Lamina | “I create organic environments”
Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle is an installation artist and electronic musician from France, living in Brussels and making music as Lamina.
“I create organic environments”
Tell me a bit about yourself.
Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle: My name is Clarice, I come from Bayonne in the French Basque country. I am 31 years old. I came to live in Brussels because I was in Paris and I didn’t like living there. I had some friends here in Brussels so I decided to move and see if I like it. I have been living here for four years now.
And about Lamina.
Lamina is my solo project. It is also a creature in Basque mythology, a half-human, half-animal spirit that dwells in the forest. Essentially a nocturnal creature, It lives in caves, under the earth and close to water sources and creeks.
My music is really related to this creature, I like to imagine that I create an ecosystem where this creature can live and evolve, a space for them to grow and express themselves. That’s why I create organic environments, connected to elements like water, air, earth. I think we can travel in those ecosystems and go from one environment to another, go under the earth and rise under the surface of the water, swim in a swamp, cross a field of bubbles etc… I like to connect my music to something alive and imagine that creatures can communicate and dance together.
I remember a vision I had under hypnosis: a drop of water that would decompose and each little drop of water would correspond to a sound, like a granular effect. And then turn into an insect. I think this is a good image to describe my music.
So yes maybe that is my relationship with psychedelic, trying to feel something alive and almost palpable while going deep in the invisible. But I create my music instinctively, I like to go into my studio with all my objects and images that follow me on this trip and experiment with sound. Each sound is for me something alive which can move, evolve, talk, scream, and create its own trajectory. Sometimes I like just to put 2 or 3 sounds together and stay listening to them for a long time and see how after like 20 minutes they begin to dialogue with each other and then you can hear news sonorities.
My music is very simple in the process, I have a big collection of field recordings that I record with my phone or with microphones. In reality I prefer recording sounds above taking pictures. So I use software to modify and work on those sounds.
After that I use my sampler, loop pedal, synthesizer and effects to try to create soundscapes. I really like loops. How, while listening to something really simple, they can emerge into something else.
I think I do my music the same way I do my installations: sculpting the material, using sound as clay for example, and trying to give it a form, abstract or not. But kneading it, twisting it, stretching it et cetera. I think my plastic practice and my music are really related. Sometimes when I listen to my music or when I am making music, I imagine some of my sculptures connecting with the sound and moving through the sound. I like to imagine that they have their own life and their own autonomy.
Is “real music”: sound without vision?
If “real music” as you call it is sound without vision I think I don’t do real music. When I create my music or even when I go to a concert I like to imagine things. I always have images that come to my mind and will be part of the experience for me.
The more recent your work, the better, the more I enjoy it. Is this what it always should be, in the best case? Is it an artist’s “job” to make work which can be enjoyed by its public? Or should he/she not care about that, is it its real job to “push things forward”?
I would say that I do things as they come. When I am in the creative process, it is really instinctive. Sometimes I have some ideas and I think of how I can do it. Which tools do I need? Which set up can I use to realize my idea?
After composing, when I put the word “album” in my head with the tracks I composed, I think I can begin to think about the public. And maybe work again on the tracks. It is not to modify my tracks but just to do a selection, arrange, mix, and see if I like it better. But I try to not get into insecurities and into judgement. I try not to think about: is “the public” going to like it? It is very subjective, some people will be touched and others will not. We just have to accept that it is part of the process I think. I try to see it more in a way of “sharing something with people,” not doing something cool or something that will ‘work’ but rather share a part of me at this time in my life.
Joeri Bruyninckx
Julia Reidy + Lamina, STUK (Leuven, Belgium) 26/10/2023 | Info here
Lamina Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
