting it down again? – becomes a rich aural adventure, and the space soon fills with the delicate clatter of wood on stone.
Suzuki's second contribution to the Résonances exhibition is in the form of a soundwalk or oto-date, the third such event he has been invited to curate in France, after similar outings in Enghien and Strasbourg. Oto-date roughly translates as "open air sound ceremony" – so the distinctive forlorn echoes of the Métro and the crisp, metallic chatter of Montparnasse's bustling cafés are, sadly, excluded – and the map provided by the museum retraces Suzuki's exploration of the district around Zadkine's studio. Walkers are invited to head southwards, skirt the Montparnasse cemetery (appropriately, Zadkine's last resting place) and cross the Jardin Atlantique, a rooftop garden built above the platforms of the Gare Montparnasse, eventually ending up in the narrow streets between Saint Sulpice and the Jardin du Luxembourg. Along the way fifteen specific listening points are identified, a pair of ears in a circle painted on the pavement to indicate the precise location of the listening point and orientation the listener is to adopt. Though several of these are time-specific – the schoolyard on rue Joseph Bara is best appreciated at playtime – and others light-specific – the Place des 3 Martyrs seems to have been included for the spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower it affords at night time (during the day it's a particularly noisy traffic intersection), Suzuki has found some extraordinary spots, from the Jardin Atlantique's surreal sound window opening from leafy tranquillity and birdsong onto the roaring trains and blaring loudspeakers of the station below, to the traffic island between rue Falguière and rue Armand Moisant, where a magical acoustic reveals itself, the resonance of the crossroads and a nearby playground amplified and focused by adjacent high-walled buildings. Suzuki himself, however, would be the first to recognise that some of the most memorable experiences in life occur along the way, between the oto-date, in those fleeting moments that only chance can throw your way: a concierge sweeping dry leaves across the yard of the Musée Zadkine, a furious cavalcade of police cars in the Avenue du Maine road tunnel, a cat yawning and stretching on the gravel path of the Musée Bourdelle. And, "a song wrapped in dusty gas rises towards me from the street [..] the hot, heavy breathing of thousands of cars, fleeing, colliding, a mighty exodus." Not Akio Suzuki's words, but those of Ossip Zadkine, on his first visit to Tokyo in 1959.
The Wiresold out visit
Akio Suzukitry
