Research Foley Objects

Foley Objects is a research program initiated in 2020.

Named after their inventor Jack Foley, Foley Objects - which appeared at the time of the first sound films - are objects made by sound engineers to produce sound effects in cinema. Made from recycled materials and found objects, they stay hidden, located off-screen in post-production studios. Out of step with the sound effects they produce, they open up spaces of “suspension of perception” and carry an unexpected voice. Between sound, choreography, sculpture and cinema, Foley objects are a study model for devices in media. They are a metaphor for the central issues of this project, which questions the role and attention–or inattention–of the observer in mediumistic devices, depending on the different forms of filtering implemented between what is received and what is elaborated.

Whether located off-screen or closer to the focal points of attention, the Foley object is thus explored as an emancipatory object capable of deconstructing the relationships between narrative, object design, and the gestures that emanate from it.

Through the Foley Objects program, the researchers wish to establish a critical approach to media in the particular context of research in art schools, with a reflection on the materiality (and immateriality) of sound and visual media, and the issues at work in these devices. The objectives and issues thus raised make the program an integral part of the «Fronts et Frontières» research unit.

• Daniele Balit, teacher-researcher (ISBA)
• Claire Kueny, teacher-researcher(ISBA)
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  Digital space for sharing & research:
  https://padlet.com/foley_objects/home

June 2022: round table with partner researchers, Mathieu Saladin (Université Paris 8), Thibault Walter (ECAL, Lausanne), Anne Zeitz (Université Rennes 2), Meris Angioletti (artist and Université Paris 1), CND, Pantin.

April 2022: participation in the conference “Envisager le son dans l’art performance dans une épistémologie intermédia”, organized by the Pôle de recherche Corps de l’artiste, at ISBA.
Presentation of the video installation produced collectively during the workshop A Phenomenal Thing and intervention Tout en pointillé by the students of the research group.

May 2022: participation in a meeting organized with Arto Lindsay by the ECAL research program “Phantom Power”, with Thibault Walter, ECAL, Lausanne.

March 2022: workshop with Marie Astre, “A Phenomenal Thing”, ISBA. Production of a video installation (triptych), around the notion of «in-fiction».

December 2021: Participation (by videoconference), in the seminar organized by the ECAL research program «Phantom Power», with Thibault Walter, Salomé Voeglin, La Monte Young and Jung Hee Choi.

December 2021: co-organization of the conference «Music of the Future», with the ENSA of Dijon (Daniele Balit, J.-C. Desnoux, Lambert Dousson, Nicolas Thirion)
Guests: Stéphane Roth, Jérôme Noetinger, Kasper T. Toeplitz, Catherine Guesde, Clément Lebrun, Juliette Volcler, Sarah Benhaïm, Bastien Gallet, François J. Bonnet, Contre-culture psychique.

November 2021: traveling research seminar, in Paris, between the University of Paris 8, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination - Columbia University, the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin, and the workshops of artists Sergio Verastegui and Marie Astre. With Marie Astre, Meris Angioletti, franck leibovici, Matthieu Saladin, Sergio Verastegui, Dork Zabunyan.

October 2021: workshop with Ismaïl Bahri. Work around the notion of «intercessor objects», and based on the video of the artist Foyer.