Part 2: Public Activations, with Visualization in 2D + 3D, with Immersion and New Media (including Drawing and Photography and Drone Animation)

Public Activations, with Visualization in 2D + 3D, with Immersion and New Media will address empathy and point-of-view in current social and environmental issues. From UQAM, Romeo Gongora will present his collaborative AR project, a reconstruction of a social club that Guatemalan immigrants ran in Montreal, built from extensive interviews and archival documents; Philippe-Aubert Gauthier will present his 3D spatialized sound works;  Alexandre Castonguay will talk about his research that re-purposes party technologies, to offer participatory and collective methodologies for co-creation; Michèle Magema will present on the manipulation of colonial archives via a digital device; and Paul Landon and Valérie Kolakis will present their latest research and exploration of gardens with augmented reality applications to reveal structures and address issues of housing, migration, urban planning and the environment. 

Panelists:

• Paul Landon (UQAM)  
• Valérie Kolakis (artist and researcher)
• Romeo Gongora (UQAM)
• Philippe-Aubert Gauthier (UQAM)
• Alexandre Castonguay (UQAM)
• Michèle Magema (UQAM)

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Bios and talk description

Paul Landon (professor at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques of UQAM) is an artist who explores urban space using experimental processes of mediatisation, both analogue and digital. Landon’s work is structured through the uncompromising physicality of architecture and the modern landscape; his art practice and his research reflect upon the social and experiential effects of the multi-dimensional built environment. In 2016 Landon completed a doctoral project which considered urban architectures of moving image presentation through a travelogue form of writing. His installation and video works have been exhibited internationally for over thirty years and are in public collections in Canada and Europe.

Valérie Kolakis has exhibited her work in museums, galleries, biennials and art fairs across Europe and North America over the past 20 years. Born in Athens and living in Montréal, Kolakis makes sculptures, drawings, photographs and installations that relate to issues of migration, dislocation and domesticity. Her work reconsiders architectures of modernity in the construction of identity and culture.

Talk Description

Mapping an imagined garden city with augmented reality

This is a project that proposes a series of imaginary structures mapped into the landscape of the botanical garden. The public will be able to experience these 3D drawings with their smartphones. The project addresses issues of housing, migration, urban planning and the environment. The project would suggest a transformation of the landscape of the garden into a lived habitat shared by human and non-human species. It would recall recent and historical architectural propositions where garden and park settings have served to house migratory and dispossessed populations. 

Romeo Gongora (Professor of Critical Approaches to Cultural Diversities at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques of Université du Québec à Montreal) is a Canadian-Guatemalan visual artist, and doctor in Art at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK). Since 2008, he has conducted major collaborative projects that interact with the social sphere, integrating politics and critical pedagogy in the practice of performance. He is the recipient of several grants and has shown his work at, amongst others, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (Canada), HISK (Belgium), Centre of Art Torun (Poland), Centre Makan (Jordan) and Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery (Canada). He has been an artist-in-residence at, among others, the Rijksakademie (Netherlands, 2007-08), the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany, 2009) and Acme Studios (UK, 2016).
www.romeogongora.com

Talk Description

El club Tikal Guatemala, catching migration stories in an augmented reality environment Casa de Guatemala en Montreal is a long-term art project that investigates “El Club Social, Cultural y Deportivo Tikal Guatemala”, a social club that Guatemalan immigrants ran in Montreal between 1972 and 1982. This presentation will examine the use of augmented reality technology to provide an immersive experience of the Club Tikal Guatemala history. It will discuss the collaboration with the Elysium integrated App and SPHERE(S) Lab to implement the augmented reality experience, and how the technology can be used to highlight migratory experiences.

Philippe-Aubert Gauthier (professor at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques at UQAM)  is a mechanical engineer, master of science, doctor of mechanical engineering (acoustics) who works at the crossroads of arts, sciences and technologies. He has produced over fifty works in sound and digital arts. His work has been presented in Quebec, Canada, the United States, Mexico, France, England and Germany. Since 2001, P.A. Gauthier has received grants from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Fonds Recherche Québec, and the Fonds Nature et Technologies du Québec. As a researcher and artist, he has published more than 80 articles and conferences, as well as 30 specialized workshops and conferences on arts and technology. He is currently Associate Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media and Technology.

Talk Description

Environnements sonores, espaces sonores : vers de nouveaux enjeux Le son : une partie prenante de nos environnements. Les environnements sonores sont ainsi construits par nous, êtres organiques, ou technologiques, et par la nature. Mais ils nous construisent et modulent tout autant dans nos ressentis, nos émotions, nos pensées. Après une année de télé-présence et de téléconférences, nous retrouvons enfin une caractéristique pourtant fondamentale de tous nos environnements sonores : leur spatialité. En effet, les constituants sonores de nos paysages audibles viennent de partout autour de nous, et non d’un seul haut-parleur au centre de notre écran de téléconférence. La présentation offrira une synthèse de recherches, créations, et spéculations quant aux espaces du son, à la spatialisation sonore. Les enjeux aborderont notamment : la fragmentation de l’espace sonore, les nouvelles spatialisations sonores émergentes vers la réalité augmentée, et les nouveaux usages ou moyens de la mise en espace du son.

Alexandre Castonguay is a professor at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques (EAVM) of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and a member of the Hexagram network. His creations have circulated, amongst other places, at Piksel (Norway), the 11th Transmediale (Berlin), the Festival International d’Art Vidéo de Casablanca (Morocco) and Montreal’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

http://artengine.ca/acastonguay

Talk Description

Les technologies de la fête, méthodologies participatives et collectives pour la co-créativité.Darkness designer and príncipe descolonizador, Alexandre Castonguay approaches different artistic forms suggesting modes of exchange and i​nteraction inspired by the relational dynamics of information flows. His uses of technology mediate the individual and the collective by amplifying the subtle and the unheard.

Michèle Magema est une artiste Franco-Congolaise. Elle est née en 1977 en République Démocratique du Congo. Elle réside en France depuis 1984.  En 2002, elle obtient son DNSEP à l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Cergy- Paris. Sa pratique artistique mêle vidéo, performance, photographie, installation et dessin. La pluralité de ses appartenances l’autorise à interroger son histoire personnelle et celle des états nations, de continents et plus largement encore du Monde et de ses systèmes de dominations. La féminité exacerbée et engagée de son art se manifeste par l’utilisation fréquente de sa propre image comme référence. Elle utilise des faits historiques qu’elle interprète au moyen de mises en scène frontales et de différentes métamorphoses afin de mettre en exergue les récits oubliés des ex-colonisé-e-x-s. Ses derniers travaux portent sur l’utilisation des archives coloniales à travers le dessin et les installations mixtes. Michèle Magema mène une carrière artistique internationale. Elle a exposé au Centre Georges Pompidou à Paris, au Mori Museum au Japon, à la Hayward Gallery à Londres, au Broklyn Museum à New-York, au MRAC en Belgique, au Hirshorn Museum à Washington, au  Rietberg Museum à Zurich. 

Talk Description

“Partage-Manipulation-Accès : l’ appropriation de l’archive coloniale numérisée, un enjeu. “

L’accès à l’archive coloniale semble aujourd’hui facilitée avec la numérisation. Cette “dématérialisation” autorise-t-elle au plus grand nombre son contact ? Michèle Magema propose de parler d’un projet autour de la manipulation des archives coloniales via un dispositif numérique. Elle évoquera sa collaboration avec la StartUp ArtDesignPainting qui donne au visiteur un accès direct aux photos d’ archives coloniales que l’artiste s’aproprie par le dessin. Le projet a été réalisé au FRAC Val-de-Loire en France. Entre dessins, photographies et dispositif numérique, l’artiste propose de partager son interprétation et son rapport au document comme un raccourci amenant l’œuvre dans l’espace intime du visiteur via le cellulaire.