Installation
As part of the conference kondition pluriel presents "Abandoned", an in-situ installation at articule

Kondition pluriel: "Abandoned"
articule, 262 Fairmount Ave.
May 27th – 30th (Wed–Thur 12–6 pm, Fri 12-9 pm, Sat–Sun 12–5 pm)
May 26th 7:00pm: Vernissage and cocktail party to celebrate kondition pluriel’s 10th anniversary!

The installation proposes a technical apparatus in a state of transition: where analog transforms into digital. It displays an abandoned set-up, a control-post, for creating a digital performance. On closer inspection, the workspace reveals itself to be an orchestrated room, a performative space that "speaks." The room is filled with references, from the recorded to the constructed, the presence and the absence, the visible to the invisible -together melting into a meta-staging of kondition pluriel's artistic practice. It reveals different ways of looking at the human body and reflects upon perception, viewpoints and the process of notation. A dialogue between the human and the machine in which all elements are encapsulated within a temporal process that becomes autonomous and triggers itself over and over again.

This project is a commission of, and co-production with, the Department of Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna in partnership with the MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria.

The work of kondition pluriel is supported by the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the Conseil des Arts de Montréal and the Canada Council for the Arts.

12:00pm Lunch (available on location)

2:00pm – 3:00pm

O.A.R. The Office for Archival Review (Montreal)
Talk: Collecting, Sorting and Strategizing in the Artist's Archive
After having conducted an investigation of the archives of conference participants, the OAR will reveal their findings through an informal group discussion. Drawing on their individual specialties, they will examine how current and obsolete technologies have shaped the collecting, sorting and usage of these artists' materials.

Biography O.A.R. The Office for Archival Review
The Office for Archival Review is a group of artist-researchers that seeks to understand archival practices through on-site research projects. Employing a hands-on approach, the OAR’s production considers the role, relevance, and possibilities of an archive by using this material as a site of interaction, exchange and production. The OAR’s process questions strategies of record keeping and self-preservation: accumulation, reduction, preservation and destruction.

3:00pm Break

4:15pm – 5:30pm

Kelly Jaclynn Andres (Montreal)
Talk: Flock: A wearable Street Game for Studying Improvisation and Adaptation in Non-Verbal Human Communication
Constructing a visual analysis between living or biological entities and the process of translation, absorption, or re-appropriation into the realms of art, science and engineering, Kelly Jaclynn Andres will focus on her artwork Flock, an experimental system modeled on the synchronization of human movement and flight patterns demonstrated in some species of birds such as Canadian Geese or European Starlings.

Immediately following the presentation, individuals will be invited to directly participate, using the Flock wearable technology and navigational techniques that Andres has created.

Interested attendees are asked to bring a bicycle and confirm their participation by emailing us

Biography Kelly Jaclynn Andres
Through designing interactive, interspecies communication models (yeast, bacteria, poultry, plant, and human), Andres deploys simple systems, objects and performances that allow participants to explore and extend their immediate environments. Andres’ work has been exhibited in Dublin, Calgary, Banff, Lethbridge and New York and she has had residences in Madrid, Greece, Finland, Austria, Singapore, Norway, Banff, and Montreal. Her work has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Alberta Ecotrust. She is a PhD candidate at Concordia University, Montreal, in the Interdisciplinary Humanities program.
www.kellyandres.com

11:00am – 11:30am

Sophie Castonguay (Montreal)
Performance: Le devenir machine
The performatif structure of Sophie Castonguay’s proposed work will allow the audience to discover the various opinions of those attending the conference. Sometimes wise, at times controversial, the “thoughts” that will be put forward will address the question of technology’s place in art.

Biography Sophie Castonguay
Sophie Castonguay is interested in the subjectivity of bearing witness. She creates live-art situations that place the spectator’s gaze at the centre, while editorializing on the work at hand. Utilizing the narrative model, she attempts to complicate the reception of a work, hence questioning the role of the spectator. Her work has been presented in Europe (Paris, Cologne, Bâle), in Quebec (L’œil de Poisson, AXENÉO7, Praxis, Dare-Dare, Dazibao), and in Toronto (Fado). She holds a MFA from UQAM (2007) and has been teaching there since 2008.

11:30am – 12:30pm

Panel: Wetwares: When biology and art meet 

A round-table discussion moderated by Tagny Duff, featuring Alison Lauder, Kelly Jaclynn Andres, Vanessa Rigaux, Claire Kenway and Antonia Hernandez (Montreal). Tagny Duff has proposed a panel discussion with a selection of artists who are students in her Graduate seminar course, "Art, Science and Technology: My body, my wetware?" Most of the projects use biological and technoscientific media and living organisms to critique the status of bodies in the biotech era. The panel asks: What are some of the current trends and issues explored at the intersection of art and science by artists who are working at the graduate level of university? What is at stake when artists and graduate students work within and outside of academia to manipulate life in the name of art and research?

Biographies

Tagny Duff is an artist, researcher and educator based in Montreal. Her biological art works, performances, videos, and net art works have been exhibited nationally and internationally for over a decade, appearing at the Moscow Biennial (2009), the National Centre for Contemporary Art (2008 – Kaliningrad, Russia) and IX MediaForum and Moscow International Film Festival (2008) as part of Evolution Haute Couture, curated by Dmitry Bulatov. Her installation Living Viral Tattoos was officially selected for the 2009 ISEA Exhibition (Belfast, Ireland). Other works have shown at Articule (Montreal, Canada), at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2008 – Perth, Australia) and at the Gallery Aferro (New Jersey, USA). Duff is Assistant Professor in Communication Studies, Concordia University and is the founder of Fluxmedia, a research/creation network for artists and researchers interested in the convergence of art, science and technology. www.fluxmediaresearch.ca

Alison Reiko Loader A filmmaker and 3d digital animation specialist, Alison Reiko Loader has been making short films independently and with the National Film Board of Canada since directing her award-winning first film Showa Shinzan (completed in 2002). Her research interests include the creation of old/new media hybrids using animated installations, anamorphosis and stereoscopy. Making works outside the traditional cinema milieu comprises an effort to denaturalize screen space and make virtual moving images material. Her current project involves a highly mediated production of greenhouse squash force-grown into foetal shapes with vacuum-formed moulds made from rapid prototyped digital models.

Kelly Jaclynn Andres For the round-table discussion, Kelly Jaclynn Andres will present documentation from two projects: Lunch Lab and Doughbie: the Edible Companion. These are parallel works that propose situations for intra/interspecies liaisons between human and nonhuman organisms. Lunchlab is a performative installation in the guise of a buffet-style dinner party that will bridge two socially separate spaces – the kitchen and the laboratory. Doughbie: the Edible Companion, consists of a wearable system to enhance ones relationship to a very common multicellular microorganism: Saccharomyces cerevisiae – aka budding yeast.

Vanessa Rigaux is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses performance rooted in theatre, live sculpture, contemporary dance, clown, collaboration, improvisation, and moving images. She is interested in the role of the clown and the absurd, dichotomies, space, and the performer-audience relationship. An educator at the Children’s Theatre of Montreal (Est. 1933), she piloted a drama program for Autism and Aspergers affected teens, and studies at Concordia University (MA program in Media Studies) where she is currently dissecting the area of bioart, the extended body and the role of the artist in science.

Claire Kenway will be presenting documentation from her latest project Poisson Passion, a poetic art experiment that seeks to reveal the intersecting dynamics between tempo, vibration, interspecies relationships, behavior and reproduction. Interested in intermedia sound art, Kenway has transformed her bedroom into a scientific art laboratory, playing music to two Siamese Fighting Fish—one male and one female—for fifteen minutes per day, in order to discover whether exposure to human biorhythms from music and human affection have a positive effect on the fish’s energy levels and inclination to breed.

Antonia Hernández With a background in graphic design, her research of the last years has been focused in the intersection between pornography and domestic space. For this conference, she will show some multidisciplinary exercises in her personal quest for a new ecology of the domestic space. In a place so colonized for different forces, as the domestic one, the unintended life that grows inside the house appears as a source of inspiration and reflection before the elaboration of any discourse.

12:30 Lunch (available on location)

1:30pm – 3:20pm

Panel: The Territories of Technology: up to what point…and why?

A round table discussion featuring Anna Biró  (Montreal), Lynne Heller (Toronto), Radwan Moumneh (Montreal), and karen elaine spencer (Montreal), exploring the what, how and why of the kinds of technologies used by each of the artists in their respective interdisciplinary practices.

Anna Biró
“Text in Textile”
Inspired by a series of interviews with recent immigrants living in Quebec, artist Anna Biró uses a range of materials, including audio and videotape, to tell narratives of hope and disillusion. Her interactive textiles generate sounds as we interact with them, creating a shifting and constantly evolving soundscape. “Text in Textile” seeks to unravel forgotten and fragmented storylines buried in the very fabric of our collective memory.

Biography Anna Biró
Of Hungarian heritage, Anna Biró was born in Transylvania, Romania and currently lives in Montreal. She received her degree at the Academy of Visual Arts (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and studies textile design at the Centre de textiles contemporains in Montreal. Her work has been presented in North America, Europe and Japan. She received support through the mentorship program at the MAI in 2007-2008 and was the recipient of a Research and Creation grant from the CALQ in 2009. www.annabiro.com

Lynne Heller
“Dancing With Myself”
In “Dancing With Myself,” an immersive, performative piece, Lynne Heller’s avatar, Nar Duell, has been scripted to perform a choreography. Heller responds to her, attempting to create a duet, thereby inverting the person / avatar paradigm. In discussing the work, “Dancing with Myself” as part of a panel, Heller will explore ideas around finding expression through this choreographic interaction for the narcissistic relationship that people often develop with the portraits they create or commission of themselves – whether that be static photograph or scripted avatar – and the piece’s connection to neo-feminism.

Biography Lynne Heller
Lynne Heller is a Canadian artist / designer who works in a variety of disciplines including fibre, sound, new media (virtual worlds, principally Second Life), websites and sculptural installations. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally – Australia, United States, England, Mexico, Italy, Japan and Cuba. She completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. She also runs a design / communications company.

Radwan Moumneh
“The Magic Revisited”
“As creators existing today in an environment that is abundant with ‘hi tech’ digital tools that aid artists in their creations, we have more than ever the potential to surpass the benchmarks set up by artists of yesteryear. In an aural and visual subjective analysis, we often find contemporary art void of a certain ‘magic’ that was inherent in the tools that were available to multidisciplinary artists from the 60's, 70's & 80's. The technical limitations that these tools have is partially responsible for the works that the artists were creating, far removed from the contemporary crippling ‘infinite’ creative possibilities of digital audio and video.”

Biography Radwan Moumneh
Radwan Moumneh is Jerusalem In My Heart (JIMH). Guitarist, singer, and composer, Radwan blends his playful,innovative, experimental vision with psychedelic and trance elements from Arab cultures, and modern electronic sounds. His pseudonym is borrowed from the title of an album by the legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz. Owner of the Hotel 2 Tango recording studios in Montreal, and a member of psych pop band Pas Chic Chic, Radwan JIMH has performed select shows in Montreal, always delivering an overdose of cultural elements that clash and put listeners in trances, fusing all the psychedelic elements of Arab culture with that of modern electronic sounds / images.

karen elaine spencer
“kinda conflicted”
karen elaine spencer’s conceptual art practice is driven by attempting to produce “works that anyone can do” – and then asking the question of what this means. For her panel presentation she will complicate the discussion by simultaneously peeling an onion (a recurring motif in her recent work) – further emphasizing the notion of trying to explain that which cannot be explained or re-produced through words or visual communication.

Biography karen elaine spencer
karen elaine spencer is an artist who maintains a studio practice, performs, curates and writes. her work questions the hierarchy inherent in use values and investigates how we, as transient beings, occupy the world we live in. the belief in a linear movement forward, or progress, is confronted through the repetition of an action that leads nowhere. an action is sustained over time (often a year) enabling a process whereby karen’s artistic practice is indistinguishable from her daily life. she works with what is near at hand, and through a détournement of materials or intentions intervenes into spaces – hoping to shift, ever so slightly, perceptions of what is possible.

3:20pm Break

3:30pm – 4:30pm

Kondition pluriel (Montreal)
Talk: kondition pluriel, dix ans d'interdisciplinarité entre Hi-Tech et Lo-Tech
Marie-Claude Poulin and Martin Kusch will discuss the evolution of kondition pluriel, a project which has centered around ongoing technological research and creation. Referring to specific examples of both Hi-Tech and Lo-Tech productions, the artists will explain how their use of new technologies has allowed the possiblity to explore creative themes that could not be addressed otherwise.

Biography kondition pluriel
kondition pluriel is known for the creation of interdisciplinary work incorporating live arts and new technologies. Evolving at the border between installation and spectacle, the group seeks to define new modes of representation. The balance between human and technological elements, the specificity of the performance sites and the participation of the public are pivotal parameters of their artistic language. The company was founded in 2000 by Marie-Claude Poulin and Martin Kusch. kondition pluriel has given many performances, conferences and workshops in Europe, Brazil, Canada, the United States and Japan. Their works have been presented in festivals, galleries and institutions such as Dance Umbrella, FIND, Transmediale, ISEA, Transcodex and ZKM.

4:30pm – 5:30pm

Freya Björg Olafson (Winnipeg) Co-presented by OFFTA
Excerpt of the performance: AVATAR
The AVATAR SERIES explores methods of creating, validating and disseminating one’s identity through the use of technology and the Internet. The series is inspired by the mantra “I post therefore I am,” whereby Internet users legitimize their existence by documenting their lives and uploading this media to personal webpages and blogs. The work in this series facilitates an inquiry into our desire to share and publicize our lives.

Biography Freya Björg Olafson
Freya Björg Olafson (B.A. honors in Dance, MFA in New Media) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, audio, painting and performance. Her creations have been presented/exhibited nationally as well as internationally at festivals and galleries in Winnipeg, Toronto, Iceland, Austria, and Montreal. Freya began developing her most recent series AVATAR at Studio 303 (Montreal) during a workshop lead by 2boys.tv in 2008, since then the series has benefited from significant time at PAF~Performing Arts Forum (St.Erme-Outre-et-Ramecourt, France), SIM – The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (Reykjavik, Iceland) and at The Barn with Tedd Robinson of 10 Gates Dancing Inc (Ontario).

5:30pm – 7:00pm Closing Cocktail

ECLECTIK 10
May 28th and 29th, starting at 7:00pm
The MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) presents the 3rd edition of their annual multidisciplinary event, ECLECTIK. Sharing the theme of the RAIQ conference, Hi-Tech, Lo-Tech, No-Tech this spectacular showcase will bring together close to 30 artists in the realms of dance, music, performance, installation, and more.
Two evenings of discoveries, exchanges and pleasure not to be missed!
Info: www.m-a-i.qc.ca

Meeting with the Inter-arts Bureau from the Canada Council for the Arts
May 28th, 5:30pm, MAI
Program director, Claude Schryer and program officer, Sue-Ellen Gerritsen will be on hand to discuss and exchange information concerning recent changes to the Inter-arts section at the Canada Council.

OFFTA
June 1 at 9:30pm and June 2, 6:00pm at Tangente (840 Cherrier)
During the OFFTA, Freya Björg Olafson will present New Islander, in a double program with choreographers Kelly Keenan and Kira Kirsch on June 1 at 9:30pm and June 2, 6:00pm at Tangente (840 Cherrier). Dynamic, urban, innovative, the OFFA offers an original program combining theatre, dance and performance.
Info: www.offta.com