The Breakthrough

Report

In a world where online music offer­ings abound, music lis­ten­ing is para­dox­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed on a small num­ber of pop­u­lar artists.

On the one hand, the algo­rith­mic rec­om­men­da­tions of lis­ten­ing plat­forms seem to com­fort lis­ten­ers in their musi­cal tastes, with­out offer­ing any real musi­cal dis­cov­er­ies. On the oth­er, search engines, even when users make pre­cise queries, strug­gle to direct users towards niche or diver­si­fied French-lan­guage con­tent. In both cas­es, the user’s atten­tion is direct­ed towards a lim­it­ed num­ber of star prod­ucts or inter­na­tion­al con­tent enjoy­ing a cer­tain pop­u­lar­i­ty and vis­i­bil­i­ty, to the detri­ment of a rich diver­si­ty of French-lan­guage con­tent.

This was the obser­va­tion made by Pro­duc­tions Nuits d’Afrique as part of the study ” Val­oriz­ing artists of diver­si­ty […] in the age of dig­i­tal plat­forms “by Des­tiny Tchéhouali. Zone Franche, the World Music net­work, has made a sim­i­lar obser­va­tion, reg­u­lar­ly warn­ing of the invis­i­bil­i­ty of World Music, and the lack of cul­tur­al diver­si­ty, in the media (TV, radio, press) and dig­i­tal space.

Down­load doc­u­ment :

La Per­cée : a col­lec­tive lab­o­ra­to­ry for online pro­mo­tion of greater musi­cal diver­si­ty

The Breakthrough

La Per­cée (https://lapercee.ca/) is a col­lec­tive lab­o­ra­to­ry that ana­lyzes and high­lights the chal­lenges of online dis­cov­ery of musi­cal cre­ations and pro­duc­tions from a vari­ety of aes­thet­ics.

In 2023, Zone Franche became a part­ner of Pro­duc­tions Nuits d’Afrique (also a mem­ber of the net­work) to co-direct and/or co-pro­duce La Per­cée’s activ­i­ties, with the aim of extend­ing the project beyond Que­bec to the rest of the French-speak­ing world (France, Europe and Africa).

The activities

Var­i­ous actions are being/will be deployed around La Per­cée :

A) The exhi­bi­tion

The exhi­bi­tion draws on a series of artist tes­ti­mo­ni­als, a sci­en­tif­ic study and music archives to reveal to the pub­lic and indus­try pro­fes­sion­als the chal­lenges of dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty faced by French-speak­ing artists with the Musiques du Monde label. The exhi­bi­tion evolves and is enriched as time goes by and new encoun­ters take place. It pro­motes and dis­sem­i­nates all the tes­ti­mo­ni­als col­lect­ed by La Per­cée. Devices that encour­age reflec­tion on the issues raised are avail­able to the pub­lic for lis­ten­ing, con­sul­ta­tion and aware­ness-rais­ing. The instal­la­tion invites dis­cus­sion, giv­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­vene, to bear wit­ness or to leave a trace of one’s thoughts or desire to get involved lat­er.

B) The record­ing stu­dio

Artists, pro­fes­sion­als and spec­ta­tors take turns shar­ing and reflect­ing on the devel­op­ment of French-lan­guage music in the age of new tech­nolo­gies and dig­i­tal plat­forms.

C) Audio doc­u­men­tary series

A doc­u­men­tary series in audio for­mat that address­es the spe­cif­ic issues faced by French-speak­ing artists labelled World Music, unveils action­able solu­tions to improve dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty, uncov­ers the indus­try’s blind spots, and final­ly feeds the ecosys­tem with spe­cial­ized con­tent, cur­rent­ly non-exis­tent.

D) Doc­u­men­ta­tion sta­tion

Using dig­i­tized archives, par­tic­i­pants are invit­ed to doc­u­ment in wikipedia/wikidata the careers of French-speak­ing artists who are rec­og­nized on stage, but invis­i­ble on the web. This work­shop is con­cep­tu­al­ized and run in con­junc­tion with the wiki­me­dia com­mu­ni­ty.

E) Round tables and con­fer­ences

Round tables and con­fer­ences are orga­nized on var­i­ous issues relat­ed to the online dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty of World Music. They range from gen­er­al top­ics to more spe­cif­ic issues, such as the role of AI in the dis­cov­ery process.

F) Action-research com­po­nent

The project team, accom­pa­nied by col­lab­o­ra­tors with a wide range of exper­tise, com­piles and ana­lyzes all the data col­lect­ed by La Per­cée so that it can be enhanced and pre­sent­ed. The answers to our ques­tions can be found in all this data.

In the research-action sec­tion, a team of French-speak­ing researchers from Africa, Que­bec and France is also com­pil­ing best prac­tices and ideas for action to pro­mote the dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty of Musiques du Monde-labeled French-lan­guage music.

G) Advo­ca­cy

The forth­com­ing pub­li­ca­tion of a doc­u­ment advo­cat­ing greater musi­cal and lin­guis­tic diver­si­ty in online con­tent, based on the con­clu­sions of the var­i­ous stud­ies car­ried out by La Per­cée.

The project team

In addi­tion to the Zone Franche team, it includes the La Per­cée team :

Johan Lau­ret — Project Man­ag­er

Johan Lau­ret has 10 years’ proven expe­ri­ence in the dig­i­tal and cul­tur­al sec­tors. He was Assis­tant Direc­tor of Pro­duc­tions Nuits d’Afrique, before spe­cial­iz­ing in the devel­op­ment of dig­i­tal projects in Cul­ture. He has con­tributed to major struc­tur­ing projects in dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty in Que­bec, such as RIDEAU’s Scène Pro and Cul­ture Laval’s Signé Laval plat­forms, as well as the Réseau des con­seils régionaux de la cul­ture’s Dia-Log lab­o­ra­to­ries, and Pro­duc­tions Nuits d’Afrique’s La Per­cée. He has demon­strat­ed his abil­i­ty to cre­ate pow­er­ful and engag­ing cul­tur­al expe­ri­ences, to trans­late strate­gies and visions into action, and to man­age large-scale projects.

Des­tiny Tchéhouali — Sci­en­tif­ic direc­tor

Pro­fes­sor, researcher and co-hold­er of the Unesco Chair in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Tech­nolo­gies for Devel­op­ment

Des­tiny Tchéhouali holds a doc­tor­ate in Geog­ra­phy of Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nolo­gies from the Uni­ver­sité de Toulouse Jean Jau­rès. He is Pro­fes­sor of Inter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the Depart­ment of Social and Pub­lic Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sité du Québec à Mon­tréal, and co-hold­er of the Unesco Chair in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Tech­nolo­gies for Devel­op­ment, to which is attached the Obser­va­toire des réseaux et inter­con­nex­ions de la société numérique, of which he is direc­tor. He is also co-direc­tor of the Groupe de recherche axé sur la com­mu­ni­ca­tion inter­na­tionale et inter­cul­turelle.

His cur­rent research focus­es, among oth­er things, on the impact of dig­i­tal plat­forms on the dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty and con­sump­tion of a diver­si­ty of nation­al and local cul­tur­al prod­ucts (audio­vi­su­al, cin­e­mato­graph­ic and musi­cal).

The pro­jec­t’s oper­a­tional part­ners

The project is sup­port­ed by