Rien en particulier

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Goethe-Institut Montreal

As part of the Festival international de la littérature

With Chantale Laplante's sound installation Rien en particulier, the library of the Goethe-Institut suddenly comes alive with fortuitous sound encounters, inviting the browser to approach the document, to take it in hand, to consult it.

While most often we enter the library in search of a reference already noted on a piece of paper, we also sometimes explore the place without a precise goal, scanning the different shelves without really knowing what we could discover.

Rien en particulier explores these moments when suddenly one reaches an unknown matter, when the document, place of knowledge, is transformed into a small sound space which widens as one approaches it.

Thus, as the visitor-browser passes by, various documents in the library will be revealed through a sound presence. Small colored signs allow the visitor to locate the documents on the shelves, and sheets inserted in the shelves present a translation in French of the German texts. In this way, the discoveries can continue in another library, presenting the same book in the reader's preferred language.

Concept and realization : Chantale Laplante
Technical direction : Guillaume Barrette

Chantale Laplante

Chantale Laplante, composer, improviser and sound artist, lives and works in Montreal. Her recent work engages a new reflection on the conditions of listening that she experiments with in situ installation-concerts. Placing the listener's body at the center of her installations, she seeks to offer a sensitive experience where the work continues its journey, in a sound space anchored in the atmosphere of the place.