On the occasion of her residency at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE, the Brazilian artist Karina Montenegro exhibited the results of her two months of in situ work. This project was made possible through an exchange program between the Museum of Image and Sound of São Paulo in Brazil and LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE, Avatar and La Bande Video in Quebec City. These few weeks spent faraway from her country and her familiar reference points enabled the artist to leave a trace of this in her artwork. In the installation titled Deslocamento – O Jardim de minha casa, translated literally as “Displacement – The Garden at My House,” the artist proposes a poetic view of her move to an unknown place, inspired by her personal and professional experience.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

This work fits in perfectly with the artist’s way of working, as she is interested in the links between art and technology and new medias. This artist, who is both a programmer and researcher in art, design and audiovisual and digital medias, uses these complementary competences, stemming from her studies in science and in arts, to show the intersection of art and the digital.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Her interest in the influence of new technologies on our perception of time and space is moreover very current. Considering the constant progress of our means of communication, Karina Montenegro is asking questions about the vast possibilities of these contemporary communication techniques. According to the artist, contemporary society is deeply affected by the various means of communication and the constantly evolving technologies, which influence the way we perceive the world. She believes that the development of most communication techniques come from a basic human need to preserve history and memory.

She maintains that technology opens new perspectives and gives us numerous possibilities concerning time and space. Today, as a result of technology, one can be “elsewhere” without having to move and can have access to information from other times and from everywhere in the world with just one click.

The artist’s gaze is also critical about technological progress, because, according to her, this has made communication much more complex today. The speed with which the technologies are developing makes them difficult for the general public to assimilate. ¹

The Work
Right in the centre of the gallery, a shimmering frame is suspended and spontaneously attracts the visitor’s attention. Put into motion by a timer, it turns in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock, carrying out one movement per second. It takes 360 seconds for it to make a complete tour of the space. This minimalist installation is perfectly integrated into this part of the main gallery (see photograph).

The presence of the frame with a completely empty space surrounding it is a little intimidating at first. Visitors need to take a moment to become familiar with the work and to find their way in this strange unoccupied, empty space.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

The immense geometric forms are not much easier to understand. They circulate slowly, moving alternately on the four gallery walls and the floor. They are generated by the reflection of the lighting elements on the shimmering frame. These clear trapezoidal forms turn at a frequency two times faster than the frame, which makes the visitors feel destabilized. The numerous shadows of the frame are fixed however, but turn at the same rhythm as the frame. The reflections and the shadows of the frame confront each other in the space, creating confusion and an interesting trompe l’œil effect.

A few gray lines placed on the walls create a geometric motif, breaking the monotony that monochrome walls usually have. For the artist, these geometric forms refer symbolically to her distant house and garden, her displacement.

The empty frame in the work is proposed as an abstraction of the window of her house in São Paulo. These two elements go beyond the simple representation of a home. They refer more broadly to the multiple ways of perceiving time and space. The work is not located in a precise time or space. Instead it evokes an abstract, dislocated time, a different time, another possibility of time.

The artist borrows the notion of heterotopia from philosopher Michel Foucault to present us with incompatible spaces and places that are juxtaposed.² Michel Foucault defines heterotopias as a physical localisation of utopia. In other words, they are actual spaces where the imagination exists.³ These are places of alter-reality, that are neither here nor there, that are simultaneously physical and mental. These places are entirely different from all the places that they reflect. Foucault uses the idea of the mirror as a metaphor for the duality and contradiction, the existence and non-reality of utopian projects. A mirror is a metaphor for utopia, because the image that you see there is not real, but is also a heterotopia because it is a real object that projects the manner in which we are connected to our own image.

“The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a kind of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror. But it is also a heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position that I occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence from the place where I am since I see myself over there.” ⁴

It is for these reasons that the frame, the work’s central component, is made of mirrors. For the artist, the shimmering frame represents the way that she perceives the world with its shadows and reflections. It is a metaphor of a flat world, in the sense that there is always the possibility of seeing beyond what one perceives. The mirror is linked to the representation of ourselves, the illusion of who we are.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

For Karina Montenegro, these utopias of time and space exist and are found within us. It is sufficient to look at things differently, to change one’s viewpoint to find them. The artist took advantage of her trip to Quebec and her stay away from her country of origin to change her point of view and her rhythm of life and to get closer to, as she calls it, the suspended time that she was seeking.

Deslocamento enables visitors to have both a spatial and visual experience, all while being a response to the artist’s existential questions. The work makes visitors confront their perception and their relationship with the space, both that which surrounds them and that which they inhabit. These two spaces, internal and external, real and imaginary, mental and physical, overlap each other.

Deslocamento – O Jardim de minha casa is the first stage of a project that will be continued in Brazil. The artist is thinking about recreating the installation with the same structure in São Paulo. The work then will become the abstract representation of Quebec City in Brazil and symbolically complete the artist’s movement.

1. Information from the artist in conversation with the author, November 12, 2012.
2. Foucault, Michel. 1984, “Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias.” In Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, No. 5, p. 46-49. Website [online]: http://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heterotopia.en.html (consulted on November 2, 2012).
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Entering into the gallery, in the middle of the space, the viewer is overcome by a strange sensation of vertigo: a loss of balance and control. But the vertigo does not come from height: instead, the impression is that the body is thwarted, notions of space and time shattering the visitor’s habitual world. This is because in the work Box de sombra, everything is to be redefined. Even the gallery space, so familiar, does not manage to give the minimum of stability. Free from its function as an exhibition space, it becomes for a moment or infinity, the work itself.

crédit photo: Étienne Baillargeon

To create Box de sombra, the Mexican artist Miguel Monroy placed four projectors on the ground. On each of the walls, he projected the image of this same wall, on which one can see the artist and LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE staff move about in an endless kind of round. Each one in turn enters the exhibition space, as if we were at the stage of mounting the work. The image of their body is lost for a few seconds, the time it takes to cross the gallery for instance, and then it reappears on a wall, in order to install one of the projectors. While the viewer’s gaze is still fixed on the moving image, attempting to grasp the duplication of the space, another member of the staff makes his or her entry. Then another and thus it continues. Caught in the middle of this choreography, where the visitor seems to be the only one not knowing where to stand, wanting to catch the eye of those who continue to come and go. Because even if this person is completely aware that it is only a play of projections, he or she cannot help but be constantly troubled by this place in which fiction and reality intersect. The markers are constantly shifting, leaving one in doubt about the boundaries of the work.

crédit photo: Miguel Monroy

In a complex process of mise en abyme, usually described as the work within the work, Monroy leads the viewer to question the structure of his work. The history of art has many celebrated works that use this procedure, such as Jan Van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife (1434) in which a mirror is place in the background, allowing us to see the painter at work. This view of the work––that prompts “a return to the signifier,”¹ according to the terms Christine Dubois uses in her study of mise en abyme–is recognized for its introspective power, causing the viewer to become aware and question the making of the work itself.

But what is the actualization of this process? Following the preoccupations of contemporary art today, it seems that mise en abyme tends to be concerned with the implications of exhibiting works and the viewer’s immersive experience.

On this subject, it is interesting to make a parallel between Box de sombra and Thomas Struth’s Museum Photographs in which the latter shows photographs of viewers looking at paintings.² In front of these works that repeat the action of the moment, the visitor is directly concerned, almost forced to question his or her behaviour and situation in the exhibition space. If the same kind of reflection is produced in Box de sombra, it is however, with a somewhat different intensity because the viewer is directly part of the action. Like it or not, the viewer is at the centre of Monroy’s work. What is more, one could say that he or she is literally in the spotlight. The beams of light from the projectors create a shadow of his or her body and show it on the wall, propelling it into this space where two distinct realities interlock. While becoming familiar with the work, visitors can play with their shadows, changing the scale as they move around in the gallery, accessing the more playful aspect of the work, which is a recurring feature in this artist’s practice.

Having a strong multidisciplinary approach, Monroy initially worked with the idea of the ready-made, diverting the meaning of everyday objects and changing the conditions of their presentation. In his works, the artist at times pushes the play until it reaches the level of the absurd, such as Walking Machine (2008) in which he experimented with the possibility of riding a scooter on a moving walkway. Box de sombra is situated in continuity with this practice, even though the artist is exploring new territory and new dimensions, no longer questioning the meaning of objects but rather that of the gallery. Inspired by the residency project at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE, which offered him the chance to work in the gallery for several months, Monroy decided to broaden the in situ experience, concentrating on the specificities of the artist-run centre placed at his disposal, that is to say, its equipment, space and staff. In fact, the great strength of his mise en abyme is found in this closeness of the work to real elements, creating an actual blurring between the exhibition space and the work, just like between the time of its installation and that of its presentation.

crédit photo: Miguel Monroy

But beyond the confusion that surrounds the parameters of place and time, the vertigo felt in front of Box de sombra is constructed through the repetition of actions, making the work reel toward the exhilaration of infinity. In fact, the rhythm of the projection loop produces the impression of suspended time, as if the work is never finished being installed. However, as Monroy’s sensitivity suggests to us, this kind of system often has imperfections. The artist made a brilliant demonstration when he changed some pesos into dollars then did the operation in reverse, again and again. Following the principle of equivalence of worth, the transactions should have continued indefinitely but very soon, nothing was left. What about Box de sombra then? The repetition of this same gesture––that of installing the work––does this not reveal the actual nature of the exhibited work? If the mise en abyme makes us see the genesis of the work, it also reminds us that this in situ work, woven into the actual place where it is exhibited, cannot be distances forever from the moment when it will be dismantled. There seems to be something predetermined for this work, but also, perhaps, for viewers that wander among the four walls of the gallery.

Box de sombra. Boxe de l’ombre³. Shadowboxing. Like boxers who train alone, imagining the reaction of their opponent with their own shadow, the visitor to Monroy’s work is confronted with a kind of void. Despite all the people, the shadows and projections that come and go, solitude seems to reign in the bare gallery space. In questioning this place of encounter between visitors and works, is Monroy making reference to a battle in which the outcome is already determined?

1. Dubois, Christine. 2006, «L’image «abymée»». in Images Re-vues, No. 2, Document 8, p. 2. Website [online]: http://imagesrevues.revues.org/304 (consulted on November 28, 2012).
2. Schmickl, Silke. 2005, Les Museum Photographs de Thomas Struth: Une mise en abyme. Paris: Maison des sicences de l’homme editions, 2005. 77 p.
3. The expression “boxe de l’ombre” is a reference to shadowboxing, a training exercise used in combat sports.

In the spring of 2013, LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE invited So Kanno for a residency. A native of Tokyo, the artist is accustomed to producing “eye-catching” works that represent his boisterous, animated city. Confronted with a quiet place, and with the perspective of research more than production, the Japanese artist chose to be concerned with the minuscule, paying attention to the almost imperceptible noise of his daily life. In the exhibition Objects of Sound, he invited us to give our full attention to sound as a phenomenon in four different installation works. In this respect, the exhibition title is enigmatic: is it the object that produces sound or is it sound that is considered the object?

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

During his residency, So Kanno endeavoured to explore the sounds that emanate from the most ordinary small objects. The components, the majority being of metal––a stainless steel bowl, an iron, a guitar string, ball bearings––were used to construct his installations. From these found objects, he discovered corresponding sounds: “I got the idea when my sink got blocked and the dishes floated in my washbasin. The sound was marvellous,” the artist explained. With his knowledge of robotics, So Kanno attempted to reproduce the everyday sounds mechanically, the drops of falling water, the hum of the refrigerator, and so on. The unobtrusive events of reality thus became the material of his works.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

The formal simplicity of the installations is in keeping with the commonplace nature of the components, and thus makes the works’ visual appearance fade in front of the sound aspect. Being hardly audible, the sounds require all the viewer’s attention. The effectiveness of this minimalist aesthetics lets one appreciate the poetry of the mechanics. In turn, the installations emit either a hum, in which the viewer can hear the variations, or a regular pulsation. The sounds follow a recursive and organized structure, completely controlled by a kinetic system. The movements that provoke them however are almost imperceptible: the guitar string hardly vibrates, the ball bearings and the drops of water that fall on the ground are not seen, while the sound in the stainless steel bowl is produced by its magnetic field. So Kanno therefore has looked for the minimum threshold for perceiving the slightest movement. Only the sound indicates an impulse.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

The sounds thus created invite the viewer to a sensory experience. Whether this involves a continuous or repetitive form, the passing of time seems to stop. The high or low tonality, the duration and the resonance in the space transform and activate the spatial-temporal experience. Exploring the various physical qualities of the noise heard then leads to an architectural sound construction. The sound is integrated into a broader definition of sculpture: as sculptural material, it is an immaterial object that can be shaped, manipulated and organized in time and space.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

However, this structuring of sound as material does not lead to the elaboration of a musical discourse. If there is a sound narrative, it appears only through reference to the objects, to the visual elements in the installation. This is why So Kanno has chosen not to use an electroacoustic system, but rather to present objects that are visually capable of backing up what one is hearing. The sounds are looked at and not only listened to. The steam that comes from each drop that falls and the progressive oxidation of the steel plate emphasizes the importance given to the visual aspect. This steam is associated with that of the iron, an everyday object integrated into the installation moreover.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

In renouncing the microphone, the sound is created in the place itself and in the present moment. The works are completely independent, created on the basis of a simple mechanic borrowed from that of the loudspeaker. In fact, the installations work with magnets that serve, for example, to make the guitar string vibrate or to operate a metal rod in the magnetic field of the bowl. Resonating easily due to the acoustics of the space, each sound carries a poetic charge: they evoke the sacred sound of the gong and the pulsations of nature. The works in Objects of Sound thus operate according to an enclosed, independent mechanism, as artificial creatures would. By multiplying the sensorial aspect, they enable one to live and hear the reality in what is fundamentally experimental. So Kanno builds a bridge between the orderly motifs of our everyday machines and the mysterious energies of the universe.

Bruno Caldas Vianna makes traps that capture time. The devices that he creates are produced from technological equipment that is considered out-dated. He acknowledges that the exhibition he presented at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE could evoke a cabinet of curiosities or even the Wunderkammer, “the room of wonders.” Gathering together equipment that has now become obsolescent, the artist’s process resembles that of someone who collects curious objects. Instead of preserving them in a set time, Vianna gives them new life, attributing new functions that are provided by the immediate environment in which they are found.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Dependent on noise, movement or light, Vianna’s creations transmit bits of reality that come from the specific devices. Their reassembly gives us the impression that we are able to simultaneously perceive the world various ways. Rather than presenting differing scales of it like a magnifying glass or a telescope would do, these are fragments of time that are captured.

Certain of the device consist of new interpretations of the camera obscura or pinhole camera. One of them was set in motion with the movement of a wheel activated by daylight. Installed on a window, overlooking rue Christophe Colomb, it captured brief moments of exterior light. The resulting photographs, isolated from their initial reality, are presented as fragments of the neighbourhood. Their small size and the re-transcription of the surrounding area that they provide recall Brassaï’s ideas, which considered photography to be made up of “a true but miniaturising copy of the exterior world.”¹

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

For Vianna, the idea of working with the wheel was inspired by the first cinema recording and projection device, and also by medieval engineering. The artist considers that it is initially this choice of evoking old systems that relates the presentation of his works to those of a cabinet of curiosities. In referring to old processes, the artist captures present time while making allusion to the universal history of the world. The rudimentary nature of some of his machines is closely akin to the archaism of the outmoded processes that he evokes.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Following the analogy that Vianna establishes between his work and the cabinet of curiosities, one could compare these images to reduced versions of the world, formerly recreated in scholarly collections and exhibited with the intention of explaining something. In the 18th century, under the influence of Diderot’s ideas that recommended establishing an “encyclopaedic dictionary of the human spirit”,² these collections were often elaborated, with minerals or plants in order to reconstruct the conditions in which the specimens were found in a living state. It also could happen that various species were grouped together to simulate an interaction that never existed in reality. The little known parts of science then were filled in by the collector’s imagination. Strange coincidence, in order to talk about his work, the artist frequently uses expressions associated with acts of predation: he describes his works as “light traps for time” and compares himself to a “hunter” tracking his evanescent “prey.”

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

However these moments, even once “captured” and exhibited, are not subjected to the deadly representation usually created by a museum’s immortalization. Because these works depend on the environment in which they are found, in experiencing them, it is the direct capture of time that one witnesses rather than its interruption. One of the devices is used to put together images from ambient noise that is captured in the exhibition gallery. Appearing progressively on a digital tablet, these images present the archaeological interventions made in the city of Rio. Various strata from the distant past resurface due to variations in time, thus producing a revelation of the past in the present.

Another of the devices, reinterpreting the camera obscura, is used to capture various moments of a subject on the same photosensitive surface. The surrounding urban landscape then is revealed in many fragmented moments. The ghostly images are presented in the negative because their capturing is imprinted directly on the paper. These are the variations of light that show the plurality of the moments of the day, coexisting in the same image. Their demarcations recall the erosion of the ground, which shows the passing of time in an area. Unlike a photograph that results in capturing a single moment, this plurality of instants of a same subject presents a version of the world in which time would be abolished by its reduction.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Because Bruno Caldas Vianna’s devices present various forms of capturing time, bringing them together in the same space opens up the perception of infinity in miniature.³ If the obsolescence attributed to components of the works give the impression that they are out of date, it seems paradoxical that these objects now artefacts, contribute instead to providing for regeneration. On the other hand, the time period that this material comes from is not so long ago. By their simple material presence, this collection of various pieces seems to indicate the world’s acceleration, outmoded by the speed of its technological and media evolution. Consequently, there is very good reason to consider the ensemble as a kind of cabinet of curiosities, which has been adapted to the knowledge and imagination of a time, requiring more exploring and understanding.

1. Brassaï. 2001, Proust in the Power of Photography. Trans. Richard Howard, Chicago: University of Chicago press. p. 33.
2. Davenne, Christine et Christine Fleurent. 2011, Cabinets de curiosités: La passion de la collection. Paris: De La Martinière editions. p. 16.
3. Ibid., p. 66.

Boom!
A terrible noise, something just happened. It’s the signal… a flash, then the explosion. Everything is triggered. A great explosion: the fuse had been burning for a long time. Now the revolution has started.

crédit photo: Pierre-Luc Lapointe

Božidar is an athlete: He’s in training to live and over the years to survive. Each morning, with Spartan discipline, he fights gravity, wrestling and resisting the fatigue and the dust. The weights fall to the ground, walls tremble and ropes are tightened. The noise is deafening, at times mysterious. The training is meticulous, planned in advance, like an athlete preparing for the Olympics. His body and his heart must be physically, muscularly ready to withstand the trials of his performances. The revolutionary must be ready to bring the walls down. When there is no air to breathe, the artist must not get out of breath. He must know how to catch his breath in a reflex gesture, like a swimmer, even if the environment is hostile and unfamiliar. In this event, there is no place for error: one survives or one dies! One must be ready for battle. Ready to use the sweat of one’s brow, to roll in the dust, pull ropes, move walls, be ready to call the shots and to begin again and again and again. The artist leaves nothing to chance because the revolution is about to happen.

Božidar is a traveller: Ideas for a revolution don’t come to him all at once. He must nourish them; let them ripen in order to finally use the fruit. The trip, the other, the encounters, the differences nurture the artist. These are grounds for expression and prime material for his imagination as one could see in Zaragoza in Spain and in Quebec City in Canada. The trip leads him to become a “digital tablet character,” a sort of personification of his inner thoughts produced in Quebec. He works for months, preparing, testing and finding ways to give expression to his ideas. The artist travels and makes his ideas travel. He must be constantly on top of his game in order to produce. He needs to encounter the other to ask for his/her viewpoint, opinion and advice. Thus Jurjevic’s revolution is being prepared: mentally and physically.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Božidar is neutral: As surprising at this may seem, the artist has chosen not to be associated with a particular colour or state. Let us say instead that he knows how to change and use camouflage according to his objective and the environment. Not supporting a colour doesn’t mean he doesn’t have conviction. Because every revolution is stained in blood: experiences in life have shaped him so that he chooses not to display a flag. He simply wishes not to carry a standard that would associate him with a religion, too restrictive for his taste. He doesn’t want to be associated with a political party in which corruption undermines credibility. He no longer follows any particular belief: inspiration is his best ally. The artist however has the conviction that man can do better, can go further, can be better and more beautiful. There is no point in being labelled, like the remains of the burnt flags illustrate: his standard after the battle. In reality, one must remain revolutionary in the service of the people and the majority.

Božidar is a combatant: He has been as close as one can get to fighting. He has become more aware in the heart of the fog to better broach it, to evaluate it better. The artist has seen the animal side of man incapable of self-control, of excelling, of becoming human in the service of his family, his community and his people. He has seen the greed and all the human absurdity. In the blood bath, he understood suffering. In the mud, he understood the ground. In the fog he understood where the light was. The revolution has become his theme, his vision. He was in the trenches on the front line during the fighting. He saw the bad. He did well. He has chosen the good.

Božidar is a worker: The corrupt political systems have given him inspiration: the ideal seed, the pure makings of a revolutionary. Power makes one thirsty, power calls, power increases but power darkens, breaks up, deteriorates and makes one deceitful. The corruption in political systems inspires Božidar, gives him fertile ground that is limitless and constantly repeated by man the animal. A capitalist carnivore too powerful for his adversaries, stuffed full, no longer having any appetite. But the artist has chosen the people. This crowd that has a craving for truth about the government that enlisted them. They will know in the end, through experience and by disposing of the monarch with blue blood. However, it is actually red, the blood flowing on the cloth around the monarch’s neck. In the end, the people know through experience, learning and discovering the nature of the monarch and his henchmen. The artist has matured: become more aware, more realistic and closer to reality that is complex and in constant flux. He is now a master.

Božidar is Croatian: His country has made him who he is and all that he has become. He loves his country: he’s patriotic. He hates his country: he’s a deserter. Some would say a revolutionary. He wears the colour of blood, the red that guides the revolution and the blood of innocent martyrs who fall in combat. He has not chosen an ethnic group because his concern is man. Division exists only through the roles that we decide to take on and keep. He has decided to fight against the forces of nature. Strong natural elements, elements that are naturally sound. “The system is awful” he began by telling me. Nature is beautiful, I thought. Do you dare defy it?

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Boom!
In a revolution, everything begins and ends with an explosion. A deafening noise creates chaos and disrupts the order. There is nothing left to burn, nothing more to consume. The protagonists are tired. They must regain their strength for the next battle. Seven blocks of ice, seven protagonists are frozen and petrified by the battle. Each one in his block recovers his strength before the next thaw, the next human carnage. Awful…

Coming soon