Olivia Boudreau works in the areas of video and performance. The pieces she has done over the past four years, either alone or in conjunction with artist Caroline Dubois and composer Jimmie Leblanc, play with the concepts of time and place as well as the ways in which they are perceived. Boudreau is currently working on a master’s degree in visual and media arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She lives in Montreal.

THE WORK

Salle C, 2007.
Salle C is a video performance that takes its name from the place where it is shot and presented. For the entire 150 hours during which the exhibition START is open to the public, Boudreau films herself continuously in room C of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery. Visitors to the exhibition can simultaneously observe the images captured by the artist on a screen, and are lead to reflect on the concepts of presence and of the present.

EXPLORE

• The artist’s use of her body as raw material.
• The concordance between the time in which the artist made the work and the time of its reception by viewers.
• The unbroken extension of the present moment.

A FEW QUESTIONS

• Olivia Boudreau’s performance is a contemplative work that seeks to abolish time, to have us experience the present within the continuity of duration. In your opinion, what generates the endless mise en abyme of the present moment in this work?
• Salle C confronts us with the physical presence of the artist. How does this direct contact with the artist determine our experience of the work?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

“2006-2007 calendar”, Optica Web site.

In recent years Peter Courtemanche has turned away from his original interest in radio art to work more extensively on electronic installations using the new technologies. His interactive sound pieces are often grounded in narrative texts and attest to philosophical and historical reflections on science and technology. As the Media Arts Curator at the Western Front artists’ centre, Courtemanche has also contributed to the production and dissemination of numerous experimental audio and electronic works by various emerging artists. He lives in Vancouver.

THE WORK

Preying Insect Robots, 2006.
Inspired by a mechanical creature in Ray Bradbury’s celebrated science fiction novel The Martian Chronicles (1950), Peter Courtemanche’s robotic insects move around the Gallery floor and communicate with one another. They spring into action, regroup, perform isolated movements, switch to stand-by mode and reactivate. Their motion and the noise of their motors create a soundtrack that evokes the organic sounds produced by actual insects.

EXPLORE

• The connections the artist establishes between art and science fiction.
• The hybrid quality created by the links that exist between the organic and mechanical natures of these insect robots, between technology and nature, and between artificial intelligence and animal instinct.
• The autonomy of robots. The movements of these machines and the interaction and communication that takes place between them without any direct human intervention.

A FEW QUESTIONS

As they move along the Gallery floor, Peter Courtemanche’s robots share the viewer’s space and temporal world. They remind us of those mechanical creatures endowed with organic qualities that we find in science fiction narratives. And they reproduce the actions and behaviour of living creatures. What artistic, ethical and philosophical questions are raised by these robots’ hybrid nature?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Courtemanche, Peter. Absolute Value of Noise. Official Web site:
absolutevalueofnoise.ca

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950.

Cal Crawford is a young artist with an interest in sound art and video. He has also done documentary works and interventions in which the process of art making takes precedence over the object. And he has made, both individually and with others, CDs that explore the acoustic richness of various processes and situations. Crawford recently completed a master’s degree at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He lives in Los Angeles.

THE WORK

Closed Universe, 2002-2003.
In late 2002, Crawford sent a collection of images titled “Evidence to further the theory that the universe is shrinking” to 20 internationally renowned astrophysicists. These photographs, which showed cracked or collapsed highways, buildings and other constructions, were accompanied by a letter requesting that these scientists help to prove the theory of the contracting universe. An account of this endeavour, Closed Universe brings together the photographs, the letter sent to the astrophysicists and a number of their responses.

EXPLORE

• The importance attributed to process. The documentation of a process as an artwork in its own right.
• The postal system used as an art medium.
• The concepts of beginnings and finitude.

A FEW QUESTIONS

• In your opinion, in what ways can the artistic process and the scientific approach be interrelated? Why would an artist want to explore the world of science? What possibilities does this field of knowledge open up for art?
• Do you think that works of art need to be composed of tangible materials? Can processes and ideas be seen as artworks in their own right? What does such dematerialization imply for the redefinition of the work of art?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Crawford, Cal. Cal Crawford Art. Official Web site: calcrawford.com

Lamarche, Bernard, “Mises en scène.” Le Devoir. April 5 and 6, 2003.

In recent years Peter Courtemanche has turned away from his original interest in radio art to work more extensively on electronic installations using the new technologies. His interactive sound pieces are often grounded in narrative texts and attest to philosophical and historical reflections on science and technology. As the Media Arts Curator at the Western Front artists’ centre, Courtemanche has also contributed to the production and dissemination of numerous experimental audio and electronic works by various emerging artists. He lives in Vancouver.

THE WORK

Preying Insect Robots, 2006.
Inspired by a mechanical creature in Ray Bradbury’s celebrated science fiction novel The Martian Chronicles (1950), Peter Courtemanche’s robotic insects move around the Gallery floor and communicate with one another. They spring into action, regroup, perform isolated movements, switch to stand-by mode and reactivate. Their motion and the noise of their motors create a soundtrack that evokes the organic sounds produced by actual insects.

EXPLORE

• The connections the artist establishes between art and science fiction.
• The hybrid quality created by the links that exist between the organic and mechanical natures of these insect robots, between technology and nature, and between artificial intelligence and animal instinct.
• The autonomy of robots. The movements of these machines and the interaction and communication that takes place between them without any direct human intervention.

A FEW QUESTIONS

As they move along the Gallery floor, Peter Courtemanche’s robots share the viewer’s space and temporal world. They remind us of those mechanical creatures endowed with organic qualities that we find in science fiction narratives. And they reproduce the actions and behaviour of living creatures. What artistic, ethical and philosophical questions are raised by these robots’ hybrid nature?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Courtemanche, Peter. Absolute Value of Noise. Official Web site:
absolutevalueofnoise.ca

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950.

Language serves as a raw material in the work of Stephen Ellwood. His textual work is presented in a variety of formats, including books, catalogues, posters, visitor’s cards, installations and videos. Using modes associated with narration, statements and propositions, it conveys a profound concern for the material and visual aspects of words and their arrangement. Ellwood also works as a curator. He has organized two exhibitions on the work of the American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, which has close affinities with his own practice. Ellwood lives in New York.

THE WORK

UNTITLED (INSTRUCTIONS FOR SIGHING), 1996.
This text piece is visible from the atrium outside the Gallery. The words, cut out in pale grey vinyl, form instructions for a breathing exercise. Posters relaying these instructions are also available inside the Gallery. Viewers are invited to try the exercise by telephoning the number provided. All calls are recorded and kept by the artist.

1. BREATH IN HARDER THAN USUAL
2. HOLD THE BREATH IN A BIT LONGER THAN USUAL
3. EXHALE THROUGH YOUR NOSE AND MOUTH, CAUSING A SLIGHT AUDIBLE VIBRATION AS THE AIR IS EXPELLED
4. CALL ME AND DEMONSTRATE
514-848-3379

EXPLORE

• The work of art as a textual prompt.
• An awareness of respiratory functions.
• The viewer’s participation in the creation of the work.

A FEW QUESTIONS

• Stephen Ellwood’s work is a textual piece that directly calls for viewer participation. In your opinion, what is the artist’s role in this work? Why does he ask viewers to perform the exercise. Where is the work situated? In the instructions? In the performance of the actions? In the recording of the calls?
• UNTITLED (INSTRUCTIONS FOR SIGHING) is a work that is experienced in and through duration. Are you aware of your breathing in your daily life? How can the exercise proposed by Ellwood make your more aware of this vital function?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

“Advertising by Artists.” Art Metropole Web site: artmetropole.com/popups/public_art/public_07/adsbyartists.html

A selective list of artist’s books, posters and multiples by Stephen Ellwood can be found on the Art Metropole Web site.

Marla Hlady’s works mainly with sound. Her kinetic sculptures and installations, as well as her sound pieces and recent ink drawings, take a humorous and poetic look at our perception of sound phenomena. Hlady is primarily interested in the interactions that are possible between the viewer, the work and the space they share. The playful character of her work is accentuated by, among other things, the use of toys, gadgets, machines and ordinary objects diverted from their usual functions. Hlady lives in Toronto.

THE WORKS

MIXER, 2005-2007.
Mixer is an interactive work made up of stainless steel cocktail mixers placed on a table. When handled by viewers, each gives off a different range of sounds. A white light also issues from tiny holes in their metal surface.

Proposition for Tracing a Sound, 2006.
Marla Hlady’s ink drawings are attempts to cast sound in visual terms. These drawings do not come across as specific musical scores but, rather, as free interpretations that allow viewers to imagine their own sounds from the artist’s graphic signs.

EXPLORE

• The idea of containing sound and light, of packaging them. Sound and light as tangible hands-on materials.
• The discrepancy between the nature of the sounds produced and the objects that produce them.
• The activation of the work by the viewer.

A FEW QUESTIONS

• In what ways do Marla Hlady’s works alter your initial conception of sounds? Does the fact that you set things in motion, that you handle the works yourself, change your perception of the objects presented or the sounds that emerge from them?
• In your opinion, how can the phenomenon of sound be conveyed in visual terms? What objects, graphic signs and colours do you associate with the sounds you hear?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Campbell, Nancy, Xandra Eden, and Barbara Fisher. Marla Hlady. Toronto: The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery; Scarborough: The Gallery of the University of Toronto at Scarborough, 2001.

The Idea of the North, Halifax: Dalhousie Art Gallery; Eyelevel Gallery; Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, 2005.

Thorp, Josh. “Sound Offering: The Art of Marla Hlady.” Border Crossings, vol. 26, no. 1 (March 2007): 38-44.

Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto. Web site: jessicabradleyartprojects.com

While she is known more for her performances, installations and political video works dealing with racial stereotypes, Adrian Piper is also the artist behind a number of conceptual pieces dating from the late 1960s. These acoustic, textual and documentary works explore the concepts of indeterminacy, space, displacement, repetition and duration, in line with the conceptual aesthetic of the New York art scene at that time. Apart from her artistic practice, Piper has had a career as a philosophy professor in various universities throughout the United States. She currently lives in Berlin.

THE WORKS

Seriation #1: Lecture, 1968.
This soundwork consists of a recording of a woman’s voice announcing the time in 10-second intervals over a total period of 29 minutes and 17 seconds. To produce this piece, Piper dialed a telephone operator using a rotary phone, the distinctive sound of which can be heard at the start of the recording. The rest of the soundtrack is made up of the prerecorded phone message giving the local time between the hours of 1:00 pm and 1:30 pm.

Seriation #2: Now, 1968.
Located in the entrance to the Gallery, this piece consists of the artist’s voice uttering a single word “now” in a measured tone and for shorter and shorter intervals ranging from 60 seconds to 1 second. The total length of the work is 17 minutes and 36 seconds.

EXPLORE

• The concepts of duration, interval and repetition.
• The discrepancy or time-lag between the times announced on the recording and the real time of the listener.
• The fleeting nature of the instant. The impossibility of holding onto the present moment.

A FEW QUESTIONS

• Piper’s soundworks allude to bygone moments. How do they make us more aware of our own temporality? And how do they lead us to reflect on our immersion in the present?
• Seriation #2: Now is located in the Gallery entrance. Why do you think the curator, Christof Migone, decided to place it precisely there? Could this work be considered an epigraph or heading for the exhibition START? Why? How does this work prepare us to explore the concepts of rhythm, beginnings, emergence, time and space?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Berger, Maurice, ed. Adrian Piper: A Retrospective. Baltimore: Fine Arts Gallery, University of Maryland, 1999.

Piper, Adrian. Out of Order, Out of Sight. Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 1996.

Adrian Piper Research Archive. Official Web site: adrianpiper.com

Liv Strand has been producing soundworks since 1995. She experiments with a variety of media, including kinetic sculpture, installation, video and radio art, and is particularly interested in the spatial and temporal dimensions of the materials and techniques that she uses. Strand works in the studios of EMS (Electroacoustic Music in Sweden) and is a co-founder of LARM, an organization devoted to documenting and disseminating soundworks produced by women artists in the Nordic countries. She resides in Stockholm.

THE WORK

Pipeline, 2005.
Pipeline is a 14-minute video that transports the viewer through a pneumatic distribution system, as a capsule modified to carry a video camera moves through the supply ducts. The whistling produced by the movement of the capsule and the variations in light make it possible to appreciate the camera’s movements through the system. Pipeline invites us to travel through this mysterious structure that extends for over 10 kilometres through the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm.

EXPLORE

• What it is like to discover a space that is normally inaccessible.
• The dizzying sensation generated by the capsule’s movements and stops as it travels through the system.
• The transmission of movement by light and sound.

A FEW QUESTIONS

• What comparable experiences does this voyage through a pneumatic distribution system bring to mind? What specific characteristics of Liv Strand’s work suggest these associations?
• Our perception of the capsule’s labyrinthine path is heightened by the whistling sound and the fluctuations in light. In what ways do sound and light condition your relationship to space in your daily life? How do these immaterial phenomena punctuate your everyday experience of space?

ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

The Idea of the North. Halifax: Dalhousie Art Gallery; Eyelevel Gallery; Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, 2005.

LARM Project. Web site: larm-festival.se
larm.pbwiki.com/Liv%20Strand