Show 804: A Winter of Protests by Nicolas Montgermont (∏node)

Last winter, France experienced the longest strike in its modern history. Launched in opposition to a pension reform project, the strikers’ demands very quickly joined the sectors already struggling in a deleterious socio-economic context: health, justice, university, transport, energy, arts, education and media converged in the streets with the  gilets jaunes  aka yellow vests that had been demonstrating and occupying roundabouts for more than a year. Many alliances were formed: lawyers took up the song of the yellow vests, strikers from Radio France investigated a strike by cleaning women, queer collectives defended a striking bus driver fired for homophobic insult, even artists joined the procession, that preceded the unions in the streets and formed the majority of the demonstrations. This social movement is a multitude that agrees on one thing: to get rid of Macron and his world. Only the containment due to the coronavirus will put an end to this political sequence, and the reform will finally be suspended.

This episode of Radia is a subjective attempt to put this moment in sound. Recordings made during demonstrations, sound creation and political reflections are mixed to illustrate the bubbling political atmosphere and sonic environment of this period.

Interventions: Judith Butler : « On Demonstrating Precarity » – 2015 Michel Foucault : « Interview at the Université Catholique of Louvain » – 1981 Michel Foucault : « Debate with Noam Chomsky on Human Nature » – 1971 Hakim Bey : « Waiting for Revolution » in T.A.Z – 1991, read by Stephanie Boubli & DinahBird

Thanks to : Léa Roger, Méryll Ampe, BSP Barbès, Miliani, Sarah, Lola.

Nicolas Montgermont is a sound and radio artist who explores the physicality of waves in its different forms. For more than 15 years, he has been designing artistic devices that explore the poetic essence of waves: reality of waves in a volume, vibration of materials, richness of invisible radio landscapes, musicality of noises, antenna sculpture, listening and broadcasting territory… and is currently developing a work on the links between radio-art and politics. He makes sound performances, installations, records and compositions, alone or in collaboration (chdh, Art of Failure, Cécile Beau, RYBN, Pali Meursault…) and participates in several sound and radio creation collectives (∏node, Yi King Operators, les Sons Fédérés, Jef Klak, l’Acentrale). His projects have been shown in many art centers, museums, concert halls and self-managed venues in Europe and elsewhere. He teaches sound and multimedia creation at the ENS Louis Lumière and at Paris 8.