// Headphone concerts for headphone people
// 09. – 10.02.
Initiated in 1999 by Parisian musician, Erik Minkkinen, Le Placard is a nomadic festival that presents concerts listened to solely with headphones, a novelty that has attracted an international following and given rise to an extensive network of enthusiasts, musicians and promoters.
Except for occasional bursts of applause, a Placard concert is subsequently an inaudible event that – regardless of the venues’ acoustic qualities – can be staged just about anywhere, undeterred by bureaucratic noise-police regulations. The first Placard concerts were held in Minkkinen’s apartment. Listening with headphones is in itself extremely intense, both for the artist and the audience. Although everyone present listens alone, the shared experience of a headphone-high leads to a unique fleeting sense of community. The limited availability of headphones guarantees that events are small and intimate. Placard sessions are often quite lengthy events that offer plenty of time and space for participation and experiment. Yet it’s well worth staying the course: For even when your complete attentiveness wanes, you can garner some unusual sonar experiences on the edges of sleep.
Le Placard is an open format that explicitly invites experimentation. Event programmes consist of time-slots allocated to a diverse range of performers: selected projects, spontaneous contributors, streams from other, simultaneously-staged Placards from around the globe – and anyone else who logs in to the Placard-Online platform and inscribes for participation.
There are still performance-slots available. For current updates of the line-up or to register for a vacant performance slot, please go to:
> www.leplacard.org
// Wednesday 09/02/2005
> LE PLACARD DAY I
// Thursday 10/02/2005
> LE PLACARD DAY II
