This new film approaches the world of French sound pioneer Éliane Radigue (*1932) from a perspective of close proximity. French filmmaker Eléonore Huisse and sound artist François J. Bonnet visit their friend Éliane’s home in Paris in times of social distancing and lockdown to explore questions pertaining to solitude, imagination, retreat, the inner voice and temporality – questions that resonate with Radigue’s work, philosophy and way of living as much as with the acute collective experience of suspension and isolation brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Fourth in the IMA Portraits series, this short introduces us to the life and work of electronic/contemporary composer Eliane Radigue. Radigue discusses methods of composition, the challenges and difficulties of live electronic music, as well as biographical episodes with Pierre Henry and her own goals in soundscape production and consumption.

This intimate documentary portraits the life and career of the French electronic music composer Eliane Radigue. Now in her eighties, Eliane Radigue is a justly celebrated figure in electronic music. Her work has roots in Europe's post-war avant garde, and she has been linked with the pioneers of American minimalism such as Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and Steve Reich, but her monumental meditative compositions have taken a singular path, transporting the listener into new realms of sound. Between 1967 and 2000, Eliane Radigue composed more than twenty pieces of electronic music. She stopped working with the analogic synthesizer in 2001, and now devotes herself to instrumental music, still remaining faithful to the same aesthetics.

A portrait of Eliane Radigue, produced by the Austrian IMA (Institute for Media Archeology), which observes Eliane in her workspace, operating the ARP and talking about the process of composing and recording.