Archives sauvées des eaux

Since the autumn of 1999, I've undertaken the composition of a new series of works entitled 'Exploitation des concepts'. It's about using the concepts that I've experimented with throughout all my life as a composer, in every possible way. It concerns writing for instruments as much as for electroacoustic, video, multimedia installations, new technologies, etc.

I'm going to tell you a story. Arriving at my workshop one day, I noticed that a leak was making its way across the ceiling and the drops of water were falling onto my tapes which featured some quite old works. I had to take down a pile of boxes from the shelves. Opening them, the cardboard and the tapes all soaked, I spread them out across the floor as if putting together a great puzzle. Hence, out of the necessity to save them onto cd, the idea to get these archives up to date.

Copying these constituant parts, I suddenly wanted to transform this tedious work into a work of the imagination. So instead of copying, I started composing, and so came about a new idea which makes use of the 1974 archives (you have to start somewhere), and it's why I've called this composition the 'Archives sauvées des eaux'. [Luc Ferrari]