Darren Copeland

Rendu Visible collects three works that Darren Copeland composed between 1993 and 1996, all built from real-world sounds. In his booklet essay he questions the visual analogies in his own titles and in so much acousmatic writing: composers and listeners mostly belong to the sighted world, and recorded sound often wakes up images in the listener’s mind. Copeland accepts these analogies “with some hesitancy”, asking what a congenitally blind listener would imagine, and concludes that for now he remains a musician rather than a phonographer.

Night Camera, the longest piece, imagines a listening aid that works like an infrared scanner, probing what lies beyond everyday experience. Each of its three scenes (Maritime Vision, Prairie Dream, Vanishing at Sea) unfolds inside a recording from the World Soundscape Collection at Simon Fraser University, and Barry Truax gave critical and technical support. It premiered at the Western Front in Vancouver in 1993. Rendered Visible began as soundtracks for Pink Ink Theatre and the Ghanaian musician and dancer Modesto Amegago, whose flute improvisation on a traditional Ghanaian tune supplies the low melody. Reaching for Tomorrow premiered with it at ISEA95 in Montréal and received a mention at the Luigi Russolo competition in 1995.

Born in Brampton, Ontario, in 1968, Darren Copeland has been active as a sound artist since 1985, working in multichannel spatialization, soundscape composition, radio art and installations. He holds degrees from the University of Birmingham and Simon Fraser University and is the founding artistic director of New Adventures in Sound Art in Toronto.

CD in crystal case, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 9841, 1998.