Jacques Dudon
[2000 Tic.Toc]
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Jacques Dudon (Marseilles): photosonic instruments
Born 23 rd of April 1951 at Villecresnes, France. Composer, multi-instrumentist, founder of the “Atelier d’Exploration Harmonique”, center of musical research specialised in the creation of new instruments, situated at Le Thoronet in the south of France.
Considered as one of the most inventive instrument makers of this 20 th century, he created more than 350 new instruments, among which the “photosonic disk”, using a process of optical sound generation to which he dedicates today the major part of his researches.
He is the author of a book La Musique de l’Eau, 108 instruments à réaliser soi-même (Alternatives, 1981), on aquatic instruments making, and of a CD (Mondes Harmoniques, 1996), Lumières audibles, realised with photosonic disks.
Inventor of the photosonic process, Dudon’s instruments are very simple, and include four types of elements: a light source; interchangeable semi-transparent disks, on which he draws opaque sound waveforms, or even rhythms; “optical filters”, of various designs, handled like a bow, but controlling mostly sonority; and a photoelectric solar cell, plugged just like a microphone on an ordinary audio amplifier.
(See photos left.)
Following is a fairly detailed description of Dudon’s instruments and processes, from HTML materials supplied by Dudon himself.
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