Anne-Françoise Jacques

Anne-Françoise Jacques’s artistic and sound practice takes shape through various forms: performance, installation, interventions in non-conventional spaces, soundtracks for animated films, and recordings. She is interested in the use of different techniques of amplification, recording, and sound reproduction as a means to alter, question, and reinvest our relationship with the material environment. This approach has given rise to installations where simple machines produce sound through acoustic resonators, performances in which everyday objects are amplified to the extreme, and a repurposing of playback devices such as audio cassettes, whose mechanical operation is modified to become a sound generator in itself. She has a particular fondness for the use of modest technology, non-precious objects, and rough sonic textures.

A sound artist and bicycle mechanic, Anne-Françoise Jacques is interested in the amplification of small objects, electricity, scraping sounds, and impromptu sonic collages. She performs regularly, both solo and as part of various collectives (including Minibloc and Fünf), creates sound installations, and composes soundtracks for Julie Doucet’s animated films. Her work has been presented in numerous festivals—including Mutek (Montreal), Send&Receive (Winnipeg), Club Transmediale (Berlin), Signal & Noise (Vancouver), VIVA! Art Action (Montreal), the Festival des musiques de création (Saguenay), and Sounds Like… (Saskatoon)—as well as in artist-run centres (Centre Clark, Séquence, Action Art Actuel, L’Oeil de poisson, Espace Cercle Carré, GRAVE); and in a variety of bucolic or unusual venues, including parks, a metro exit, and under a staircase. Her latest recordings are available through Crustacés Tapes, a postal sound distribution project.