As part of the events celebrating Molior’s 15th anniversary, the exhibition looks at the development and appropriation of technology by artists, as reflected in the organization’s activities over the years.
Read moreThe initial intuition for the exhibition was inspired by a major research project conducted by Greg Lynn at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, looking at the implications of digital technology for architecture, both in terms of production and final works, and in terms of the conservation challenges facing museum institutions. The dynamism of the digital arts scene in Quebec in recent years merits a similarly systematic reflection, examining the ins and outs of its emergence, development and integration into the field of contemporary art. Inspiring as they are, the aims of Lynn’s project are a challenge beyond the scope of an event celebrating the anniversary of a distribution organization like Molior, however dynamic and successful it may be. A review of Molior’s activities, however, reveals the components of the works it has favored and defended over the years, while the history of their presentation, including their acquisition by private individuals or museum institutions, enables us to grasp the specificities of the dissemination of contemporary digital art and to identify its current and future challenges.
Initially focused on the presentation of works by one or two artists, often outside established networks, Molior’s activities have rapidly developed around a curator’s proposal, in collaboration with distribution partners, notably in the context of events specifically dedicated to digital art, a specialized niche to which these works are no longer necessarily confined today. In this context, the works selected by Andrée Duchaine, founder of Molior, Sylvie Parent, guest curator, then artistic director from 2009 to 2014, and other occasional collaborators, brought a reflection that went beyond the sometimes spectacular effects of technology. Their comments were rooted more in a reflection on the close relationship we have with digital tools, and on their structuring and dynamic action in a reciprocal relationship, i.e. their agentivity. In this respect, the body, interactivity and the perception of space and duration emerge as privileged aspects of the production, and the works gathered here respect this bias.
For the presentation of À l’intérieur/Inside at the Third Beijing International New Media Arts Exhibition and Symposium in China in 2006, Sylvie Parent chose Jean Dubois’ work Tact (2001). As in Syntonie, shown here, this interactive video unfolds via a tactile interface, enabling an encounter between a viewer and a character. In Tact, in reaction to our groping, a woman’s face becomes sharply defined and frozen against the inner surface of a touchscreen embedded in a circular mirror, leaving her at the mercy of our exploratory gestures. In Syntonie, also from 2001, the gesture engages in a more narrative interaction, not merely the encounter provoked by the touch interface, but activating gestures of invitation from the protagonist and the unveiling of certain parts of her body in a play of erotic allusions. Furthermore, the presentation of the device emphasizes all the technical relays, notably the cables and computer tower, supporting this exchange, but at odds with its intimate content.
Equally preoccupied with the body, Ingrid Bachmann presented Symphony for 54 Shoes (Distant Echoes) as part of B/R/T Le corps habité presented by André Duchaine in Montreal in 2007, the year the work was created. Using a mechanism, the artist animates a set of 27 pairs of used shoes according to a random, computer-controlled rhythm. The everyday movements that have worn these shoes down are matched by a derisory mechanical activity that creates an unusual sound choreography. In Family (Anxious State), presented here, the shoe movements react to the viewer’s movements, creating an equally strange sonic ambience, but more directly evoking the role of an individual in a group and the sometimes ambiguous relationships between family members.
Jean-Pierre Gauthier’s Stressato: Les serpents samurais (2010), presented by Sylvie Parent at a festival in Sao Paulo in 2012, follows a similar sonic register, also activated by the viewer’s presence. As the curator points out, the use of movement introduces new behaviours into the material world and breathes dynamism into matter and things that are usually immobile, associating them with the order of the living, particularly those aspects beyond our control. In this way, the work takes on a disquieting quality. Despite its playful aspects, the use of technology awakens, even reveals, our concerns about a world that can be brought to life by the intervention of an apprentice sorcerer. It thus embodies both the promises and the threats often attributed to technology and digital tools.
In a completely different register, like Chevalier de la résignation infinie (2009) presented by Molior in 2011, Mandala Naya from Diane Landry’s series Le déclin bleu (2002) creates a play of light and shadow that invites meditative contemplation. Here, the rotating movement of a mechanism moves a light source to the center of a laundry basket lined with empty plastic bottles. The shadows cast and light interference created by these objects alternately unfold and recede in a fluid, meditative rhythm, in keeping with the overall mandala-like composition. The perpetual motion of the motor refers here to a different temporality, associated in particular with spirituality. In this context, technology, the laundry basket and empty water bottles invite us to re-evaluate the realities of our daily lives, the place occupied by machines and routine, and personal satisfaction reduced to consumption.
Molior’s various projects have also addressed the computerization of our environment. Luc Courchesne’s Sublimations: Homme-Femme (2014) refers to this media universe. Between a liquid-crystal screen suspended from the ceiling and another placed on the floor, plastic pellets reflect changing images of men and women in colored clouds. Sublimation thus refers both to the transformation of their respective bodies into evanescent, ethereal representations and to the derivation of the sexual drive at work in advertising. In contrast to the interactive portraits of his early career, Luc Courchesne’s work here deals with the opacity of the media of communication. The presentation also recreates the immersion effect of the artist’s other media environments, associating mass communication with the panoramas they unfold, and inviting us to examine this reality.
Like Diane Landry’s work, David Rokeby’s Machine for Taking Time also displays a meditative character, supported by the cross-fading of images, randomly selected from databases scanned from the east and west of Montreal. The panoramas of the city are thus grafted with references to different times of day through the seasons, modulating the color and texture of the image. This reference to natural cycles evokes a different temporality, one of constancy and duration, in contrast to the media effervescence of mass communication, represented by the ambition to capture everything in the original device. The allusion to this profusion, to our scopic society, was also a feature of Taken (2002), presented by Molior in 2007 and 2008.
Moreover, as an introduction to the colloquium organized to mark Molior’s 15th anniversary on the specificities of disseminating contemporary digital art, the history of the works’ presentation and acquisition provides a concrete example of their singular paths, distinct from the traditional artistic trajectory. However, prior research has shown that, in recent years, major museum institutions have increasingly acquired works involving technology, and private collectors are also taking an interest in this art form. Diane Landry’s Mandala Naya and Machine for Taking Time belong to museum institutions, the former to the Musée national des beaux arts du Québec since 2008, the latter recently acquired by the National Gallery of Canada. Luc Courchesne’s work is part of the collections of Debbie Zakaïb and Alexandre Taillefer.
Digital art is no longer confined to specialized events, based on its technical components or specificity. In fact, works involving technology now occupy a significant part of the contemporary art field, and are integrated, even consecrated, in the same way as other practices by institutional exhibitions.
Furthermore, in view of the development of tools, software or techniques, or prototypes, often involved in the production of digital works, the journey and conservation of these works remain singular, not least because of the eminently variable nature of their presentation. Jean Dubois’s Syntonie, for example, adapts to its presentation context in a very particular way. Likewise, Ingrid Bachmann’s Family Anxious State, also presented as individual pieces or prototypes. Diane Landry’s Le Déclin Bleu series includes a copy of Mandala Labrador and an edition of three of Mandala Naya and Mandala Perrier. For its part, David Rokeby’s Machine for Taking Time is embodied in several instances, each with a different database, the artist’s signature applying as much to the device conceived in progress as to the final work. Interactive installations such as Rokeby’s Taken have also necessitated the development of video tracking and processing software, which is available for sale via his website.
All these examples attest to the fact that contemporary digital art remains singular, and underscore the need for the colloquium that will follow the present exhibition, initiating a new cycle of independent activities for Molior.
Presented from November 10 to 19, 2016, at the Hexagram-Concordia Black Box (Montreal), the exhibition, titled Rhythms of the Imagination, Technological Tools and Works, was presented as an introduction to the colloquium (see below):
http://www.molior.ca/en/projets/rhythms-of-the-imagination-technological-tools-and-works
The full colloquium program is available at the website of the event:
http://www.molior.ca/colloque/
The videos and most of the talks can also be consulted on Molior’s youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY8pPB2L4yruOxSyLmYQF7A