OBORO, Occurrence and the Critical Media Art Society presents:
Project curators:
Nina Czegledy and Louise Provencher.
Event schedule:
April 16 to May 14, 2005
Occurrence and OBORO, Montreal, Canada
July 22 to October 9, 2005
ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
Co-curators: Peter Weibel and Sabine Himmelsbach
January 26 to April 2, 2006
Centro Cultural Conde Duque Medialab Madrid, Spain
Co-curators: Karin Ohlenschläger and Luis Rico
May 4, 2006- June 4, 2006
V2/TENT, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Co-curator Stephen Kovats
June 22 — August 27, 2006
Ludwig Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary
Co-curator: Krisztina Uveges
September 19 to October 15, 2006
Maison europeanne de la photographie/ Festival @rt Outsiders, Paris, France
Co-curator: Jean-Luc Soret
Canadian Artists:
Jocelyn Robert
Saint-Georges et le Dragon 2005 Video Animation
Saint-Georges et le Dragon is a video-animation project. Not inspired by the history of Nicolas Tesla but rather by the fact that there is actually such a history, it is a comment on the need we have for heroes, and on the will of some of us to play that role.
Jocelyn Robert works in audio art, performance, installation, video, and writing. His works have been shown in Canada and abroad. He has performed solo and with others, worked on numerous installations with Daniel Jolliffe and Emile Morin, published a dozen solo CDs and participated in twenty group projects. In 1993, he founded Avatar, an artists-run audio and electronic arts centre in Quebec City.
Jean-Pierre Aubé
SPYING the electromagnetic Work Force 2005 In situ installation
My intentions are to use an array of mini VLF receiver to analyze and spy the electrical flow. The receivers will spy in real time the electromagnetic state of the building. Installed in a serial communication network, the data collected through these sensors enable us to draw a diagram of the electrical power being used in real time. This live database collects the information and broadcasts the parse data through four full range backloaded horn speakers.
Jean-Pierre Aubé artist, infographist and programmer. Master in visuals arts (UQAM). Since 2000, he captured sounds from the aurora borealis and various electromagnetic phenomena via V.L.F. (VLF Finland). Recent works include an exhibition at Laboratorio Arte Allameda, (Mexico), a participation at the 11e Pancevo Biennal (Serbia) and sound installations: Save the Waves (Fonderie Darling, Montréal) and Nocturne (Passerelle, Brest, France). www.kloud.org
Norman White
Abacus 1974 Electronic sculpture
Abacus is a small tabletop work, first exhibited at Toronto’s Electric Gallery in 1974. Abacus employs random and structured principles working in harmony to produce a stochastic effect partially predictable, partially not. The physics of the system, is a vehicle for the central informatic nature of the piece, by which it achieves a semblance of autonomous life. In Abacus, logical and physical principles conspire to produce an effect not unlike the activity of an abacus under the nimble fingers of an expert user, hence the name.
Norman T. White presented his first major electronic work at a 1969 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art entitled Some More Beginnings. Since then, he has exhibited his work throughout North America and Europe. From 1978 to 2003, he taught courses in electronics, mechanics, computer programming, and concept development at the Ontario College of Art and Design.
Catherine Richards
Shroud/Chrysalis 2000 Interactive new media installation
A glass table is situated in the middle of the room. The only other material is copper taffeta; an electro-magnetic shielding fabric. In its unperformative state the fabric is left folded in the centre of the glass table. Spectators are invited to be wrapped. Two female attendants perform the act of wrapping and unwrapping. When wrapped, the spectator is ‘unplugged’; aware of his or her surroundings, capable of seeing and hearing through the fabric.
Catherine Richards is a visual artist working with old and new technologies. In 1991, she created Spectral Bodies, the first virtual reality system in Canada, at Banff. Richards has presented and published worldwide. She has received the Petro-Canada Award (1993) and a Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts Fellowship (1993–1994). She co-directed BIOAPPARATUS, an interdisciplinary residency on art, intimacy, and new technologies at the Banff Centre.
David Tomas
Matrix for Yellow Light 2004–2005 Audio installation
‘Madame Marie Curie: A Series of Portraits taken in 1902’ is set in the context of a paranormal laboratory. The work points to a strange and exotic science fiction world where the Master narratives of science and religion meet and engender strange new stories; where a new God-like presence inhabits a laboratory or machine; where priests and scientists are interchangeable characters; and where information might be alive with ‘intelligence.’ The installation is based on a previous visual series, conceived under the broad title of ‘paranormal’ narratives, set in the context of the history of science, specifically the history of low energy physics: the discovery of radium, the electron, X rays, and early radiation studies, etc. The installation consists of two glass chambers. One houses two audio speakers and a microphone. This chamber is sealed but one will be able to hear the murmuring of words through the glass membrane. The other contains a single audio speaker and a specially constructed ear trumpet through which one will be able to hear the narrative.
David Tomas is an artist/writer whose multimedia and photographic works explore the cultures and transcultures of science, technology, and their imaging systems. He has exhibited in Canada, the US, and Europe, and has held research/fellowship positions at CalArts, Goldsmiths College (University of London), and the National Gallery of Canada
Paulette Phillips
Homewrecker, 2005 Video projection Homewrecker began with my interest in electromagnetism as a metaphor for desire. I am interested in making the invisible visible and I am preoccupied with erasure and history. My practice involves a combination of inquiries into the physical, the historical and psychological. I look to physics to find physical ways to manifest unreasonable reactions.
Phillips’ recent exhibitions include solo shows at Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art in London, England; The Oakville and Cambridge Galleries; The Ottawa Art Gallery; and Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto and numerous group shows including The ICA, London; Generator, Dundee; Wandelhalle, Cologne; and Artist’s Space, New York. Her work is in private and public collections including The Museum of Modern Art. Phillips teaches film, video and installation at The Ontario College of Art and Design
Marie-Jeanne Musiol
Bodies of Light 2005 Light sculpture (light boxes)
In the dark, a wall of images gradually lights up to reveal the energy nature of the living world. Plants radiate in electromagnetic fields captured by photography. The effects of our interactions with the plant world also become manifest in ten short scenarios shown on video.
The installation consists of 60–100 light boxes of shown in a dark space, creating an experience of cosmic illumination. The installation, hooked up to an electronic eye, lights up gradually and stays lit up for a determined period (around 5 minutes) before going back to dark, until a new visitor comes in, setting off a new cycle. If the video is presented on a small screen in the same room at a certain angle, the incident light creates its own peculiar pattern of illumination and disorientation. The soundtrack encompasses both image and space to create a total environment.
Marie-Jeanne Musiol’s photo installations have transformed archaeological itineraries into journeys exploring the nature of energy. While working in Auschwitz, she experienced the limits of photographic representation and began searching for a way to record the luminous imprints issued from electromagnetic fields around biological objects — plants, in particular. She is presently exploring what could be a first: “energy” botany.
Ælab
in/fluencing 2005 Media installation
The proposed installation reflects on interplay of measurements of invisible forces. The intuitive understanding that Tesla had of the potential of zero point energy, the idea of taping into the ambient medium as a source of energy, is explored as exchanges in a given space. Based on research being done presently during a residency at the nanolab of McGill University’s Chemistry Department, the proposed installation reflects on the translation of magnetic phenomena at the nano and microscopic level. The intuitive understanding that Tesla had of the potential of zero point energy, the idea of taping into the ambient medium as a source of energy which is self-regulated and self-sustained, is displayed analogically as a cantilever (as used in AFM — Atomic Force Microscope technology), a point of contact unto a flowing surface, a never-ending exchange of magnetic/voltage coordinates.
Sparks 1999–2005 Experimental documentary
Total running time: approx. 36 minutes
Sparks is a modular video series comprised of 5 video capsules which finds its inspiration in the life of visionary inventor Nikola Tesla (1856–1943). Sparks mixes documentary facts within a larger experimental genre with shifting perspectives which include interviews, autobiographical texts, animations, archival sources, metaphorical interpretations and original sound design. The five capsules can be seen independently, in clusters of two or three, or all together, and can also be interspersed within a larger thematic video program.
Ælab, founded in the summer of 1996 by artists Stephane Claude and Gisele Trudel, is a research unit that invites participating contributors on a regular basis. AElab reflects their focus on an ecological and technological conscience rooted in the arts and sciences. Stephane Claude is an electronic composer and sound engineer. Gisele Trudel is a media artist and New Media professor at the Ecole des art visuels et mediatiques at UQAM. Their work has been shown internationally.
Nina Czegledy, artist, author and independent curator, has collaborated on international projects; produced time-based digital works, and has lead and participated workshops, forums and festivals worldwide. Resonance, Digitized Bodies, and the Aurora projects reflect her interests in art, science and technology. She is curator of the Canada Digital Culture Map, member of the Girls&Guns Collective, ICOLS, and the Space Art Network, president of the Critical Media Knowledge Institute, and chair of Inter Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA).
Louise Provencher is an independent curator, art critic, and professor of philosophy. She is also director of Lieudit (CDD 3D), and member of Occurrence’s board of directors. Resonance is inscribed in long-term research into media/technology archeology, manifested in conferences, publications and two curated projects: Michel Goulet’s Porter le mur comme le masque, and Montreal/Telegraph: the sound iconographer. Co-curator of the international colloquium Electre & Magnete, on electromagnetism and the arts (UQAM 2003, OBORO 2004).
Supported by the Quebec Arts Council, The Department of External Affairs, Montreal Arts Council, Lisa Frulla Minister of Heritage, Line Beauchamps, Minister of Culture and Communication, Quebec, Collège Ahuntsic, PAFACC-UQÀM and the Canada Council for the Arts.