RICHARD
CHARTIER:
FEARDROP (FR)
Richard
Chartier is a pioneer of a “new school” of electronic
minimalism that appeared in the 90’s, time of apogee of
fully digitalized music. The temptation was strong to restrict
this music, often rhythmic, to the edge of pop music and the
ultra minimalist concrete music with a “glitch”
label. Clearly Richard Chartier’s work is anchored in
deeper roots and, surprisingly, his influences are not so much
from the music world. This meticulous American has created a
sensitive world, detached from any techno influence that his
Asian or European peers have kept like Ryoji Ikeda or the artists
from the Raster-Noton label. Richard Chartier materializes sound
in giving an almost tactile character to his music, which remains
a unique experience.
Richard Chartier, born in 1971, is a multi disciplinarian artist:
visual art, sound art and installations show his large palette
of influences. Primarily , his education in American Fine Art
is in graphic design and painting. He founded the label Line
- an under division of 12K - in collaboration with Taylor Deupree,
a graphic designer and musician like him, and also published
some sound pieces with other pointillist labels: Trente Oiseaux,
Spekk, Mutek, DSP, ERS, Fällt… His work doesn’t
ask for a standard listening, but a concentrated commitment
is requested. This universe of almost imperceptible soft and
stifled fragments, of high frequencies, sparkles, static or
moving sounds, at the edge of silence, creates a complex field
of textures. “ My work shows a progressive and meticulous
process of reduction. Like sound instants that are placed under
a microscope to be better considered, then they are eventually
pruned, immersed in an isolated microsecond. The key element
of my compositions is often located in the space that separates
sounds more than in the sounds themselves”.
This way, Richard Chartier is constantly seeking a physicality
of the sound. He asks a physical engagement of the listener
in his/her own perception of the sounds, of the variation and
of the relief created by the relation between sounds and silences.
“ I’m looking for an involvement in the listening
in opposition to the musicality. Permanently, I present ideas
of composition without extra elements that would affect the
conceptual clarity of each piece.”
His work involves issues of spatiality, focuses on silence,
on respiration, and on suspension. “I explore a implicit
silence that is not really a silence. The almost unbearable
sounds that I use, give the wrong idea of the activity and the
energy of the composition itself. I’m looking, rather,
to emphasize the rich and structured threshold that exists between
silence and sound. Thus, my compositions are fitted for a low
volume of listening or for headphones.” Twinkling low
frequencies, a desire almost recreational in organizing faint
sounds, a strong sensitive character, are some of the many details
that make Richard Chartier’s music a kind of canvas in
perpetual movement.
From silence to touch
The first appearance of these uncolored, translucent sounds,
evolves rapidly in a sound experience, almost tactile, in which
the audition is sought in a kind of surgical way, heightened
by the work of precision by the artist. “ Even more than
the touch, my work is purely about sensation. I have a rather
more sculptural approach to the treatment of the sound elements.
Each cracking sound or whistle is distinct, and gives an example
of sound physicality which is nevertheless close to silence.
By being almost transparent, each sound in my work is dependent
upon the personal engagement of the listener, in opposition
to the regular listening experience.”
This requested active listening, places the listener as an actor
in the artist’s work. This way, Richard Chartier reaches
his objectives, like a painter or a sculptor, who allows the
viewer of their work to feel his/her own emotion, his/her own
analysis in front of the exhibited piece. Everyone is invited
by Chartier to examine with meticulousness to what he/she is
listening, to dissect what he/she is hearing, to discover his/her
own capacity for perception and even to be surprised by this
capacity. This “sound relief” is created through
Richard Chartier’s process of composition—very meticulous
and in-depth work. “A low rhythm produces a continuous
structural degree to each piece that I compose. This rhythm
is progressively fragmented, dematerialized in spectral pieces
from the original. Then, some recognizable cyclesare developed
slowly, but that voluntarily hold the distinction of each sound
in the composition, which varies the perception of the listener.
By experimenting with a composition stretched in time and a
slowed down rhythm, the expected arrival of the following sounds
makes even the smallest changes of rhythm, or the slightest
introduction of alternative events, as significant as the space
of relative silence between the sounds.”
Minimal expressionist
Recently, Richard Chartier developed his work toward
a space more “audible” and less “silent”
esthetically, after albums at the frontier of the perception,
monochrome master pieces close to the ultimate esthetic of Francisco
Lopez and Bernhard Günter. Like these artists and a lot
more in this art sound field where everything except the silence
was completely examined, Richard Chartier, like a photographer,
works with the right focal length, creating a sensitive environment,
to bring the listener himself to capture a sound. This precise
work is a continual reference to Richard Chartier’s artistic
background. Its multidisciplinary range of influences like Marcel
Duchamp and Yves Klein outlines the importance. “ Because
I have education in visual arts, there is, of course, an influence
of this approach in my sound work. I’m applying to my
work what inspires some artists like Klein, Duchamp, but also
Gyorgy Kepes, Harry Bertoia, Tapies, or Alberto Burri to name
only a few.” We could add Malevitch for his ultimate experience
of the monochrome as a symbol of both infinity and nothingness.
This mix of influences aids in understanding the sometimes monochromatic,
sometimes expressionist, and even the mathematic arrangements
of Richard Chartier’s composition. More than an egocentric
unfathomable assembly of clicks and collages, his work is a
work of sharing and renovation of perception. We could then
situate him as an extroverted Bernhard Günter, offering
more nuances and colors, or as the digital equivalent of Steve
Roden, one of those close to him in the poetic acceptation of
sound minimalist. “My purely musical influences are close
to Morton Feldman or Toru Takemitsu, and the sounds that are
around me are often ignored because of their every day nature.
These are influences shared with the cited artists. For me,
minimalism is an auto-referenced work that has to be clear,
concise and well-ordered.” This conviction being established,
Richard Chartier prefers explaining the fundaments of his personal
artistic work, to linking them to any current or theoretical
approach. “ I try to keep my distance from all theories
and precepts in my work. My work speaks only about itself.”
Richard Chartier develops this way, his own concepts to explain
his sound and visual developments. “To summarize, we can
say that it’s the continued meaning of the reduction and
the structure that guide my artistic process, in my first works
as much as in my most recent ones. Although different in several
aspects, each works is related to the others. My goal is to
bring a testimony of the potential interdependence of the sound,
the silence and the process of listening itself.”
Installations and performances: the sound plastic
This interdependence can be emphasized when Richard Chartier’s
“music” becomes live performance. It’s another
way to confront his very intimate sound work with outside perception.
The concert becomes a new experience of his work. Hearing it
live, the listener can’t expect an exclusive perception
of his work. He/she must integrate new strains. The artist too.
“ My live performances are different from my recordings
because of an increase in activity and audibility. Sounds that
I use are selected in a collection of already prepared sounds
from past compositions and unpublished works but carefully selected
to fit the space and the situation where they’re going
to be presented.” In this way, a live piece for Richard
Chartier, serves to bring sounds in toimmediate dynamic relation,
creating a drafted composition in which a certain degree of
space exists for in situ improvisation. “The performances
preferably take place in spaces that encourage the listener
to get around others sensations, including visual ones. Without
the striking presence of visual signals, and as much as possible,
without other sound stimuli that are not part of the performance
itself, a live presentation of my work leads listeners to concentrate
intentionally on their capacity to listen a sound. A lot of
people have told me that they have experienced, during my concerts,
a loss of the notion of time, having lost all measure of the
length of the performance.”
For each of the installations that Richard Chartier creates
regularly, the process is a little different, even if it deals
as usual, with perception. “As for a performance, an installation
re-contextualizes my work in specific and controlled environments.
The listener/spectator immerse himself/herself with the sound
in relation to their own place in the space. These installations’
objective is to redirect the concentration of the listener/spectator,
and to have him/her focus on select aspects of the experimentation
of the sound.” At each installation, the decor is reduced
to the minimum. Richard Chartier appropriates the place (the
spaces, the furniture). This way, by transforming the restrictions
into opportunities or tools, he combines the modification of
the perception of the place with the perception of the sounds
he offers. In this work, he keeps the obsession of reduction,
of the primal sense of minimalism, by removing all possibilities
of diversion. “To satisfy my objectives in expressing
forms, I try to remove the visual signs from the installation
space and to reach as much as I can, a state of “no references”
to the work itself. It’s an attempt of pure sound rather
than a visual art experience that makes sounds. In other words,
it’s a desire to generate and experience sound that doesn’t
depend on a visual reference.”
In the process of the natural evolution of his work and the
constant questioning, Richard Chartier has recently taken part
in the idea of the remix by submitting his pieces to the interpretation
of other artists with the album Re’post’postfabricated.
Of course this approach incorporates a concept other than the
remix as we usually know it. “It was a suggestion of Roel
Meelkop. With his argument, I thought that the sources of my
album Postfabricated could be explored further.” The result
shows that sounds taken over by other artists, could come out
differently and create other levels of perceptions, as the same
recipe executed by different chefs would never produce meals
with the same flavor.
Richard Chartier doesn’t pursue a quest, he tries constantly
to create a plastic and physic experience of sound work and
perception. The apparent complexity that he offers for listening
becomes quickly a familiar world. With his sound creation, Richard
Chartier helps the listener to detect in herself/himself, some
unknown inner components. By helping everyone to utilizehis/her
own perception, he opens unexplored intimate territories.
Jérôme Langlais
