Le projet Ulysse
The Ulysses project
christian calon
art audio
Grand Prix Marulic 1999 (UER/EBU-HRT)
where it represented the German National Radio (DRB)
Lynch-Staunton Prize (Canada)
In The Ulysses Project, the ancient myth appears as a network of relations and a fountain of symbols to draw from, and which are subject to processes of transformations. In the background of this contemporary transposition, one can find traces of the original poem attributed to Homer as well as ideas inspired by Joyce's interpretation at the beginning of the century.
In sounds as well as in text images, theses traces are organized in several paths:
- Language, our tool to apprehend the universe
- Writing - the story-teller. The intercessor and red thread between past and future.
- Migration - the (non) return - the stranger
- Identity. An autobiographical quest.
- Matter. The knowledge of the world and limits of our perception
- Space. Matter viewed from its opposite perspective. The Mother of us all.
- God. Reality and virtuality.
- Love. The supreme hand which triggers and calms tempests.
- Time.
The main characters around Ulysses and Penelope are Homer (the story teller) and Athena (the mediatic voice). As listeners, sheltered in our homes, we experience this acoustic adventure revealed to us, and become the potential and perfect Telemachus. Here we begin, with a book - or a voice - and a bed.
Radio work (Hörspiel) based on an original french and english text.
German translation : Eveline Passet
English/french translations : Paolo Dibiase, Genevièeve Letarte, Fortner Anderson
Duration : 54 mn
guitar-material : René Lussier
German version :
Coproduction: DeutschlandRadio Berlin / SFB 1998
Voices: Shelley Hirsch, Nada Laukam-Josten, Wolfgang Michael, Gerry Wolff,
Uli Aumüller, Detlef Baltrock, Clarisse Cossais, Irma Laukam-Josten, Jonas Maron, Götz Naleppa
French version:
Production: L’espace du son, Radio-Canada (Chaîne Culturelle)
Voices: Gabriel Gascon, Shelley Hirsch, Elisabeth Lenormand, Jean Maheux, Wajdi Mouawad,
and Fortner Anderson, Uli Aumüller, Ned Bouhalassa, Chantal Dumas, Mario Gauthier,
Geneviève Letarte
Voice recordings : DeutschlandRadio Berlin, Studio 6, Radio-Canada Montréal, Studio 13, Marseilles National Theatre and PRIM, Montreal.
Realization : Studio Blue Moose, Montreal.
Assistant: Clarisse Cossais
Premiere: DLR Werkstatt 4.12.1998, 10.01.1999; in the multitrack spatialized version: Zeiss-Großplanetarium Berlin 15.01.1999; Radio-Canada L’espace du son june 2001; on stage: Festival Elektra, Usine C Montréal, 8.11.2002.
for my father,
Ulysses of a new world