“In prelude to the composition of BPM, I look at Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly’s images as a stark succession of slides. the rhythm of the Boulevard becomes overwhelming. But then, the staccato of the slideshow itself starts to takeover. A clack, a beat —almost nothing else— would be the score of BPM, Barbès Promenade Movement.

While the city races, I wander. I gage the rhythm of my steps. It oscillates between 1,65 and 1,74 steps per second, from 99 to 104 beats per minute. The meaning of the term BPM is no secret, it is the tempo unit for dance music. Barbès Promenade Movement is controlled by these two scales. Nevertheless BPM is not just a metronome. By marrying the two beats, that of the slide projector and the step, in the same score, I can ‘glide’ or ‘play’ just outside the tempo. I am, all at once, a jazz drummer and a dazed pedestrian.” (Jean-Philippe Renoult)

B.P.M. is comissioned by the Cité de la Musique, Paris, April 2003. Selected and shown at Les Ecrans Documentaires d’Arceuil film festival, France, 2005, the Tina.B biennale, Prague, 2006. Acquisition of the Kampa Museum of Modern Art Prague.