FLOW/COURANT

Purblue
Yan Breuleux

Purblue is a monochrome-blue study into sound disruptions and waves. Blue, symbolizing the ‘blank’ blue screen of our television monitor or video screen, is the “in-between” space waiting to be filled by technology. This emptiness is here activated by keyboard-controlled disruptions constituting a series of pre-programmed, yet randomly accessed, animations and sound loops (or waves). Purblue, informed by the coulour-rich experiments of modernist painters such as Yves Klein, Barnett Newman and Marc Rothko, samples through a series of graphic variations on the theme of “blue”—exploring textures, form, pattern and juxtaposition. The sonic component of the work broadcasts the glitches and bleeps of the oral detritus of technology. These sound loops are evocative of a John Cage school of investigation wherein the minutia of noise is extrapolated to the point of its essence—offering an acute focus on the notion of time. David Toop notes how “Music is closely related to human perceptions of time and its segmentation. Time unfolds, seemingly forward, yet also laterally and in cycles, and the perception of time is subjective, as well as quantifiable.”[1] Purblue invites us to meditate on the notion of time/space as encapsulated in its audio-visual loops through which flows this epicyclic study on ‘blue’.

1. David Toop, “Life in Transit” in Sonic Process (Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2002), 64.

Yan Breuleux
Born and lives in Montréal. Breuleux holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal and is presently pursuing a Masters in Design at the Université de Montréal. Video-performer for immersive environments he has presented his work at festivals such as Transmediale (Berlin, 1999) and ISEA (Paris 2000, Nagoya 2002), and exhibited his web art at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2002), Musée de Rimouski (1999), as well as the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 2001).

locale()
Marcelo Coelho + Steve Helsing

The term ‘cyberspace’, coined in William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, refers to a navigable, digital space of networked computers accessible from computer consoles. Locale() is a generative work which graphically traces the geographical pinpoints of these rhizomatically connected locations. Upon submitting a URL of our choice to the locale() search engine we witness the tentacular network between this original URL and those of every website linked to it. A navigable flash interface of the terrestrial globe, and hence cyberspace, permits us to further explore these paths of connectivity. Locale() brings to the fore questions of discrete geography and identity within the fluidly constructed geography of cyberspace. Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin in defining the qualities of cyberspace argue that “space is not a neutral and passive geometry, but rather is continuously produced through socio-spatial relations; the relationship between space, spatial forms and spatial behaviour is not contingent on ‘natural’ spatial laws, but is the spatial product of cultural, social, political and economic relations; space is not essential but is constructed and produced.”[1] The experience of the user in locale() is one of wonder as we construct a map of the entwined nodes of the Internet and the one-degree of separation between us and every site on the planet.

1. Martin Dodge + Rob Kitchin, Mapping Cyberspace (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), 29.

Marcelo Coelho
Born in Campinas, Brazil, lives in Montréal. From making movies on the streets of São Paulo to hard coding in Montréal, Coelho has had a diverse professional background. He studied History at the University of Campinas and Cinema at the University of São Paulo. He is presently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Image and Sound at Concordia University. Since his arrival in Canada, he has worked as a freelance correspondent, designer and programmer. His work has been presented at the Société des arts technologiques (Montréal, 2003), SIGGRAPH (San Diego, 2003) and the Rhizome.org website.

Steve Helsing
Born in Vancouver, lives in Montréal. Helsing holds diplomas in both Creative Writing and Fine Arts from Langara College in Vancouver. He is presently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production at Concordia University and is a long distance runner. In his spare time he works with JAVA graphics and wants to develop a portfolio of code generated images and animations. His works have been presented in Montréal at the Société des arts technologiques (2003), the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery (2003), and on Rhizome.org website.

Les Petits dénominateurs communs
Jean Dubois + Chloé Lefebvre

Les Petits dénominateurs communs (LPDC) is a video-based series of interactive tableaux to be presented over the course of the coming months which invites us to virtual control the "flow" of the animations. The clips in LPDC are on par with one-liners or doodles, offering us a glimpse into a humouresque universe wherein we witness the artists’ creative complicity to communicate to us, and each other, via the screen image (video capture, Internet transmission, computer screen). The conflation of body / screen is articulated by Jean Baudrillard who explains how “In the image of television, the most beautiful prototypical object of this new era, the surrounding universe and our very bodies are becoming monitoring screens.”[1] The animations are viewed in an interminable loop as we witness the artists’ Sisyphean task of blowing balloons up. The loop as form is proper to the moving image and the computer. Lev Manovich reminds us that “It is relevant to recall that the loop [the film strip] gave birth not only to cinema but also computer programming. Programming involves altering the linear flow of data through control structures, such as “if/then” and “repeat/while”; the loop is the most elementary of these structures.”[2] Hence, LPDC illustrates the flow of the cinematic / computer in a playful open-ended interface featuring the intimate gestures of its artists.

1. Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication (New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 1988), 12.
2. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 2001), 317.

Jean Dubois
Born in Sherbrooke, lives in Montréal. Dubois studied Visual Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Jan Van Eyck Academie and Paris VIII. He produces interactive video installations, which focus on interpersonal relationships. His work has been presented at ISEA (Nagoya, 2003), at the Galerie de l’UQAM (2002), the Casino Luxembourg (2001) and the Musée de Joliette (2000).

Chloé Lefebvre
Born and lives Montréal. Lefebvre holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her work is notable for its playful attitude, childlike marvel, and festive spirit. Her work has been exhibited at L’Art qui fait boum! (Montreal, 2003), the Symposium international H2O Ma terre (Carleton, 2002) and the Salon de l’Agglomérat, Galerie Clark (Montréal, 1999).

Numbers/Numéros
Michelle Kasprzak

Exploring the notion of encryption on the web Numbers/Numéros send us on a scavenger hunt to decode a series of messages. Once a week for the duration of the exhibition (August 22 – October 5, 2003) the artist will post a new audio message on her website, which must be decrypted using the Vigenère Square, a weak form of encryption, in order to be understood. The art of cryptography has found a resonating currency within communication technologies from short-wave radios to the Internet. The mathematical elegance utilized in cryptography parallels that of the computer code where a logical language serves a higher function and meaning than that apparent on the surface. The challenge and sport of decrypting computer code gained notoriety within the online “hacker” culture of the late 80s. Bruce Sterling offers this description: “Hacking can describe the determination to make access to computers and information as free and open as possible.” He further notes how ”Hacking can involve the heartfelt conviction that beauty can be found in computers, that the fine aesthetic in a perfect program can liberate the mind and spirit.”[1] The intention of a project such as Numbers/Numéros is to provide an opportunity for interaction between audience and artist wherein we participate in the suspenseful de-coding of a “secret” narrative.

1.Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 51.

Michelle Kasprzak
Born in Hamilton, Ontario lives in Montréal. Kasprzak received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Media at Ryerson University and will be commencing her Masters in Visual and Media Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal in autumn 2003. She was honoured with the InterAccess "Emerging Electronic Artist" Award (Toronto, 2001) while her work has been previously presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 2001), DigiFest (Toronto, 2002), and the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (Rotterdam, 2003).

Leaves/Feuilles
Justin Kok

With Leaves/Feuilles we enter a mutable landscape where the changing of seasons (spring and fall) is set into motion through our interaction. This keyboard-activated work permits us to “play” a series of animations wherein we trigger the fecundity of vine growth or the fluttering of dry leaves through the air. The oral dimension of the work—sounds culled from the sonic landscape of nature / culture / technology such as modems, faxes, piano and the whistling of the wind—echoes the turbulent inner working of this digital/nature environment. The symbiotic relationship between nature and technology has been commented on by Jonah Brucker-Cohen who notes how “Technology aids not only the dissemination of information and meaning across distance and time, but allows for insight into the hybridization of the natural and artificial.”[1] Leaves/Feuilles embodies this hybridization and calls upon our actions as a catalyst to set ‘nature’ into motion thus highlighting our complicit role in nature’s survival or unraveling.

1.Jonah Brucker-Cohen. “New Media Meets the Environment” in http://www.greenmuseum.org, 2003.

Justin Kok
Born and lives in Montréal. Kok began studies in Digital Arts at Vanier College and is currently studying Design Art at Concordia University where he is working towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts. His work has been previously presented in Montréal at the Société des arts technologiques (2003). He draws inspiration from the simplicity of everyday things, and thus is interested a minimalist approach to art.

Valerie Lamontagne
Born and lives in Montréal. Lamontagne received her Bachelor and Masters of Fine Arts from Concordia University where she presently teaches in the Digital Imaging and Sound program. Past Web art curatorial projects include Location/Dislocation at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 2001); Matter+Memory presented with MobileGaze (Montréal, 2002) and Ellipse at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2002). She is a co-founder of MobileGaze, a net.art site featuring art and interviews with artists and digital media producers.