Photo © Michel Risse
Chantal Dumas
Magnétisme terrestre
2-channel fixed medium (2017-19) 3.19′
Friday 8 July, 2022
See day program >
»Magnétisme terrestre« is a movement from the work »Oscillations planétaires«.
»Oscillations planétaires« evokes geology. In all the layers that make it, from its core to its surface areas, Planet Earth is inhabited by undulatory motions of extremely varied temporal scales. Some are inscribed in a geological timeframe while others follow a daily cycle. This oscillatory ensemble contributes to the mechanisms that rule the Earth’s dynamics. [… Amongst several, geomagnetism – »Magnétisme terrestre« – is one of the phenomena evoked in the work …] The magnetic field of the Earth has a strange ability: it can flip, meaning that the North Pole becomes the South Pole and vice versa. Magnetic inversions happen periodically, but at irregular, unpredictable intervals. The Earth has known hundreds of such inversions in its lifetime. The last one happened about 780,000 years ago. [English translation from French: François Couture]
Chantal Dumas (* in Drummondville, Canada) is a composer and sound artist. She studied eurhythmics in 1982 and, decades later, in 2012, interactive media at the Université du Québec à Montréal. The microphone is one of her most beloved tools, and she considers listening as a way of embracing the world. Her works have been programmed by several festivals and were presented at the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec (MNBAQ), the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV), Harvestworks in New York City, and also in a Montréal subway car. Chantal Dumas’s works have earned her awards and distinctions from Prix Opus (Québec, 2009-10), Phonurgia Nova Awards France, and Prix Bohemia Radio in the Czech Republic. She has received numerous grants and is also active as a jury member and keynote speaker.
chantaldumas.org