Construction by readers, listeners and viewers in comparison with the creative process

This programme develops an inter-arts approach to the reception of works and the creativity of readers, viewers and listeners.

The aim is to interrogate the forms and issues in play in the recomposition of artworks, as carried out by interpreters and empirical receivers, comparing this activity to processes of artistic creation. Although inherent to any aesthetic relationship, this recomposition of works is a part of the artistic act that research has tended to ignore.
At first sight the ways that works of art are recomposed vary with their format (literary text, theatrical performance, music).

Concerning current social practices in music (contact: Jésus Aguila), contemporary listeners readily switch from listening to popular music of the moment to so-called “classical” forms, serious contemporary and traditional western music, or non-western music. One element of the research programme seeks to reconstruct the way that this passage from one musical style to another has facilitated the emergence of new listening strategies, which contemporary listeners empirically develop according to their musical discoveries, through “hybridisation” and transposition from one domain to another. The programme begins by identifying the transfers and cross-fertilisation that are methodologically possible between musicology, ethnomusicology and the study of what are called in French les musiques actuelles – “music of the moment”. It then seeks to formalise a means of musical analysis that takes account of the transverse nature of these listening strategies, comparing them with the strategies of composers.

The “Poetic Margins” programme developed in 2007–2010 (notably its “Rhythms and rhymes” sections, on French melodic composition in the 3rd Republic - contact: Michel Lehmann), will focus in 2011–14 on the interaction between the composition of music, its interpretation by musicians and the different practices of listeners. Research adopting the specific methods and concerns of musicology has revealed a creative process of layering, brought about by the poem format (the composer accumulates rhythm, melodic curve and harmony), which now needs to be formalised.

In methodological terms, the research consists in a very close examination of the cross-fertilisation of two forms of expression (here, poetic and musical expression), with their implicit compositional strategies of appropriation and subordination, subversion and submission, and a very varied palette of positions among the composers studied. This innovative theoretical approach, which reveals the compositional strategies that precede the interpretative reading of a poem, moves into its second phase with a “music lesson” in which the composer’s relationship to poetry is reconstructed for an audience and is a full part of the “listener’s construction”. Toulouse’s Fabrique Culturelle, with its new audiences, will be the setting for an in vivo experiment through the staging of reading concerts, which can then be published using appropriate digital formats.

In relation to the reading and writing of literature, the research focuses on the recomposition of works through the fictionalising action of readers and draws on notions of “reading subject” and “reader’s text”, notably in relation to the diversity of formats, practices and cultural paradigms that characterise our period and the constructions of contemporary readers and viewers. The aim will be to understand and model the way that “classic” and modern works are renewed, considering this as a creative process in which art forms, modes of reception and diverse cultural references interact.

The reciting, performance, interpretation, transposition or rewriting of literary works (novels, poetry, plays) makes it possible to explore links between the tangible experience of literature (emotions, judgements) and processes of artistic creation. (Contact: Gérard Langlade)

In the field of children’s literature, the aim is to study the constructions of young readers, initially in relation to Iberian literature. This theoretical approach has expanded in partnership with I.R.P.A.L.L. (Childhood and Creativity programme) to consider European literature. In the face of the abundant output of sometimes mediocre quality aimed at young people, there is now a growing concern to give them a taste for great literature by bringing works that were not originally intended for children within their grasp. The most visible result in terms of publication are adaptations of great classics and the emergence of series enabling prominent contemporary authors to write new works specifically for children. This project aims to analyse the textual mechanisms adapters and authors use in adapting classic works to the tastes of young readers for whom they were not originally intended and to promote the development of “literary reading”. Classic works may be given new currency through rewriting, intertextual games, changes of format (illustrated books, cartoon strips) and the use of visual arts (photography and drawing). Rather than focusing on artistic aspects alone, this project seeks to study the interaction between authorial strategies and their renewal by the target audience. (Contact: Christine Pérès and Euriell Gobbé-Mevellec)

Video “Théâtre jeune public dans l'Eurorégion Pyrénées-Méditerranée”:



In conclusion, this programme seeks to identify points in common, correspondences and interactions between these different forms of retextualisation.

The expected results will facilitate useful theoretical advances and rigorous, interdisciplinary approaches to the way that readers, viewers and listeners are developed.


Outcomes

Seminars and Study Days

• Seminar open to the entire programme “La fabrique du lecteur, du spectateur et de l'auditeur face aux processus de creation”, three or four sessions per year.
• 14 June 2013: study day “Le lecteur et ses autres”
• 18 October 2013: study day “Multiculturalisme et enseignement de langues étrangères à l’école à travers l’album jeunesse”


International conferences

• 2010: International conference “Grands auteurs pour petits lecteurs I: adapter, traduire et illustrer les grands auteurs dans la littérature de jeunesse en langue espagnole”, in partnership with the Eurorégion project : "Théâtre jeune public".
• 2015: international conference or series of study days “Grands auteurs pour petits lecteurs II: créer pour la jeunesse”.