Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-kmjgn Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2026-04-23T07:08:54.404Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Double Extension: Henri Chopin’s audiopoem performances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2025

Caitlin Woolsey
Caitlin Woolsey*
Affiliation:
Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA
*
Corresponding author: Caitlin Woolsey; Email: cwoolsey@clarkart.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The French poet Henri Chopin (1922–2008) was one of a generation of experimental young artists around 1955 who recognised new possibilities for innovation in the realm of expanded sonic assemblage that is at once viscerally embodied and highly mediated. The catalyst: the newfound availability and affordability of the portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. This article examines the relation between Chopin’s recorded ‘audiopoems’, which were built up over time by means of distortion, layering and looping, and the artist’s unusual approach to performing live with these recorded compositions. Through strategies of aural assemblage, including physically tampering with the tape, randomly cutting and splicing the reels, and accentuating feedback, Chopin circulated the voice in new ways, both intimate and collective. This article considers how he experimented with live performance as mediation par excellence, harmoniously juxtaposing live improvisation with the preceding mediation of sound recording technology, to create a ‘double extension’ that generated feedback as well as improvisatory spaces of encounter. This article examines several projects – both realised and speculative – as well as archival accounts of performances in the 1960s and 1970s to reflect on Chopin’s unwavering commitment to the very human scale, individual and collective, of mediated expression.

Information

Type
Article
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 30 , Issue 2: Perspectives and trajectories in spatial music and sonic art , August 2025 , pp. 221 - 228
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Blackmore, C. 2015. Cruel Noises: Artaud and the Semiotics of Sound. In Writing Around Sound. Christchurch, NZ: Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists.Google Scholar
Buckley, C. 2019. Graphic Assembly: Montage, Media, and Experimental Architecture in the 1960s. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cage, J. 1961. Experimental Music (1957). In Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Carcano, E. 1995. Le Corpsbis & Co, trans. Andrea Cernotto. Ubuweb. www.ubu.com/sound/chopin.html.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. n.d.a. Le Théâtre de l’avenir, unpublished typescript. Henri Chopin Papers. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. n.d.b. Untitled typescript with handwritten notations. Henri Chopin Papers. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1957. Pêche de nuit. Audiopoem, 11:42 minutes. Henri Chopin––Audiopoems, 1956–1980. Hundertmark, Germany.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1964. Vibrespace (1963). Audiopoem, 8:55 min. Revue OU 20/21.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1967. Why I am the Author of Sound and Free Poetry. Ubuweb. www.ubu.com/papers/chopin.html. Chopin, H. 1969. Festival à Stockholm, typescript with notations, accompanying Fylkingen Catalogue of Text-Sound Compositions (2012), ed. Sten Hanson. Fylkingen group of linguistic arts. Henri Chopin Papers. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1969. Festival à Stockholm, typescript with notations, accompanying Fylkingen Catalogue of Text-Sound Compositions (2012), ed. Hanson, Sten Henri Chopin Papers. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1977. Interview on radio programme Henri Chopin. Poésie ininterrompu. France Culture, 4 July. INAthèque, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1979. Letter to Arrigo Lora-Totino. In Henri Chopin: poésie Sonora. Milan: Studio Santandrea.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1980a. Double Extension (1970). Audiopoem, 7:07 min. Hundertmark, Germany.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1980b. Rouge (1956). Audiopoem, 3:10 min. Henri Chopin––Audiopoems, 1956–1980. Hundertmark, Germany.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1985. Le Corpsbis. Transcript of a radio programme interview with Klaus Schöning and Peter Esser. Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, Germany.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1987. Interview on radio programme. Henri Chopin ou l’audiovisuel, avant la lettre. France Culture, 22 March. INAthèque, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1990. La Voce. La Taverna di Auerbach 9/10: 16–18.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 1995. The New Media, trans. S. Bhagwati. Ubuweb. www.ubu.com/sound/chopin.html.Google Scholar
Chopin, H. 2001. Les portes ouvertes ouvertementes. Montigny: LaVOIX.Google Scholar
Cox, C. 2011. Beyond Representation and Signification: Toward a Sonic Materialism. Journal of Visual Culture 10(2): 157–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Saussure, F. [1916] 1983. Course in General Linguistics, trans. Roy Harris. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Fylkingens arkiv. n.d. A469. Musik- och teaterbiblioteket, Sweden.Google Scholar
Haraway, D. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: Reinventing Nature. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Higgins, D. 1992. Untitled text. In Zurbrugg, N. and Hall, M. (eds.) Henri Chopin. Brisbane: Queensland College of Art Gallery.Google Scholar
Ihde, D. 2002. Bodies in Technology. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Joselit, D. 2007. Feedback. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Morton, B. (née Chopin). 2015. Interview with the author. Dereham, England, 27 November.Google Scholar
Museum, Stedelijk. 1971. Press release: Chopin met publiek in het Stedelijk’. 7 December. Archives of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Nancy, J.-L. 2007. Listening, trans. C. Mandell. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Wendt, L. 1985. Sound Poetry: I. History of Electro-Acoustic Approaches II. Connections to Advanced Electronic Technologies. Leonardo 18(1): 11–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar