Médias

Pierre Joulain : It is the characteristic of the flame that we do not understand enough, nor really take into account. In the laboratory we study heat, speed, pollution, the movement of a cam-shaft or of a missile. The sound that is produced by the flame and its esthetic sound is not a part of our study, nor a major preoccupation of us scientists.

Michel Moglia : It is not so much of an esthetic of the flame that interests me, as the effect that it produces when there is a column of air vibrating through it. That is to say, that this is constantly changing, and there is never the same result. The sound that is given off is thus much closer to a “living” sound, with all of its improbabilities. We know that the ear “listens” with the advantage that the sound is not totally stationary (fixed).

PJ : In effect a sound of this kind is representative of the complex structure of the source of the heat. We can never produce this phenomenon in a perfect “isothermal” condition.
Between man and fire, there has always been an incomprehensible factor. Which makes us think of the pertinence of a “complexity of science”…

MM : What drives me, is the uneasiness in life that fire brings. I would like to put the spectators in “a listening danger”.

PJ : In a way you would like us to “ touch” the flames of the fire… As Bachelard said, “To bring to fruition one’s research, we must have first dreamed of its successful outcome…”

MM : That’s true, and I am not fond of the conceit that the artistic world has, when it still refers to the idea of the Beautiful. I am a handyman, a jerry-rigger, who is against the idea that one needs to give everything of themselves for their art.

PJ : An artist is, in a way, a jerry-rigger. Someone more wily than others. To understand the physical nature of the flame you have to, at times, have your fingers burned… and to play- like when we play an instrument – with fire. Fire is, perhaps, a way for man to extend their own hands.s.

Michel Durel

Paris Match. 18 October, 1990

This summer two Frenchmen made a Thermal Center sing…

It Swings in Siberia,

The Ural region of Soviet Russia, up until the present, has always been thought of as the land of deportation. But perestroika has, even there, changed everything. And, these areas; victims of political archaism, have been transformed into areas blessed with avant-garde musical events. Recently, Michel MOGLIA, a sculptor and classical flutist, and his assistant, Nicolas Sersiron, made the Thermal Center (power plant) of Dobrianka- a few kilometers from Perm- sing.

Alain Spira

France-Soir, Wednesday September 12, 1990

10,000 brought together for a concert in Siberia

Ten thousand Soviets- including several ministers- have come to plunge into the night, across the Taiga, to the site of the Dobryanka Thermal Center (power plant), in the confines of Siberia.

The Frenchman, Michel MOGLIA, erected his “Fire Organ” (see photo) in the this apocalyptic landscape for the most surprising concert of the perestroika period . This instrument, of immense sound possibilities, is an ensemble of pipes, whose lengths and widths have been very carefully calculated, and constructed into a pyramid-like structure.

Classical flutist by training, Michel MOGLIA plays his instrument by moving gas burners of varying intensity, at the openings of the tubes – the embouchures of the instrument.

The West German company Asea Brown Boveri, which specializes in efficiently managing the operations of power plants sponsored one of these concerts. Michel MOGLIA threw out the idea – on a whim – that he would like to play in at one of these plants. The Germans answered that they had such a place, a site under construction in the north of the Urals.

In May, the organist went to the Soviet Union with his colleague, Nicolas Sersiron.

“The director of the power plant, Mr. Dobrianov, was thrilled with the idea of a concert at the power plant,” said Michel MOGLIA. “Especially since this would mean that he could invite the VIP from MOSCOW, which could lead to the opening up of much needed funding for the last step to finish the construction of the power plant, and also, to introduce these people (the VIP of Moscow) to the ABB people.”

Five days before the concert nothing was ready. But then, the Soviet machine went into overdrive. In one day the enormous bulldozers leveled tons of gravel during which time Nicolas Sersiorn and a team of welders assembled the appropriate tubes.

“The authorities, having expected 2000 spectators, had 10,000,” Michel MOGLIA said with a smile. “We had a group to help us that was very dynamic and plugged into things, and they came to live this devilish adventure of liberty. The next day, the VIP of Soviet Energy Policy took us on an outing on the KAMA river and we improvised a concert worthy of the Red Army choir before bringing us to a Sauna!
Curiosity, warmth, and kindness in this Russia at the brink of chaos, these people dared to do what no one could do elsewhere.”

On this day, nowhere else could have done any better than this Siberian power plant, for this “organist from hell”, but they are looking perhaps to the future…..

Jean François Crozier

Michel Moglia makes metal sing with fire !

He heats tubes with the help of gas burners, genuine fire throwers fed with liquid gas terrifying even the Butagaz representative. But, what a way to reheat a space of any kind.

The fire organ produces hallucinatory sounds, mysterious and difficult to describe. Imagine a mix of songs produced by whales, Tibetan trumpets, African flutes and Jet Engine Reactors. A sound that you have never before heard, if it is not perhaps in your dreams, and rattles you to the bone, yet titillates your imagine.

I saw children looking on with fascination, and a look of bewilderment from passer-bys.
And, when Michel MOGLIA gave me the gas burner, I forgot all sense of time. I could have played for hours, played with fire, played with sound.

Far away from the turpitudes of Top Camenbert and the strict parameters imposed by the record production companies, these are artists who are searching out new sounds, inventing bizarre instruments, creating new and never before seen artistic attitudes.
These adventurers of musical ways long-lost.

AND,Michel MOGLIA is one of them.

Yves Blanc

Megamix ARTE