A/V Performance Deliquescent Revisits The Relationship Between Analog And Digital

Video of the performance, by Rx Vision

Last week Montreal played host to the 14th edition of its digital arts festival Elektra. Amongst a variety of performances, the event's central site Usine Cwelcomed Deliquescent, a piece which saw experimental musician/artist Jesse Osborne-Lanthier collaborate with visual artist Sabrina Ratté.

The duo offered a hybrid performance melding sonic and visual material which touched upon both the mechanical and organic spectrums. For twenty minutes, this fusion transports the audience through a personal redefinition of sensorial reality.

Thanks to an enlightened use of analog and digital, an enigmatic universe takes place inviting spectators to delve into the deep. And delve deep they did, as the piece received a very positive response from the audience.

We met with this first-time duo to find out the details behind their collaboration.

The Creators Project : You were very well received at Elektra. Jesse, you're also a visual artist, how and why did you decide to collaborate for this performance?
Jesse Osborne-Lanthier: The Elektra crew and I were sending emails back and forth, they wanted something audio-visual. I hesitated a little because I didn't have the time nor the desire to create a 20 minute A/V piece on my own. I began to think about who I could collaborate with and as I was already a fan of Sabrina's work, I decided to ask if she wanted to work with me. We hardly knew each other beforehand, we hung-out and practiced a few times, but the piece really came to be when we spent the day of the show drinking and conversing together.
Sabrina Ratté: We had spoken about collaborating in the past but I guess we were waiting for the right occasion.
Osborne-Lanthier: So, voilà, Elektra has been a great opportunity to do so.

Deliquescent. Photo by 

Sabrina, your visuals are very original and Jesse your music, quite intense. To give the reader an idea of your performance at Elektra, could each of you explain the other's work?
Ratté: Jesse’s work for Elektra was quite eclectic, rapidly changing in moods. The unexpected cuts element is something I really appreciate in his piece. For instance, from a very hypnotic house-like sequence, he can cut directly to an intense, complex rhythmical section resulting in a confusing structure. I mean that in a good way! It's several pieces meshed into one in which you're always unsure of the path it's taking. His sounds were also very beautiful. I enjoyed the ambiguity of their nature, at times you feel as though it's completely digital when it's actually analogue. I see many layers and references to electronic musical history.
Osborne-Lanthier: I also see many abstract references in Sabrina's work. What tickles me is that her visuals feel alive—compared to other productions that can be square, linear, black and white. Sabrina's art takes risks, it's not strictly embedded in a frame, you feel it moves fluently, it's all together human. Even though created with machines it exists and totally holds up in the ''organic'' realm. To me, if art or music feels too safe, it's not worth it. On her website, we see that her work travels, evolves and shape-shifts, her productions also traverse the history of digital art.

Deliquescent. Photo by Gridspace

To better understand where you're coming from and interpret your productions, could you describe your personal trajectories in a few words?
Osborne-Lanthier: In high school, I was in a bunch of crappy post-rock, punk, grindcore, and noise bands but I quickly grew tired of relying on others to make music. I got into making this weird, electronic breakcore-ish, metal-influenced stuff after friends and the internet showed me the digital audio workstation ropes. I bought equipment, got some tracker software and got to work.

Throughout the years my process became refined to create something more minimal, eliminating garbage, focusing on what I deem most important. Little by little I learned about digital synthesis, and then analogue synthesis, all in a very independent way. I never academically studied music or arts because I couldn't relate to formal education. In fact I always preferred to keep a distance from institutions. 
Ratté: I did my undergraduate and graduate studies in the film production program of Concordia University in Montreal. I started using video as a primary medium around four years ago. I had a small digital camera and began to experiment with very basic effects, like video feedback and presets in programs like Final Cut Pro. I was also very much inspired by early video and computer art. Through my researches, I got interested in analogue tools like the video synthesizer.

Deliquescent. Photo by Madison Dinelle

And if you had to name a few of your inspirations…
Osborne-Lanthier: My inspirations are quite varied, but for the sake of being brief, I was very affected by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and his enlightened yet insane approach/contribution to electronic music of the 60s and 70s. [Also] Classical and contemporary music, free-jazz, ''world music'', noise, and industrial quickly followed. I could also cite 90s rave, the 'party-time, that somewhat nonsensical dance party' as an inspiration for my newer dance oriented material. Throughout the years I've fallen in love with various works on ''recent'' etiquettes such as Raster-Noton, Édition Mégo),PAN,and a wide-range of obscure experimental tape/vinyl labels.

The Raster stuff has definitely had quite an impact on me lately, I find myself swimming in glitchy pops and clicks. My entourage is the biggest influence, working with weirdly-minded people such as Hobo Cubes, Jean-Sébastien Truchy, Louis-Olivier Guérin, Samuel Mercure, and Bernardino Femminiellito name a few, has been a big push in exploring otherworldly concepts and sounds.
Ratté: As I already mentioned, the history of video art inspired me a lot at the beginning of my process. Artists like Steina and Woody Vasulka,Lillian Schwartz, Ed Tannenbaum, Toshio Matsumoto to name a few, were a huge influence on my work. I do have a sensibility for the 80s and the 90s, but am more interested in blending different eras and tools in order to create something that would be timeless. I am also very much inspired by architecture, landscapes, and the relationship between music and video.

Can you tell me where the name Deliquescent came from?
Osborne-Lanthier: Well, I had to think of a name because I was asked to. Some of the pictures that Sabrina sent me at the beginning had a melting/liquid quality to them, those are the ones that stuck with me the most. I also try, through my music, to create something organic, something animated, alive, abstract spaces within which you can lose yourself. In Deliquescent the idea is to let yourself go, to melt, to fuse into your surroundings while going through a visceral audio or visual experience. It's actually more of an idea than a real signification, but I liked the word.
Ratté: I think it also refers to something chemical, like a substance melting.
Osborne-Lanthier: Yes. It concerns our organism too, what's happening inside of everyone. It's a chemical process, but also a physical, mental or psychological one.

Deliquescent. Photo by Madison Dinelle

From a technical perspective, could you explain your respective methods and how the technical junction between video and sound occurs during this live performance? 
Ratté: Within the context of this performance, I explored a different approach. I was technically ready to take more risks so I decided to produce almost everything live. I did use Modul8 as back-up, but the images were mainly produced by my video synthesizer and by video feedback, blended with the use of a video mixer. Jesse’s synth was also plugged into mine so it could alter its signal, transforming some of the shapes and movements. But mainly, what’s interesting about live settings for me is the idea of producing images on the fly and to mix them spontaneously, inspired by the music.
Osborne-Lanthier: I'm very interested in the relationship between material/medium and the disconnection from these through being a ''vessel for creativity''. I don't necessarily enjoy that idea where I'm associated to a certain synthesizer, a machine, or a computer software. However, the medium is needed and if the question must be answered, I use a modular synthesizer, frequency generators from the 70s, my computer, pieces of wood, drum machines, microphones, feed back loops from a mixer, tape reels, whatever peaks my curiosity in a particular moment really. In all, whatever fits. For the basic layers of my compositions, the modular synths and processing software serve as tools to translate an idea from the brain/being/moment onto the recorder, after that it's really a matter of adding what I find pleasing to the ears and then removing what I think is unnecessary.

Audio from the performance

So you're using a very broad technical pallet.
Ratté: I like the idea of blending different techniques, as it confuses the origin of what's seen, therefore it can help create an immersive experience. In my personal work I’m interested in mixing techniques such as animated photographs, basic 3D animations, video feedback and electronic signals, and anything else that would be relevant to the project.
Osborne-Lanthier: I find that in electronic music or electronic art, everything is labeled ''passé" way too fast. The technical references are often easy to point out, a lot of stuff being made these days is boring, repetitive, hyped, or meaningless. We are moving at incredible speeds, not paying attention. It seems to me a lot of us have forgotten that the idea is to push forward, to further our research, expand knowledge, go deeper. People often use banal references, so cliché that you can easily say 'oh, that comes from this, or this from that.' It's way more interesting to me when the reference is pointy yet hidden, people know they have felt this creative essence or energy somewhere, somehow, but its source remains ambiguous.

I often try to install confusion or uncertainty in the audience, that's why at Elektra, I threw a quartz prism on stage during the middle of the act and at another time (against my will, haha), the sound cut out (smoothly) in the middle of a transition. To me, this is very fitting.

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