Bios: Gisèle Trudel & Stéphane Claude (www.aelab.com/index.html)

In the summer of 1996, Æ was initiated as an artistic research unit based on a philosophical exchange between artists Gisèle Trudel and Stéphane Claude, with the regular participation of other collaborators.

Through a more anonymous framework, Æ cristallizes their interest for an ecological awareness in the use of technology, as echoed in the arts, science and shamanic traditions.

Æ is not limited by the subjectivity of its components nor to the production of a yearly artistic statement but is much more of an ongoing process of discovery.

Æ is mostly involved with concepts and phenomena that have a potential for transformation and learning.

Æ prepares audiovisual essays, electronic performances, databases, in-situ installations, publications, psycho-geographic walks, audio recordings to be listened in the dark...

In a general way, the artist unit acts as a catalyst for experiences and adventures which are documented and redistributed.

Æ is striving to reintroduce a certain figuration of the mineral/vegetal/animal world into the electronic medium, as a concrete and enlarged view of the human condition, with the objective of breaking down a generally anthropocentric societal view.