LP – FRAC Franche-Comté

The source of Dictaphones by Charles Pennequin is a huge archive of mini-tapes, which includes recordings of readings, monologues, voices and several experiments of sound poetry, some of them still unreleased but carefully preserved over more than two decades. The French poet, writer and actor, born in 1965 in Cambrai, is an artist known for his peculiar vocal expressions, with his capacity to perform fluxes of texts in a metamorphic, anarchic and passionate style of recitation. Antecedents to this approach can be traced to DaDa and the Surrealists through to stream of consciousness experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. The popular and the academic find an accord in these recordings. Here we find a scenic mix more typical of the post-avant garde than the historical avant garde, with a poetics of language that was urgent and necessary in the development of sound poetry scenes. The release is a limited edition of just 200 copies and is supported by the Regional Fund of Contemporary Art (FRAC) of Franca Contea, an institution that organizes meetings with artists, video sessions, conferences, evening shows and concerts, all with the aim to make a collection, introduce it to a large audience, and promote awareness of contemporary projects. One shouldn’t expect a strong, musical work in an improvisational vocal form; this is not the subject of Pennequin’s research. The sound mix is always punctual, well controlled and coherent in focus. What emerges from this collection of findings is an impetuous personality able to mix metaphysics, death, life and love, writing and speech, poetry and revolution, always with his own âgée, a refined and dissident aplomb.

 

Charles Pennequin – Dictaphones b-side