Lantence Manifeste : Informo

"Informo: disformous, informal and information is a space for reflection, meetings and experimentation that organises itself around a central theme through an invitation made to artists and thinkers from various fields of thought to put their work into direct view of each other".
On this afternoon of november 19th for 4 straight hours we could witness the fourth edition of Informo, a performance designed as a "live review". The basic frame is a space filled by white banners hanging all the way down from the seiling in a dark room (here in Instants Chavirés) through which the audience can wander and close in on the various artists spread around the venue. On this day they where Li-Ping Ting, standing way up some stairs with a pocket-light to illuminate her face inside a bird cage, she dances with various feathers, papers and sticks coming out of her mouth (and incidently from the cage's small door), a powerful play on shadows, meanings, unspoken, both dark and revealing. Thierry Madiot with his 10 meter long conic tube producing low frequency beatings, gurglings and shrieks on the full length of the side wall. Massimo Carrozzo with his subtle clarinet flutters. Martine Altenburger coverring the full spectral range of a discreet cello with occasional pizzicato attacks, glissendis and drones. Christophe Cardoen's mastery of light manipulation using the various angles provided by the hanging banners. Stéphane Lempereur would move around his photographical creations that look like miniatures in regard to the size of the banners, breaking the monotony of the banner's grey effect. Olivier Féraud's rotating installations producing both sound and light providing a constant audiovisual bottom line to the performance. Finally Yannick Dauby's diffusions of field recordings in two different places both around him and on the opposite side of the room, where we could here undistinguishable whispering and muttering sounds that we first confuse with the actual whisperings of the audience. Other sounds include the constant movement of the audience, coins when latecomers have to pay their entrance fees, occasional objects that drop, people's closes brushing the banners.
We are urged to move around, giving the performance a whole new equilibrium depending on where we are standing. For a very long period of time we are immersed in this alternate opening of time and space, creating a distortion of reality through which the few predetermined events of the review take place: a screening of videos by Chinese artist Song Dong "Picking the Moon in the Water" that adds further layers to our current distortion when a hand tries to pick up a flickering circle in the water in which we can see images of another "distortion of reality", that of adds extroted from Chinese TV. Other events include a very delicate performance By Carrozzo of a solo clarinet piece where a steady minimal "beat" leads to the emergence of breath waves that mutate into tones and back. Finally the the whole performance ends with a collective interpretation of John Cage's "Musical Sculptures".
A fascinating afternoon, a total breach of our conventional habits by some of the most "questioning" artists on the French scene.