After
completing his collegial and university studies
in visual arts in 1994, Yan Breuleux dedicated himself
to the practice of digital arts. Co-founder, with
the composer Alain Thibault, of PURFORM.COM, Yan
Breuleux works in the field of video, performances
for immersive multi-screen assemblages. He also
develops online interactive animation projects.
Notable among his video works is the video series
ABC (honorable mention, Ars Electronica 1999) created
at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris. Through
his work as a performer he has participated in many
prestigious festivals such as the Berlin Transmediale
(1999, 2004), ISEA in Paris (2000) and in Japan
(2002), Dissonanze in Rome (2003) and Lille (2004).
Following the Black Box projects, an immersive four-screen
apparatus, he collaborated in the development and
artistic direction of the ArsNatura project (www.purform.com/arsnatura)
His online works have been shown at the musée
du Québec, the musée de Rimouski,
the New Museum of Contemporary art in New York and
in Toronto at the Interaccess art centre.
 Installations
Program by Yan Breuleux
A- Re[generation]
This program formulates two suggestions. The first one conceives the idea of regeneration of a place through an artistic activity. The second, anchored in the space of the des Carrières incinerator, consists in an artistic activity as generator of forms, starting from images, sounds or a setup. For this program, audiovisual loops are commissioned from three artists, as well as a modular device realized from recovered materials, receiving projected pictures and transforming itself according to a series of interventions, from the multidisciplinary collective LIPS. In any case, the basic matter of the artistic projects builds themselves according to a recycling principle, of transformation according to a looping process: the first loop of images will supply the second in the same manner as the first device of LIPS will supply the continuation of their project.
Re[génération] of the site by the artistic activity
Two watchtowers overhanging the des Carrières incinerator exercises a reassuring presence for those who live by them daily. Nevertheless the future of such a building, industrial residue can be a preoccupation. Buildings are witnesses that are a cross generations. It is in view of a recycling at once of the building, the materials, and the sound and visual recordings taken on the site by the artists, that the project Re[génération] has been conceived. The cyclic process of recuperation and regeneration of matter applied to architecture is a manner of opposing the destruction of our industrial heritage. The project Re[génération] implies a comprehension of the des Carrières environment as an urban ecosystem starting from the misappropriation, transformation and recuperation of existing matters.
Artistic activity as a form generating process
From the recovered place to the strategy of creation there is but a step. Even though directly linked to the machine and to the tools that are specific to it, the numerical culture is not uniquely concerned with the virtual image but participates in a redefinition of the borders of the artistic field, as proves the LIPS project. The numerical work of art is a continuous process of transformation of meaning with the help of several media, let them be sound, or visual based or setups. The container obeys combinatorial structures of matter and the artwork is in constant evolution, transformation. In this context the technique and art are not separated, they talk to one another. The object is nonexistent and potential. It is the process that is sacred or sanctified. It only takes on meaning in the action. Numerical time is eternal presence. It is activated or deactivated. When the process enters in act, it is inspired by the place, the context, ideas that surround it. Thus, elusive, it does not present itself as an art piece composed by an author but as an organizing principle.
The artistic creation process adopted in this project, in accordance with the creation process in numerical art, results from the interaction between several elements. Every artist has adapted to the theme of the program according to his own language, his own preoccupations and artistic researches, entering in resonance with the themes of the desert and of regeneration. A device is proposed to all that will allow a dialogue with the place in a certain way. The site suggests a device that itself in return suggests content. The furnished device becomes the framework with which the artist must compose his work, the structure for the realization of his project: a vertical surface to the third of a normal video image and a system in relation with the specific acoustics of the place. In any case, the diffusion conditions are imperfect. This imperfection of the matter becomes an element of language. The artists recovering the architecture of the place transform it by diffusing loops of several minutes modulated in time and while proposing a diffusion device as subject, constructing a salvaged screen on which will be projected video pictures, use precisely a language element furnished by the space of the place.
BURDEN _ I8U, 2004
Her “sound-sculptures” reveal powerful, opaque and complex sound environments where the analog and digital meet. Her web art follows a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual elements. From classical music to the blues, i8u has participated in various music and new technology festivals across Canada , Europe and the US . Her CDs have been released on Canadian and European labels such as bake/staalplaat (Nehterlands), Oral ( Montreal ), Piehead records ( Toronto ) as well as a collaboration with Goem, Amsterdam on the Mutek label. She recently took part in the compilation “60 sound artists protest the war” on the Japanese label ATAK. I8U has had a particular interest in music, sound and web art in the last two years. I8U’s latest web art project, gate, is part of the exhibit <PAUSE> curated by the collective Mobile Gaze.
I8U explores the insitu concept in a radical way. For the creation process she shows up with a camera a sound recorder and captures a brief moment, an object, and sounds from the site. These sounds and images then become the formal basis for a symbolic reinterpretation of the site based on materials taken form it. Inspired by a fable on the desert from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathoustra the formal material of the incinerator thus takes on another meaning.
PLANTE ROBOTIQUE _ Luc Lavergne, Vj Many-2, 2004
Known as VJ Many-2, this artist works in the fields of real-time video manipulation, Vjing and 3D graphics, video games and multimedia art. His favoured research fields are interactivity and multi-screen projections.
His project consists of a robotic plant, a sort of artificial organism that grows in relation to the site. The formal verticality of the video image and the theme of Re[generation] inspired the artist to work on the organic aspect of information. A sort of artificial life that borrows its imagery from video games, these plants grow according to a life cycle. These bio-cybernetic machines reproduce, multiply, change shapes and spread out in different places. All the while telling a story, which can be accessed from any point, Luc Lavergne’s robotic plants evolve in the sterile universe of the incinerator. At the boundary between artificial and biological life, the real and the virtual, the dead architecture of the incinerator and the movement of the video image, Luc Lavergne’s video images unfold in the hybrid in-between of an uncertain world dominated by the machine.
INTERFÉRENCE Frédéric St-Hilaire, Vj cinétic, 2004
Cinétic, whose artistic work mainly focuses on interference, will work with a contortionist for the image shooting. Broadening his artistic explorations, the artist will not enter into communication with the site but into a relation of interference brought by a contrast effect. It is the through the limits imposed by the massiveness of the incinerator and the heaviness of the space on the human body that he interprets the idea of Re[generation]. The body will attempt to adapt, to communicate, and to extricate itself from the gravity exerted by this immense surface of reinforced cement. In order to adapt itself to the frame, the body must twist itself into extremes, almost to the point of breaking. Nothing could be more anti-kinetic than the contorted position of a body twisted in half. The body’s steadiness, however, hints at the idea of a breakaway, a potential catastrophe that would release it back into movement. It is this powerful contrast, a contrast amplified by the projection space that gives the body its dramatic aspect.
Entropie _ LIPS, 2004
LIPS (Ligue d’improvisation et de performance spatiale/League of spatial improvisation and performance) is an artist collective made up professional architects, designers and visual artists. Within the project Re[generation] “Entropy” manifests itself as a spontaneous construction that uses a recycled bottle of water as a unit of measure.
René-Luc Desjardins is presently completing a Master’s degree in architecture at UCLA. His academic background and his work experience have given him the opportunity to create and finish a series of multidisciplinary works. He is a member of the company Elastika and he develops his own architecture and design projects.
After studying in architecture, Frédéric Caplette works mainly on the design of movie theaters and show venues for a Montreal firm. He currently teaches computer assisted drawing and design all the while carrying out his personal projects which combine architecture with other disciplines.
Jean Couture was born in Sherbrooke to a designer father, he grew up in a milieu that was always creatively stimulating, After receiving his Bachelor degree in environmental design from UQAM he began a successful career as a corporate and commercial designer. He now divides his time between teaching design workshops at the Université de Montréal and his private practice.
Itaï Azerad is an industrial designer. He explores the themes and relationships of the object/user. His multidisciplinary work often leads him to collaborate with artists, architects and other designers. His works have been presented in various international shows such as the Biennale Intérieur in Belgium and the Tokyo 100% Design.
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