Quebec Showcase at Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques 2024
Marseille, France
November 7th 2024 – January 19th 2025
Artistes
Molior is proud to co-present the exhibition New Surroundings: Approaching the Untouchable, as well as a selection of works and performances by Quebec artists, in collaboration with CHRONIQUES – Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques. The event will be held under the theme of pleasure in Marseille and Aix-en-Provence (France) from November 7, 2024 to January 19, 2025.
Molior extends its thanks to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Délégation générale du Québec à Paris for their precious support.
Exhibitions
New Surroundings: Approaching the Untouchable
Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille
From November 7th 2024 to January 19th
Wednesdays: 2:00 to 7:00 PM
Saturdays and Sundays: 1:00 to 7:00 PM
Nathalie Bachand is an independent curator interested in issues pertaining to the digital, its challenges and the conditions of its emergence in contemporary art.
Among her curatorial projects, her exhibition The Dead Web – The End, initially presented at Eastern Bloc (2017), was co-produced by Molior in Europe: at the Mirage Festival in Lyon (2019), at the Mapping Festival in Geneva (2019), and at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest (2020), co-curated with Béla Tamás Kónya; she was a guest curator for Art Souterrain 2021 Chronométrie; her exhibition project, DataffectS, was presented at the Galerie de l’UQAM (2022); she co-curated, with Sarah Ève Tousignant, the SIGHT+SOUND 2022 Dancing While Waiting (For the End of the World) festival, organized by Eastern Bloc (2022) – Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal finalist; and her exhibition New Surroundings: Approaching the Untouchable, produced by Molior, was presented at the Livart (2023).
She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), SALOON Montreal cofounder, and sits on the Board of Directors of Avatar in Quebec City.
Previously in charge of development for ELEKTRA-BIAN (2006-2016), she is currently Director of Digital Arts Development at Sporobole.
She lives and works in Montreal.
Molior and CHRONIQUES are presenting the virtual reality exhibition New Surroundings: Approaching the Untouchable, curated by Nathalie Bachand, at Marseille’s Friche la Belle de Mai. Produced in 2023 by Molior, the exhibition features virtual reality works by seven prominent artists from Quebec: Baron Lanteigne, Caroline Gagné, François Quévillon, Olivia McGilchrist, the duo Laurent Lévesque and Olivier Henley, and Sabrina Ratté. Molior produced three of the six works specifically for the exhibition.
Through the prism of digital technology, the exhibition offers a poetic perspective on the fragility of nature. Depicting it in an entirely dematerialized form, it highlights the deterioration processes nature is being subjected to, and invites viewers to reflect on the challenges of its conservation.
To find out more about the exhibition, the works and the artists, visit the exhibition page.
Credits: This VR exhibition is produced by Molior with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Its presentation is a CHRONIQUES – Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques and Molior co-presentation made possible thanks to the European Realities In Transition project, with support from Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Ainsi passe la gloire du monde
Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille
From November 7th 2024 to January 19th 2025
Originally from Montreal, Claudie Gagnon is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who has been active for over thirty years, and who now lives and works in Quebec City.
Her practice takes many forms: installation, living painting, sculpture, video, photography, food art, creations for young audiences, collage and art integrated into architecture. Her work is not only presented in art venues – artist-run centers, galleries, museums, theaters – but also in places chosen for their potential to stimulate the creation of in situ works (barns, gardens, factories, disused churches, apartments earmarked for demolition, etc.).
She recycles everyday objects as well as concepts and more or less notorious works from the history of art, in addition to taking an interest in the visual and sonic markers that make up our high and popular cultures. Her creations are imbued with playfulness and poetry, at once enchanting and disquieting, provoking delight and unease, vacillating between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Perishable elements, such as food and plants, express the life cycles and the effects of time on all things.
Her work has been shown in artist-run centers, galleries, museums and festivals in North America, Asia and Europe. Her pieces are part of the collections of the MNBAQ, MACM, MBAM, Musée d’art de Joliette and several private collections. She has held creative residencies in the Paris and Mexico City studios of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
A mnemonic installation that draws on the language of 17th-century Flemish still-life, memento mori and vanitas, “Ainsi passe la gloire du monde” (Thus Passes the Glory of the World) allegorizes the ephemeral destiny of human beings and the emptiness of their commitments, like everyday burials and inventories of mythological heritages.
With nods to art history, the piece stages unusual encounters between the familiar and the wild, the organic and the everyday, weaving together personal elements and universal principles. Telling stories about the permanence of humans and objects through artifacts, this work questions the content of things that outlast us, emphasizing the fragility of existence, the fleeting nature and aging of Beings
The installation comes to life in subtle ways, generating in turn the rotation of objects or the pulsation of sound, in reference to the notion of time, routine mechanisms and cycles inscribed in perpetual recommencements.
Photo © Stéphane Bourgeois
Credits: Ainsi passe la gloire du monde by Claudie Gagnon is a coproduction between Avatar and Productions Recto-Verso.
This exhibition is presented as part of CHRONIQUES – la Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques, in a coproduction between Friche Belle de Mai, Molior, Seconde Nature, and Avatar, with the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec.
Art in public spaces
Faces
Place des prêcheurs, Aix-en-Provence
November 8th and 9th 2024, from 7:00 to 11:00 PM
Founded in Montreal in 2010, digital art studio Iregular creates audiovisual installations, large-scale sculptures, architectural projections and scenographies, with a focus on interactive and immersive experiences. At the crossroads between art and technology, these artworks experiment with geometry, light, sound, typography, mathematics, algorithms, communication protocols, AI, and machine learning. Iregular also develops its own proprietary technologies.
FACES is an interactive installation that uses Artificial Intelligence to track the facial traits of participants standing in front of a screen and then unify and align them to create an ever-changing 3D portrait of a single digital being.
The experience is divided into 3 chapters, each one exploring the volumetry of the face, analyzing its features to create different visuals.
An eerie amalgamation of images from strange dreams, FACES reminds us of the importance of physical connections by creating collective humans made up from bits and pieces of all participants. It allows us to be linked to complete strangers through profound blending of our skins, eyes, mouths, and every other feature of our infinitely varied faces.
Photo © Iregular
Credits: Work presented by CHRONIQUES – Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques, in coproduction with Molior and Seconde Nature, with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communicatons du Québec.
Performances
Two performances will be presented during the opening event of CHRONIQUES, on Thursday November 7 in Marseille. The evening is presented as a co-presentation by Seconde Nature, la Friche belle de Mai, and Molior, with the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec.
De-construct
Grand Plateau of the Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille
November 7, 2024, at 7 pm and at 9:30 pm
Line Katcho is a composer and audiovisual artist based in Montreal. Primarily interested in sound and image as representations of movements, forces and gestures, she is also distinguished by an affinity for perceptive games and a talent for evoking affects. With her narrative and cinematic influences, her work is dynamic and provocative, combining the figurative with abstraction, experimentation with tradition. Leaning towards a hybridization of styles, genres and applied methods, his empirical practice seeks to bring to life a sensory and cathartic experience, rooted in expressivity, in search of authenticity. Her work has been presented internationally at events such as MUTEK, Ars Electronica, Annecy, Clermont-Ferrand, Scopitone and Sonar Barcelona. She won first prize in the 2014 JTTP (Jeux de Temps/Times Play)competition and the Award of Distinction in the audiovisual category at the MA / IN 2016 Festival.
France Jobin, a Montreal-based audio artist and film composer, is distinguished by her minimalist audio art, described as “sound sculpture”. She creates complex sound environments combining analog and digital. Her installations integrate musical and visual elements inspired by architecture, and can be experienced in unconventional spaces and international festivals of new technologies. Jobin has produced numerous albums for renowned labels such as LINE (US), Baskaru (FR), and Editions Mego.Her music explores notions of restraint and limits, skilfully playing with extremes, amplitudes and silences to create complex narratives. In 2021, she presented “Entanglement AV” with Markus Heckmann at Mutek Édition 22. In 2022, she created “Entanglement XR”, and in 2023, “Entanglement dôme” at SAT. Influenced by quantum physics, Pandemic deepened its exploration of this scientific universe.
Immersed in darkness, sounds and images intermingle in a hypnotic ballet.
Landscapes, figures and geometries deconstruct and reconstruct themselves, drawing viewers into an immersive universe where the boundaries between sound and image disappear
De-construct defies spatial and temporal logic, offering viewers a trans-hypnotic experience. Artist duo France Jobin and Line Katcho create sonic and visual landscapes, alternating between haunting harmonies and chaotic dissonance.
Photo © Line Katcho
1 Drop 1000 Years
Grand Plateau of the Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille
November 7, 2024, at 7:30 PM and 10:00 PM
For more than 15 years, the artist Martin Messier has created artworks in which sound art meets light, robotic and video. In the form of performances and installations, these works place the body front and center.
After studying composition at l’Université de Montréal, Martin began an experimental sound practice that integrated video images. He quickly developed performative audiovisual apparatuses that brought everyday objects and the sound potential of their various materials to the stage. A number of collaborative projects were carried out over the years, notably with artists Nicolas Bernier, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Anne Thériault, and Jacques Poulin-Denis. Martin Messier’s latest works include Innervision (2019), a monumental outdoor project performed by 60 dancers, the audiovisual performance Echo Chamber, the choreographic performance Con Sordina, and the light and sound performance Elusive Matter.
Presented in some 50 countries, Martin Messier’s productions have received several prizes and nominations: a special mention at Prix Ars Electronica in 2010 listed for a Prix Opus in 2012 Best Experimental Short Film at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival in 2013 the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award in 2014; a special mention by the jury at the 2015 Japan Media Awards; the World OMOSIROI Award in Japan in 2018; and in 2021, the 2nd Prize at Athens Digital Arts Festival.
In 2010, he established 14 lieux, a company dedicated to producing performative and installative artworks, and has been its general and artistic director since then.
He lives and works in Montreal.
Homeostasis is a fundamental process for the balance of life. By allowing an organism to maintain an appropriate temperature according to the conditions in which it evolves, it is both a symbol of adaptation and durability. In 2022, curator Jaehoon Bang asked Martin Messier to reflect on this phenomenon through the creation of an original performance.
The Global Conveyor Belt is a huge ocean stream called the thermohaline loop, it stirs up the waters of the five oceans and conveys heat on a global scale. Carried by the currents of this deep circulation loop, a drop of water crosses the globe in less than a thousand years and, in so doing, sculpts the world: with it travels nutrients, heat and animals, thus regulating the entire climate and ecosystems of our planet. We know for sure that this current has been slowing down abnormally for more than 200 years because of human activity, and if this deregulation.
Photo © Martin Messier
