Lee Ranaldo & Leah Singer – Contre Jour

Film with Live Score / Music / Visual Art

Adapting the French name for contralight, Contre Jour is a project in evolution for more than thirty years, bringing together the artistic vision of Canadian photographer and multimedia artist Leah Singer with American composer, guitarist, and producer Lee Ranaldo, a founding member of Sonic Youth.

Singer and Ranaldo break traditional dynamics between performer and audience to examine how live image and sound might interact. Contre Jour, the shadow is introduced as an integral part of the performance. Ranaldo and the suspended guitar cast their omnipresnet shadows on the screen, staging a dialogue with the projections. A folding in of prior documented performances featuring shadows creates a mise en abyme setting. Contre Jour was invited to GNRation, Porto (2024), the arts festival Dark Mofo, in Tasmania (2023), and the S8 International Film Festival, A Coruna, Spain (2022) among others.

The entire action of “Contre Jour” takes place between the projection of the images and the screen, precisely so that, through the experimentation and unexpected cuts, there is this light of shadow on the screen, of the body of the guitar and of the body of the guitarist and author. This place without space, full of presence and absolute dynamics — nothing static. Ricardo Vicente Paredes, Rimas e Batidas, 2024