Room 1

Manon Labreque

OBJETS DE CRIS ET DE VENTS

EXHIBITION /
JANUARY 16 TO FEBRUARY 22, 2014

The intersection of the inanimate and the animate occupy a central place in Manon Labreque’s protean and multi-disciplinary practice. With her kinetic audio installation Objets de cris et de vents, she pursues this exploration by presenting unstable, inflatable forms that become animated through their interaction with motorized wooden mechanisms. The artist has drawn from the vast morphology of living organisms (protozoans, insects, algae, mammals, and unfathomable deep-sea fauna) to create quasi-living forms, resulting in a kind of fantasized bestiary. Pared-down and simplified, these objects move and transform themselves in response to actions transmitted by blowers and various mechanisms. These hybrid creatures don’t exist in isolation; they are closely and visibly linked to the apparatuses that animate them with breath and mechanical dynamics. It creates a kind of living mise en scène where unstable, variable and unpredictable forms move under the influence of outside forces. It is a microcosm that emerges from the interaction of various elements (inanimate / mechanical, and animate / quasi-organic) and in which everything seems governed by a semblance of order. However, within these inflating and deflating forms that make strange cries, whispers and whistles, something unfathomable emerges, like an existence with no purpose that is at the heart of life. Faced with this strange microcosmic performance, the viewer is reminded of his own unstable and variable body, which is equally vulnerable to the exterior forces that act upon it.

Bernard Schütze
Translated by Jo-Anne Balcaen

 

Manon LaBrecque would like to thank Centre CLARK, Natacha Chamko, Peter King and Yan Giguère from Atelier CLARK, Centre Turbine (3D exploration residency) and the Canada Arts Council.

Electronic circuits created by Diane Morin.