Cocoon
Behind the moniker Cocoon hides Christophe Demarthe, lead singer of Clair Obscur, one of the French leading groups of the post-punk scene of the 80s, and today co-founder of the Acoustic Cameras project. Cocoon is a global project mixing indifferently electronic music, video, photo, text, performance. One of its red threads could be «displacement». Displacement of an individual by another, in the private sphere as in the public sphere, in a desired way as in a constrained way. Another red thread would be the extension of Clair Obscur’s attempt to move the frames of representation and reception.
Clair Obscur
Among all groups which animated the French Cold Wave and Industrial scene of the 80s, Clair Obscur is certainly one of those which radiated furthest outside the boundaries of France. Several of their records have been published by British labels like All the Madmen (the live The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1986) or Cathexis Recordings (the 12″ single Smurf in the Gulag, the same year), and one of their act of glory is to be part of the compilation From Torture To Conscience of the mythical label N.E.R. alongside with Current 93, In The Nursery or Death In June (1984).
Commissioned Music
Christophe Demarthe is a composer and sound designer based in Paris. For many years he has been working at the border of sound and visual arts, creating music and sound architectures for theatre, dance, visual arts, film, radio, television, fashion. In his commissioned work Christophe Demarthe proceeds in small steps, by subtle intuitions, through an incessant game of back and forth between the project under construction and his sound work. Since 2010 he has been producing soundtracks for dance productions in France and abroad (Superamas, Anne Juren, Annie Dorsen, Agata Maszkiewicz).
Acoustic Cameras
Acoustic Cameras invites composers and sound artists to annex the real-time flow of webcams located in various places around the world. The flow of webcams is intercepted but not modified. The artist is invited to deliver a sound piece or piece of music related to this flow; This sound piece acting as a modification of reality. The resulting work is the encounter of a recorded sound piece and the live capture of a fluctuating landscape. Depending on the season, depending on weather, depending on time of day or night, the camera sweeps continuously the filmed location (seaside, city or mountain) and writes in real time the film of the artist's music.