Fanch’s residency in Tbilisi

Fanch Dodeur, the Slash French artist, spent several weeks between September and October 2024 in Mutant Radio’s neighbourhood – Chugureti – in Tbilisi, Georgia. The residency allowed for the creation of two distinct sound installations, a workshop, and a website featuring a cartographic field recording library. Discover here some images and reporting of his time there.

Fanch Dodeur is a French sound artist, musician and developer whose work sits at the intersection of image and sound. Within a short period after his arrival in Tbilisi, Fanch had already worked in collaboration with local citizens and mentor Ketevan Davitashvili to complete his first sound installation as part of the Mutant Radio’s “Mutants” festival. 

The piece, titled “Multitude,” is a generative acousmatic and experimental installation. The structure is made up of a network of 64 speakers and granular synthesizers, and was exclusively created and programmed using open source software (Pure Data) and hardware (RaspberryPi) to evoke images of the anthropocene, to describe dystopian landscapes, and to multiply imaginaries. It is composed of sound recordings from the real world that are arranged organically and generatively, in the same way that dreams evolve.

The setup for this initial installation also became the inspiration for new field recording focused on the industrial/residential region of the city’s Chugureti district. Fanch began exploring the neighborhood with a sound recorder, tracking everyday aural artifacts from all corners of the area. These sound recordings became the foundation for two more projects: 1) an installation that mapped the field recording excerpts onto the pre-existing 64 speaker structure of “Multitude,” thereby creating a sonic map of the neighborhood, and 2) an online archive by the same name that houses these recordings by placing them on an map of the district, allowing audiences to interact with the full library and thereby explore Chugureti through sound. 

As part of his time in Tbilisi, Fanch was able to hold a workshop at Mutant Radio in which he discussed his personal work, his process for “Multitude,” and interacted with members of the local community. 

The Chugureti district of Tbilisi is experiencing drastic transformations in the forms of industrialization, gentrification, and urbanization, all amongst the backdrop of the self-appointed Georgian government’s emergent authoritarianism. By engaging and transforming the area’s aural imprints, Fanch’s project helps to preserve everyday sounds and sonic experiences from a community on the verge of extinction, fighting for its relevance against oppressive developments both economic and political. 

Photos credits :
Mutant Radio’s team