Let’s build a giant room-sized theremin with 16 antennas!
We would like to invite the tag-team of artist/engineers David Beaulieu and Christian Pelletier to this year’s Pop Montreal International Music Festival (September 30 - October 4) and see them build a Theremin room in our special Art Pop and POP Symposium headquarters.
The duo was last seen breaking musical boundaries with their loud-speaker suits worn by Patrick Watson and his musicians at this year’s Festival de Jazz de Montréal.
The installation of massive proportions we want them to build will invite festival-goers to participate (alone, or in groups!) in the creation of on-site, mind-blowing, improvised music as they interact in a room with 16 antennas suspended above and around them. As they are activated, the antennas trigger psychedelic sounds that are bound to excite and solicit interest from all sorts of human beings
It’s gonna be spontaneous, it’s gonna be an immediate and visceral experience, it’s gonna be communally created art instantly diffused, IT’S GONNA BE SO COOL! We’re asking all lovers of theremins, lovers of art, lovers of interactive experiences, lovers of electricity, lovers of music and lovers of the world everywhere to help us make this project happen. Your money will be used to pay for David & Christian’s hard work and the equipment they will need to make this happen.
Check out our kickstarter page, where you’ll see all the amazing REWARDS we’re offering to people that back this project. Among those, you’ll find:
- a limited edition DVD of animations made by local animators
- a DIY theremin kit
- a hand silk-screened limited edition t-shirt with a theremin on it
- an mp3 of an exclusive track from Gentleman Reg or Dishwasher
- a FULL PAGE photo of you in the Pop Montreal segment program
- a VIP Festival Pass to the Pop Montreal International Music Festival
- a personal festival friend and a cozy bed to sleep in
- a musical about you and 3 of your friends, written and performed by us. we will tape it in Montreal in front of a live audience, and send it to you.
- a custom-made Loudspeaker Suit built by Beaulieu and Pelletier
Do Nothing At Casa
If you are the kind of person who likes to stay home doing nothing instead of going out dancing on St. Jean, then why not do nothing with a bunch of other people at Casa? Here’s their description of what I’m sure will be an interesting night of nothingness.
Starting at 6pm we will remove all furniture, all art on the walls, all information on the blackboard, turn off all pre-recorded music, turn off all lights. Once this is done, surrounded by the emptiness of an emptied Casa, we will simply be there, come join us in doing nothing (perhaps with a bit of chat, eat, drink). By midnight or so we will bring everything back to normal.
Filed under Uncategorized, events, immersive art | Tags: casa, Casa del Popolo, st jean | Comment (0)Biennale Madness
Ok folks, so the Montreal Biennale is half-over, but there is still plenty, plenty, plenty to check out. So much so that my head is spinning a little over here in my dark, damp corner of the world, and I just might need to put a plastic bag on my head to help breathe. That helps, right….?
The majority of what the Biennale has to offer runs throughout the month, so fear not, people, you haven’t missed much if you haven’t gone to see its diverse programming yet. General notes of interest for those wishing to embark on the Discover-MTL-BNL-09 train;
1. The festival has many locations, but the central one is L’Ecole Bourget, which is down, down, downtown. Its exact address, unlike my hairdressers, is not a mystery, and is 1230 de la Montagne, (coin Ste Catherine) which is close to Guy-Concordia and Peel Metro stations.
2. The admission fee will set you back $5, or the price of a very good latte, unless you can prove you’re 12 or under, so I suggest dressing way, way down. Think beanie and giant lollipop.
3. For other Biennale locations and a map of where things are at, check this link out. To download the full program, click here.
At any and all rates, here, in a randomly assorted listing, are some of the things that I suggest you go and do, wrestle down, cajole, chomp on, etc….
1. The interactive exhibition at the Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay (6052 Boulevard Monk, Metro Monk)
This exhibition, which runs all month long, is located in and focused on the fabulous South West of Montreal and its boroughs (St.Henri, Ville Emard, Verdun, Point St Charles, Little Burgundy, Etc) The idea behind the show, thought up by by the Educational Services of la Biennale de Montréal 2009 and artists Alexandre Castonguay and Michel Seta is to offer different communities in the neighbourhoods a chance to help create a soci-artistic project together through the use of various mediums and mechanisms.
It sounds like it will be an interesting thing to check out, particularly in regards to how well it integrates the festival’s Open Culture mandate. There are guided tours every day for those interested in learning more about the project/contributing to its narrative, and the hours are listed here, at the very bottom of the page.
2. Saturday, May 16th (today!) + Sunday, May 17th (tomorrow!) from 12-5pm - last chance to see TAG in action - L’Ecole Bourget
Who are TAG? and what do they do? These folks are a community of peeps interested in creative gaming in all its diverse forms. TAG (Technoculture, Art and Games) seems to be comprised of academics through Hexagram at Concordia and lots of creative partners.
If you go to the Ecole Bourget today or tomorrow, you’ll get a chance to see their Biennale incarnation, Porous Lab, do its thing, or to participate in the creation of their games. To be honest, I only kindof get it, but that’s always where things get interesting, so go and find out how to become your own personal avatar in the Unicorn Candy Land Simulation I’ve been dreaming of for so long.
3. Every Saturday of the month at 2-3pm - Daniel Jolliffe’s Performance Mobile En Velo -
This looks really cool - Daniel Jolliffe, an artist who combines sculpture practices and electronic technologies, is inviting everyone of us to call his hotline, at 1-888-500-1011 and record whatever message comes to mind, has been pre-planned for months, is a big fat lie, is the gorgeous, secret truth. Think Biennale Rant Line or some such. Then he takes his homemade megaphone, pictured above, and tours the city with your words and mumbles.
Every Saturday for the duration of the fest, Jolliffe will be ready at 2pm at L’Ecole Bourget for you to come with your bike and chocolate croissant snaxs to tour around with his handmade sculpture to proudly (or sheepishly) declare to the world the recordings of each person that left him a message.
Meanwhile, it’s almost 2pm, and it’s raining raining raining, so if you feel strong enough to go today, wear something plastic and yellow and red, (like his scultpure!) to keep the droplets at bay.
4. Thursday, May 21st from 5-8pm - Conference with Daniel Jolliffe and Alexandre Castonguay, L’Ecole Bourget
For descriptions of each artists work, please see individual write-ups. I couldn’t find any description of what this is going to be on the festival’s website, which could easily be due to over-saturation at this point with so many clicks and links and rain and music and coffee and. All this to say they will likely be talking about the use of electronics and technology in their works, as they both use digital medias in interactive and interesting ways, so if this sounds like your type of thing, then leave all the others behind in their nests and go.
5. Saturday, May 23rd - Soundscapes/Paysages Sonores - La Sala Rossa, 4848 St Laurent
One of the only Biennale events off the Ecole Bourget map, this evening at the Sala will render live the music composed by David Ryshpan and inspired by the work of Rick Leong, one of Montreal’s youngest painterly stars. You can also go and check out both Leong and Ryshypan’s creations at the Ecole Bourget itself.
6. Everday Exhibitions going on at L’Ecole Bourget
There are many artists and exhibitions going on at L’Ecole Bourget for the Biennale, and for $5, you get the flexibility of going during whatever day of the week you like, as it’s open the entire month without fail daily.
If you missed the documentary on the innovative and inspiring Roadsworth, you can still check his work out in and around L’Ecole Bourget when you go. He’s been commissioned to do work around the metro stations of the school, so walk slowly on de la Montagne so as not to miss his breathtaking creations.
Once you’re in the bowels of the site, (yes, yes, I used the word bowels, folks. Get over it) you can see Brazilian artist Cao Guimaraes‘ photo series Gambiarras (2002-2007) showing how São Paulo citizens rework their surroundings to make them more functional.
If you’re feeling the need to get your hands metaphorically dirty a bit more, then dive into Read + Write, an interactive installation conceived of by artist Alexandre Castonguay in collaboration with Mathieu Bouchard, a digital arts engineer. The work invites participants to engrave texts, sounds and images on the wall and to control their appearance. This artwork is a drawing machine as well as a software interface.
In a less directly-interactive vein, but no less engaging, is one of the program’s most exciting presentations from the perspective of my little bean-head, which is that of Richard Wentworth’s amazingly poetic and understated photo series, Making Do and Getting By (1973-2008). Wentworth’s humour and unique vision has produced a body of work that engages with the direct environment of everyday living in ways both immediately recognizable and unashamedly playful and touching.
Also not to be missed is 8 Courts 1 Collectif, an open source cinema initiative curated and coordinated by Michèle Gauthier and Claudine Tissier. They chose 8 up-and-coming Montreal filmmakers: Michèle Gauthier, Benjamin Gueguen, Ahn Minh Truong, Yan Giroux, Sophie Goyette, Alexandre Gibault, Abeille Tard and Guy Édouin to direct a series of 8 short films based on content provided by the public via a website over the course of one year. Their website explains the process in greater detail.
Phew. I feel overwhelmed already. In a good way, like when I am laying outside, in farm country, eyes closed and sunny, with a sudden onslaught of 10 kittens coming at me from all directions. Grinning-from-ear-to-ear-overwhelmed.
In fact, I feel so exhausted already that I think I am just going to get drunk alone in this dark, damp corner of mine, from now until the closing party on the 31st of May at, where else? L’Ecole Bourget. It’s a 5 a 7, so go early and then stay late, while you drool on all the napkins and leftover cheese plates as yet again, security has to be called, and you must be physically thrown out.
Filed under Uncategorized, art talk, artists, conference, events, immersive art, installation, local, photography, street art, video, workshops | Tags: Alexandre Castonguay, Daniel Jolliffe, Montreal Biennale, Richard Wentworth, Rick Leong, Roadsworth | Comment (0)Lalie Douglas is going to take your fears away….
In time for the season of spring-cleaning type activities comes a spring-cleaning-of-the-mind based in performative and interactive art, in the form of an articule Special Project run by local artist Lalie Douglas. Take your fears away is a project that, similar to a side-of-the-road gas station that simply declares, “PETROL”, fulfills exactly what it suggests it will. Nothing coquettish here, folks, just plain and simple fear-ridding-techniques.
The basics: you email Lalie (takeyourfearsaway@gmail.com) with whatever fears you might wish to be no longer, and Douglas will then go to Calgary with those fears to, “be transformed into site specific installations, performances and other interventions designed to symbolically overcome, diminish and otherwise seek to remove the power these fears may hold over you.”
How cool does that sound? How appropriate that Montrealers and Calgarians (Is that right? are you people Calgarians? It’s not like you’re called Rodeogonians or something….?) SWAP fears? Douglas is almost re-enacting what happens on a psychic level daily.
Our Quebec-infused versions of psychoses and terrors will be collected in the month of April and May, and then Douglas will travel with them to Calgary, to return to us in June to present, expel, and rid Rodeogonians of their fears here. I expect to see clear suitcases of grade A beef strewn across St.Laurent with a few papier-mache oil rigs here and there…but just as one’s treasurer is another’s junk, so too is one’s nightmare another’s dream. I guess we’ll find out.
Filed under artists, events, immersive art, local, out-of-town, performance, street art | Tags: articule, Lalie Douglas | Comment (1)Go get your robe and necklace already…
Tonight, performance artists/ruffian Jason Harvey and his cohort Michael Farsky, (at least in this endeavour) plan to marry cats, mystic dance, and hypnotize some folks, all in front of you.
A large-scale interdisciplinary art event, Demon Night promises to be, in their words, a “bright cosmic passage on to a new echeleon of existence. Feeling one with every person in the same room, learning and sharing a new found understanding and strength. Be free and be joyous, and spread the light that is within you!”
I am going to personally be in Vermont being one with a bunch of strangers and mountain views, but if you are sticking around Montreal, the night starts at 11pm and the loft it is in will be completely transformed to look like a giant womb, (no comment) replete with a “cuddle wing”, so you might end up not leaving until the wee hours of the morning at the earliest.
It is at Lab.synthese, which is located at 435 Beaubien West. There IS a cover charge, and it IS $5 which includes a robe and necklace.
Filed under events, immersive art, installation, local, performance | Tags: Concordia, Jason Harvey, Lab Synthese, Michael Farsky | Comment (0)More things to go to this week
Tonight (8pm-12am) is the vernissage of Night Vision Nocturne (FB), an art show presented in association with the IMCA Student Collective and Art Matters 2009. The new media based gallery exhibition showcases 17 artists working within the creative domain of video, electronic, laser and photography based installation as well as theatre and video performance. The space will be in complete darkness except for the self-illuminated artworks.
Three things over there have especially caught my attention for now - and I haven’t even seen the show, those are: jello ipods (Sek Chee Lynn Chen), majorz lasorz projektor (Jonathan Gilmore) , and what seems like a videotaped cat (Florence S. Larose). See you tonight at Galerie Artefacto (3520 Saint-Jacques W, Lionel-Groulx Metro) for multimedia and live video mixing performances!
Then, this Wednesday (FB, 8pm, $8), Frozen Mammoth favorite Jim Holyoak is participating to this mysterious show/event over at the Eastern Bloc. He will have art on display and he is most likely to do live projections and ink drawings. The event is promised to be hypnotizing and disturbing, with Echoes Still Singing Limbs, Holy Oak, Paper Beat Scissors and Jonathan Beaver Sheppard. Look at those gorgeous myspaces, and dare tell me you’re not intrigued!
Filed under events, immersive art, installation, performance, video | Tags: Art Matters, Artefacto, Eastern Bloc, Echoes Still Singing Limbs, Holy Oak, Imca, Jim Holyoak, Jonathan Beaver Sheppard, Paper Beat Scissors, Shereen Soliman | Comment (0)Updatan’ You Alls.
1) Don’t forget the deadline for applying to Art Pop 2009 is March 5th at midnight, please pass the word and this link around: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4140023/ArtPOP-Call-for-Submissions
2) This Thursday (the 26th), make sure you make sure you show up at the Art Matters Opening Party! The Art Pop squadron is curating part of the exhibition, but that’s not all: the venue (bain mathieu .ca) is crazy, you’ll be dancing all night in an empty pool and the bands/djs are insanely radical. + there will be surprises and props of the kind you’ll want to photograph all night long so you never forget. check the facebook event page for more info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=52365303557
3) Coming up on the 26th of March - An awesome art education project in collaboration with DHC/ART, articule and Art Pop, more details coming up soon!
Participants will be given a blank white album cover containing a record that has been removed from its original cover. They will be asked to listen to their album and create an album cover for the record they received. This project challenges participants to reflect on the visual representation of sound and music and find inspiration in a randomly selected record.
Of even more shameless promotion-type things….
That’s right kids and pappies and babies and ados and all in- betweeners alike: Art Pop, the visual arts segment of Pop Montreal, is asking all of you and your kind to apply for this year’s festival. The deadline is the 26th of February, so get cracking.
We’re going to be focusing on art that is immersive-based/heavily reliant on crystals. Well, the crystals part is less important, and perhaps not even really necessary, we just have a crush on them in that way you do when you reach for your spring jacket and realize that the unidentifiable lumpy thing in one of the pockets is in fact, a giant crystal, and you don’t know how it got there. One-night stands with crystals everywhere.
So forward this link out to the folks who would want to see it, and think about the possibilities for your fine selves as well. It’s going to be an awesome festival this year, and we’re very much looking forward to reading your amazing projects while slowly realizing that you, in fact, and you alone, are our very own human-crystal, shining through the night with a will that won’t give up.
Or something like that.
Filed under art calls/appels, immersive art | Tags: art pop, crystals, immersive art | Comment (0)
