• Référence bibliographique de la notice

présentation des enregistrements

Participation du Cresson au projet

SOMECO – Sonic Mediations and Ecocritical Listening

dirigé par Heikki Uimonen
(Univ. Of Eastern Finland).

En 1975, cinq villages en Europe sont étudiés par un groupe de chercheurs canadiens mené par R. Murray Schafer, fondateur du « World Soundscape Project » (WSP). Les villages se situent en France (Lesconil), en Suède (Skruv), en Écosse (Dollar), en Allemagne (Bissingen) et en Italie (Cembra).

En 2000, Helmi Järviluoma, de l’Université de Turku en Finlande, démarre avec une belle équipe pluridisciplinaire (acousticien, musicien, architecte, ethnologue, musicologue…) un projet intitulé Acoustic Environments in Change. Ce projet est une recherche sur l’évolution des paysages sonores des cinq villages étudiés 25 ans auparavant par Murray Schafer et son équipe.

En 2025, le projet SOMECO revisite
ces mêmes lieux afin de collecter des données comparables à celles des études précédentes.

Le Laboratoire Cresson a été invité à l’étude sonore du village français de Lesconil, petit port situé à la pointe
du pays bigouden au sud de la Bretagne, donnant lieu à une ethnologie sonore
du village.

Les enregistrements présentés ici rassemblent le travail de terrain mené par juL McOisans, Cédric Pichat & Nicolas Tixier du 30 avril au 7 mai 2025.

Index

Trawlers return
(5 min 31) GPS : 47.796650°,  -4.214695°

2 trawlers are acoasting back from a fishing day. A small crowd has gathered on the dock awaiting them like a ritual or a daily rendez-vous. Some tourists among them but also many inhabitants comen to give a hand to the unloading & directly buy fresh fish & shellfishes.

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A quiet moment
(1 min 55) GPS : 47.795989°,  -4.211961°

Recording silence. It’s an official day off. The village is quasi desert until late in the morning. Noone in sight. Only the wind & the ocean are roaming. Even the goelands make themselves discrets.

_____

On the dyke

Walking along the dyke, facing the wind with a binaural microphone. A schizophonic effect : in one ear, the agitated outer sea with waves breaking on the dyke, in the other the quietness of inside port.

….. On the dyke 1
(1 min 09) GPS : 47.794881°,  -4.211653°

A static recording at mid-course of the dyke. A schizophonic effect : in the left ear, the agitated outer sea with waves breaking on the dike, in the right the quietness of inside port.

….. On the dyke 2
(1 min 10) GPS : 47.794780°,  -4.214671°

Another static recording at the point were the waves join the beach.

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Halyards in the wind (Cédric)

_____

Motorbikes
(1 min 14) GPS : 47.798078°,  -4.213886°

Young people passing by with their noisy motorcycles. Here in front of the « placitre du port », caught from the terrasse of the Quincy café. They are part of Lesconil sound markers. Everyone complains about, but some elder people admit they’ve done the same at their age…

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Catamaran’s launching
(6 min 51) GPS : 47.797602°,  -4.214188°

Catamaran are getting to the water. Cédric has started to record the action from the top of the pier & juL pursue with binaural at the nearest of the group, when the teacher explain how to cord & raise the spi-veil.

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Beach ambiance
(3 min) GPS : 47.798948°,  -4.211743°

By the end of the afternoon, when the sea is at its warmest. An ambiance recording on the eastern beach. Unfortunately the beach-volley team had just stopped playing, but you can imagine… Further north one can ear the bells of 7 pm ringing.

_____

Breizhonic
(5 min 08) GPS : 47.798156°,  -4.213626°

A young local guy, who’d learned breton’s speaking (breizhonic) at Diwan’school, likes to seize the opportunity to talk with elder people, when he’s back to the village.

_____

Eckmuhl’s cow
(7 min 53) GPS : 47.798248°,  -4.372684°

Visit to the Lightninghouse of Eckmühl, in Pen’march, because of the first visit here by the canadian team in 1975. Climbing up the 290 steps, with a short talk with the security guard on the top platform. Explains where the former foghorn (the famous « cow of Eckmuhl ») was until 2000 & why she was stopped.

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Haliotika frontside, inside & backside

Since the closing of Lesconil’auction its activities have been transported to Le Guilvinec in a huge equipment called Haliotika, which gathers the unloading dock, the auction, the conditioning of sea production &, at the upper floor, a museum of fishing. We paid a visit there at a moment of intense activity.

….. Passengers deck
(4min 33) GPS : 47.792579° -4.284565°

Tourists watching the trawlers back from fishing, from the upper deck of Haliotika/auction/fishing museum.

….. Guided tour Cédric….

….. The elder’s conversation
(6 min 33) GPS : 47.792501°,  -4.285521°

On the side of the unloading dock, 4 or 5 old people, retired fishermen & 2 women are talking about fishes, fishing rules, fishing technics pratices, fishing evolution…

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Plaisance violin
(2 min) GPS : 47.796450°,  -4.214304°

On the yachting harbour’s deck, late in the evening. A violin’s player inside the cab conterpointed by distant seagulls.

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The world’s largest ears (experience #3)
(11 min 39) GPS : 47.800871°, -4.215967°

Simultaneous recording of the 12 o’clock’ bells of Lesconil’s church. 4 takes at around 100 meters from the belltower: Heikki=East, Cédric=South, Meri=Ouest, juL=North.

The best restitution would be a 4 points sound installation, but here we present a drastic stereo reduction : the 4 recordings have been transcoded in mono & then distributed on a stereo balance. We kept the length of each recording & synchronized them on the bells.

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Market ambiance
(2 min 08) GPS : 47.796941°,  -4.215330°

The wednesday morning market place. It is constituted by two rows of mobile market stalls. We walk through a long cross-fade effect of voices & bits of conversations caught on the way.

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UKIE
(17 min 50) GPS : 47.796810°,  -4.213099°

A meeting with the crew of the UKIE (où qu’y est = where is it ?) boat returning from fishing. Helped by Morgan manipulating a little crane, Alex & his teammate are unloading & cleaning the boat, sorting & preparing the boxes of fishes, molluscs & crustaceans before bringing them the auction in Le Guilvinec.

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Holiday camp
(51 s) GPS : 47.797322°,  -4.215229°

Another sound mark of Lesconil nowadays. Here & there we regularly meet a herd of children in holiday camp, walking & joyfully talking in an organized disorder, guided by their supervisors. (Mixage of two occurrences)

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Galloche

Cédric ? 250507_galloche2.WAV

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24 hours of LesconiL

A specific protocle of this reconducted survey consisting in recording 10 minutes at the begining of each hour, all through day, at a certain place.
Here : 47.797246°,  -4.215249°, from 4pm Saturday 3rd of may to 3pm Sunday 4th.

It gives a 4 hours long recording. A bit too much for a common listening. So how to reduce it on a time scale ? There is no obvious solution. Take smaler bits of each recording, trying to crossfade them for a fluid listening, remains  very subjective.

Here are 3 proposals :

….. 24h de Lesconil – timescale1/48
(30 min)

Montage taking around one minute of each recording, trying to keep a representative moment of the ambiance at the time

….. 24h de Lesconil – timescale1/144
(12 min)

Montage taking a few seconds of each recording, trying to keep a representative moment of the ambiance at the time

….. 24h de Lesconil – team & people
(7 min 51)

Montage taking only the team’s announcement at the begining or the end of each recording & some interactions with passer-by.

a few ambiance pictures

The finnish team: Meri Kytö during the 24h recording & traffic count

Heikki Uimonen taking measures – in the rear, the former auction & the boat Ukie

Anne Tarvainen – in the rear, the long dyke

Le Guilvinec’s auction / Haliotika / fishing museum with the passengers deck

onboard the UKIE