Manon Labrecque et Martin Tétreault
installation performative
PRIM
2180, rue Fullum
vendredi et samedi, 25 et 26 novembre 2005
de 17 h à 22 h................................................................Entrée gratuite
Métro Frontenac
Installation actions projectiosn performances
Pierre-André Arcand et Mario Côté
performance
Alexis Bellavance et Hugo Girard
actions et performances sonores
Nikki Forrest et Nelly-Ève Rajotte
projection vidéo
Manon Labrecque et Martin Tétreault
performance et projection vidéo
SAT — Société des arts technologiques
1195, boul. Saint-Laurent
dimanche, 27 novembre 2005
dès 17 h...............................................................................Entrée
8 $
Métro Saint-Laurent
4 artists’ duos
Pierre-André Arcand and Mario Côté
Alexis Bellavance and Hugo Girard
Nikki Forrest and Nelly-Ève Rajotte
Manon Labrecque and Martin Tétreault
1 curators’ duo
Nicole Gingras and Eric Mattson
Defined as “the visible emanation of the medium’s body,” the term “ectoplasm” may be understood as a metaphor for the creative process. This project is based on a desire to generate, four times over, a collision between two art practices, and on the ensuing creations: the objects, works and extensions of ideas that constitute as many perceptible traces of this hybrid, two-headed being heralded by bringing two artists into a relationship with one another. Thus the medium here is the interaction of the media jointly explored and exploited, as well as the virtual entity that emerges from the encounter thereby generated between the paired artists. Through this process in which two ways of doing things and two imaginations come together, four hybrid or strangely symbiotic works take shape.
So ECTOPLASMES 5x2 is based on a contamination process—on the levels of ideas, imagination, mastery of media and ways of doing things. And the effects produced by means of this contamination are as significant for the artists as they are for the curators. They are discernable not only in the experience of each work devised and completed by each pair, but also in the modes of presentation employed for each hybrid object (video projection, performance, performative installation, action, sound diffusion, listening with headphones). And this is not to forget the traces that this experience will leave on the future practices of the artists and curators and on the positive perception that visitors (observers/listeners) will have through contact with these works.
ECTOPLASMES 5x2 is a creative laboratory inaugurated in July 2005 by Nicole Gingras and Eric Mattson, two Montreal-based curators who have since followed the development of each project closely through studio visits, meetings and frequent discussions with the artists. As the weeks passed, the members of each pair got to know each other, and learned to mark out their territory and select the tools and mode of presentation that suited them best.
ECTOPLASMES 5x2takes the form of a public event that reveals the current state of the works developed in tandem. This is not an exhibition, nor is it a concert or a video program. Reflecting the creative energy of the participants, the diffusion of Ectoplasmes 5x2 is an occasion for encounters and exchangesThrough video, the artists intend to deal with the painterly image in stasis and motion, and to improvise with sound materials in ways that translate and synthesize both. The work (of undetermined length) that emerges from this process will be built around attributes of painting and projected shadows recalling the origins of representation. involving the artists, the curators and the public.
Pierre-André Arcand and Mario Côté
L’Écran La Toile — peinture/vidéo/son [the screen the canvas—painting/video/sound]
These seasoned multidisciplinary artists are driven by a love of words, images and sounds. They both have an intimate and in-depth knowledge of film, painting, music and literature.
Alexis Bellavance and Hugo Girard
Projecteur [projector]
Both of these artists are habitués of the stage: one focuses on the extension of action in time, while the other regularly gives concerts on the European alternative music scene. Both use analogue sources: sounds produced by the body, and found in nature and daily life.
From 4:00 p.m. until the end of the evening, an ongoing action by Alexis Bellavance is punctuated by Hugo Girard’s sound interventions, which become briefer and more surprising as time goes on. Duration encounters the moment. The artists, who find themselves in a closed space, juxtapose two conceptions of time. Projecteur deals with the highly relative perception of passing time.
Nikki Forrest and Nelly-Ève Rajotte
Slip/...
For each artist, video is a privileged medium that enables them to grasp perceptible and intimate spaces, and their image-based work is just as strong and complex as the work they do with sound. Both have, in their respective ways, developed a particular relationship to landscape as an extension, so to speak, of their own beings.
A fusion of images and sounds by two artists, Slip/... grew out of simultaneous experiences rooted in the concepts of rupture, failure, resistance and wandering, all of which undermine meaning and cause us to lose our bearings in our experience of time and space.
Manon Labrecque and Martin Tétreault
Exercices de neutralité [neutrality exercises]
N
Martin Tétreault is an expert in music and sound improvisation, while Manon Labrecque has proven to be an amazing performer by experimenting with voice, breath, facial expressions and body language. Having agreed to take chances in this duo, these two artists have allowed themselves to be captivated by objects from their daily lives, and in the process they have set up a very strange distance between them.
In a playful atmosphere, this pair gives a series of short performances for the video camera, treating us to a veritable welter of actions and sounds. These absurd and touching gestures, articulated in tandem, draw up a strange inventory of touches, scrapings and frictions as so many hits and misses which reveal that touching without ever touching each other is sometimes a very surprising sound experience.
Produced by MINUTE — Curators: Nicole Gingras and Eric Mattson
With the financial contribution of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. In collaboration with PRIM and SAT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for its generous assistance. We would also like to thank the artists for the trust they have placed in us for the duration of the project, and for their enthusiastic involvement with ECTOPLASMES 5x2. And finally, our thanks go to Donald McGrath, who did the English translation, Marie-Nicole Cimon, our proofreader, Angèle Cyr, Youssef El-Jaï, Benoît Gravel and the Centre interuniversitaire des arts médiatiques (CIAM).Design : Eric Mattson