video
FR - ENG
Through video, Valentin Sismann develops a body of work articulated around a reflection on media and writing on support. Each work is the construction of a new system and its syntax. It's a continuation of his musical thinking, inextricably linked to a play with the technological orthoses of memory: recording media.
Self-Portrait (2024)
Desktopsongs (Cycle)
Desktopsongs is a cycle
of video pieces questioning our relationship with technology. Each
work, inspired by desktop movie practice, is a musical system
dependent on a visual process. The cycle includes Screensong,
questioning data collection related to privacy, Simonsong,
questioning technological hegemony in the world of contemporary
music, and Playpausesong, questioning mass media consumption.
Musical language is more
semiological than semantic; it skips words and meanings to manipulate
large images in a certain kind of temporal poetry. Fixed media
writing in the Schaefferian sense of musique concrète concentrates
this idea, since by being fixed and reflexive, it is nothing but
language. In this sense, my idea of music is not more audio than
visual, but is quite simply media, recording media.
I find that there's a
certain compositional determinism linked to our way of conceiving
sound; morphology, spectromorphology or anecdotism, as examples,
easily lead to music that's limited to these conceptions. I don't
think it's impossible to renew our own musical language, but I do think that
for me, video is an opportunity to establish a system specific to
each work.
[ other videos (2023-2024) ]
Exhibition views
Screensong, U Contemporary Gallery, Public/Private, Moscow, Russia 2024
Self-Portrait, NYLAAT House, Experimental Loop, NYC, USA 2024
Self-Portrait, Alys Beach, Digital Graffiti, USA 2024
Plasforms, Galería ART ROOM, CUVO, Madrid, Spain 2024
Plasforms, Immersive gallery of Alfred University, Light Matter, USA 2023
In Repetito Religare, The Film gallery, Paris, France 2023
[ works catalogue ]