Vincent Barras

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Vincent Barras presents 5 projects at the Son 2 Biennale

Projects by, about and with John Cage, Dieter Roth, Caroline de Cornière, Michèle Métail, Thierry Raboud & Lucien Mullener, Cia Rinne, Jonathan Dumani, Olivier Cadiot, Julien d'Abrigeon, Laura Vazquez

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Empty Words by John Cage

Performance by Vincent Barras
The Central, Sion
From September 26, 2025 at 7:20 p.m. to September 27, 2025 at 7:24 a.m.

EmptyWords , a work by the North American artist John Cage (1912-1992), active in music, dance, visual arts, writing, ecology, was composed between 1973 and 1975. This work, for solo voice with accompaniment of projections of Thoreau's drawings, very rarely performed due to its radical and extreme character, is designed to be performed, according to the instructions given by Cage, from dusk to dawn, in four parts of 2 hours each, separated by 30-minute breaks. It uses a mixture of words, syllables, letters taken, by chance, from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher of the ^19th century

EmptyWords aims, in the composer's words, to abolish the boundary between language and music, through a long process of transformation. "What can one do with language? Use it as a material. There are five kinds of material: letters, syllables, words, syntactic groups, sentences. A text can consist only of letters, or only of syllables, or only of words; only a chain of syntactic groups; of sentences; or a combination of letters and syllables. The first part eliminates sentences; the second part also excludes syntactic groups; the third again omits words; the fourth admits only letters and silences." ( EmptyWords – Writings '73-'78 , Wesleyan University Press, 1980).

During the performance, Empty Words gradually reveals itself as a poem in which the semantic elements of language gradually dissolve into their sonic materiality, thwarting semantic mechanisms and sensory cues, achieving a "demilitarization of language." By evacuating the charge of full meaning, the "empty words" transform their own expressive potentialities into pure sonic events, becoming, for the audience, bearers of all possible meanings: "a language that can be loved without being understood."

For the performer, and for the audience: Search (out loud) for a way to read, or to listen. Change frequency. Go up and then down: go to extremes. Make music while reading aloud. Read. Breathe. Make it so, until the language says nothing at all. Stand there all night reading, or listening. Until dawn, when the music of the language and the outside sounds interpenetrate. By morning, the language has become music.

The performance will also be streamed. For the audience, it will include a mushroom tasting (and other macrobiotic cuisine products, based on recipes by John Cage) during the three breaks, in collaboration with the Valais Cantonal Mycology Association, which has its stamm (for the Sion section) at the Chandoline Power Station.

It will be accompanied by an exhibition, in the windows of the Chandoline Factory, of materials from the Cagian archives: photographs, scores, books, covers, various publications.

Cage Archives

Exhibition curated by Vincent Barras

Photographs, scores, books, covers, various publications, allow the public to become better acquainted with the multifaceted artist (musician, poet, visual artist, essayist, mycologist) that was John Cage (1012-1992), whose influence on the arts today remains unparalleled.

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Rotor

Sound creation by Vincent Barras

Rotor , a sound piece, was created specifically for the Biennale Son 2, as part of the exhibition of sound works presented on this occasion at the Centrale, the former Chandoline power plant. It is placed alongside the four other sound booths, which all present works that explore the relationship between language, orality, writing and sound projection.

Rotor is based on the autobiography of 5c years , a long, hallucinatory story by the Swiss artist Dieter Roth, written in 1980, published in the French translation by Vincent Barras in 2021 for the magazine L'Ours blanc , as well as on the poetic work of the artist, who was, as an editor and author, one of the central figures of the concrete poetry movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

Within Roth's proliferating, swirling, and seemingly chaotic oeuvre, the question of sound and music is central. Rotor , a sound creation, focuses on this little-known aspect of Roth's work, drawing in particular on the artist's poetic output.

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whole bodies 

Performance for dancer and speaker
Caroline de Cornière (dance) / Vincent Barras (lyrics)
Sound broadcast: Thierry Simonot

The Power Station, Sion.
October 26, 2025, 12-6 p.m.

full body s, a performance by the two authors and performers Vincent Barras and Caroline de Cornière, consists of the utopian desire to express the whole body through the simultaneous and combined means of verbal language ( speaking ) and gestural language ( dancing ). The performance takes place over a long period (6 hours), in order to make the audience experience the ongoing history of their own body. This double discourse is underlined, expanded, by the work of sound and light diffusion by Thierry Simonot.

talk

full body is an uninterrupted conference, improvised at the very moment it takes place, which begins at nightfall and will end at dawn, or vice versa, depending on the season, the place and the event in which it is part. The word is created as the speech progresses, with no other support than the memory of the speaker's body, which exposes in a speech organized in real time, as the performance unfolds, all of what he knows, imagines, is capable of saying about the body.

to dance

Corps entiers is an uninterrupted, improvised dance, which began at nightfall and will end at daybreak or vice versa, depending on the season, the place and the event in which it is part. The dance is created through movement, with no other support than the memory of the dancer's body, which brings together in a choreography organized in real time, as the performance unfolds, everything she goes through, remembers stories and her practices of the body in movement.

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poetry is honored

Poetic sound performances curated by Vincent Barras
Louis-Moret Foundation, Martigny
Sunday, November 30, 2025, 3-8 p.m.

poetry is honored summons and interweaves Swiss and international authors, inspired in their artistic practice by orality and the question of sound, producing performances of sound poetry and action poetry: Michèle Métail (F), Thierry Raboud (CH), CiaRinne (DS), Jonathan Dumani (CH), Olivier Cadiot (CH), Julien d'Abrigeon (CH), Laura Vazquez (F) + 1-2 poets to be confirmed

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Vincent Barras

Born in 1956
Based in Geneva

Vincent Barras received literary, musical, and medical training in Geneva, Paris, and London, and taught at the University of Lausanne (history of medicine and science) and at HEAD Geneva (sound). He pursues research on the history of the body, medicine and science, music, poetry, and contemporary arts, while simultaneously developing work in sound creation, writing and translation, sound poetry, and performance.

He creates installations, concerts and creations in various locations in Switzerland, Europe, North and South America, solo or with choreographers, musicians, dancers, authors and visual artists.

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John Cage 

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American composer, poet and visual artist (1912-1992), a key figure in contemporary music, but also, more broadly, in the artistic avant-garde, not to mention his work as a poet and thinker. Open to Eastern philosophical thoughts, he was at the origin of numerous musical experiments, such as prepared piano or aleatoric music, of concepts such as indeterminacy, the role of silence or chance in art. He was one of the inspirations of the Fluxus movement, was at the origin of the happening, composed the music of the choreographer Merce Cunningham, his companion. His influence still extends today well beyond music, remains major in contemporary arts, dance, the cultural landscape in the broadest sense.

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Dieter Roth

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(or Diter Rot) (1930 – 1998), and contemporary Swiss artist of German origin. Born in Hanover, he moved to Zurich in 1943. After an apprenticeship as a graphic designer in Bern, he developed a prolific activity as an editor, poet, sculptor, painter, musician, between Copenhagen, Reykjavik, the United States, London, Düsseldorf, which makes him one of the most versatile and most . In 2014, Edizioni Periferia published a box set bringing together the essentials of his musical and sound work, central to his polymorphous artistic activity: Dieter Roth und die Musik. His "complete works" (books and graphic work) appeared in 40 volumes at the end of the 20th century.

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Caroline de Cornière

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Born in Caen (F), where she trained in classical and contemporary dance. Studied modern literature at the University of Rennes and then dance at the CNDC in Angers. She danced with J. Fiadeiro in Lisbon and then with the F. Berger company in Lausanne. Based in Geneva, she joined the Alias company in 1996, where she worked for ten years as a performer, assistant, mediator and costume designer. In 2007, she created the C2C company and created her own performance projects, installations and choreographic pieces. Among her latest creations: Correspondance , Théâtre du Galpon, Geneva, May-June 2023; Accorps, Compagnie Bleue, Geneva, September 2023; Seule.s en scène , Pavillon ADC, Geneva, November-December 2023. The recital creation is planned for November 2025 at the Théâtre du Grütli.

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Thierry Simonot 

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sound engineer, creator of spatialization and sound diffusion devices, sound installations, including the AMEG loudspeaker orchestra, he collaborates as a stage manager and sound designer in various festivals and contemporary music groups.

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Michèle Métail

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poet and artist, lives in Lassalle (F), a major figure in the sound and experimental poetry movement. Winner of the Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou honorary prize in 2018. She produces her "oral publications" on the occasion of multiple performances and exhibitions, and is the author of numerous publications published by Presses du réel or by various publishers.

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Thierry Raboud & Lucien Mullener

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Thierry Raboud, poet, musician and literary critic, born in 1987 in Valais, based in Corseaux (VD), trained at the Universities of Lausanne and Fribourg as well as at the HEM of Lausanne. Winner of a scholarship from the Leenaards Foundation; since 2022, president of the Swiss Literature Jury. Publications, performances and installations, including "Désastronautes" (with V.Decamp) in Lausanne, Lucens, Locarno, and "Quand la dernière feuille" (with Y. Bonvin Rey) at the Louis Moret Foundation, Martigny.

Lucien Mullener, a Swiss drummer who studied jazz at the Fribourg Conservatory and then at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne (HEMU), is active in numerous contemporary music ensembles, combining jazz, electronic music and experimental music.

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Cia Rinne

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Born in Gothenburg (S), raised in Germany and living in Berlin (D). Author of visual and sound poetry, and experimental and conceptual pieces on the borders of theater, music and philosophy. Her polyglot work plays on the materiality of language, the effects of meaning, wordplay, and takes on its full dimension in the form of performance. Numerous publications, including L'usage du mot, revue L'Ours blanc, éditions Héros-Limite, Geneva 2017.

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Olivier Cadiot

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writer, lives in Paris. Concerned with the question of listening, sound and music, author of performances with various musicians, and numerous poetic, theatrical and novelistic works published by Éditions POL, including the recent Départs de feu (2025).

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Jonathan Dumani

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Poet and writer based in La Chaux-de-Fonds (CH), practices rap, slam, sound poetry and writing. Numerous concerts and performances in Switzerland and abroad. Publications in the form of books, CDs, LPs, including the recent Le vrai Visage de la pluie published by La Veilleuse, Lausanne.

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Laura Vazquez

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French poet and writer, lives in Marseille (F). Resident of the Villa Medici in Rome. Founder of the poetry magazine Muscle . Numerous readings, performances and publications in magazines or books, including Vous êtes de moins en moins réels , an anthology of her poems (éditions du Seuil, 2022). Winner in 2021 of the Wepler Prize, and in 2022 of the Goncourt Prize for Poetry for her entire body of work.

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Julien d'Abrigeon

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Poet and writer based in Montélimar (F), practices action poetry, sound poetry, visual poetry, and digital poetry. Member of the BoXoN collective, which published the magazine of the same name in Lyon. He created the websites TAPIN (1998) and tapin² (2014), dedicated to contemporary poetry "outside the book." Numerous performances in France and abroad.

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