Programming News

Thursday, Sept 19th · 7 – 10pm EDT

Join us for a screening and lively group discussion of Neptune Frost, the afrofuturist musical film by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman.

Artengine presents a new series of intimate gatherings to experience and discuss films, art works, games and more. For the first edition of the GroupChat we present the collaborative work of Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman – a impressive and original work of cinema.

We will screen the work in our Studio space to a small gathering and afterwards unpack the heady and complex experience of the film.

Light snacks and beverages will be provided.

Reserve your spot, tickets are Pay-What-You-Can

NEPTUNE FROST (2021), 105 minutes

“Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.”

In the studio this week with Annika Walsh. In her words, “Chinese Croquembouche is a savoury twist on a classic French dessert presented as a durational interactive sculpture. A traditional croquembouche consists of choux pastry puffs piled into a cone and bound together with threads of caramel. Chinese Croquembouche has a savoury filling and is bonded with a sticky, salty maple syrup caramel. Visually, the tower resembles the traditional sweet dessert, it is only upon further inspection with the smell and taste senses, that you are faced with flavours you were not expecting. This edible sculptural piece allows viewers to become participants and contributors as each choux pastry puffs gets removed from the tower for consumption. Chinese Croquembouche demonstrates my approach to food and my experiences as a Chinese Adoptee. My authenticity is continuously challenged, and I am not always what people expect me to look, sound or act like.”

Chinese Croquembouche will be presented at the 2023 Canadian Association of Food Studies conference themed Reckonings, Reimaginings and Reconciliations Within and Through Food Systems.
https://foodstudies.info/news-conferences/upcoming-conference/

Cheryl L’Hirondelle in Conversation

2PM, December 5th, 2022

Artengine

2 Daly Ave

Limited Reserved Seating Available. Please contact ryan@artengine.ca for more info.

The session will be recorded and posted soon here on our site.

As part of the Entanglements exhibition we are delighted to host an artist talk and conversation with Cheryl L’Hirondelle. She will discuss her work Nipawiwin Akikodjiwan: Pimizi ohci, her relationship to the eels and her research on interspecies communication.

Bio

Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish)​ is an interdisciplinary, community-engaged artist, a singer/songwriter and a critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation, amiskwaciy wâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) and Kikino Metis Settlement, Alberta. Her work critically investigates and articulates a dynamism of nêhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place with a practice that incorporates Indigenous language(s), audio, video, virtual reality, the olfactory, music and audience/user participation to create immersive environments towards ‘radical inclusion.’

As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle’s focus is on both sharing nêhiyawêwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary song-forms and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance. She has exhibited and performed widely, both nationally and internationally.

L’Hirondelle is the recipient of two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005, 2006), and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006, 2007) and most recently a Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (. She holds a master’s degree in Design from OCAD University’s Inclusive Design program (2015) and is a member of the University’s Indigenous Education Council. She is currently completing a practice-based PhD with SMARTlab/University College Dublin, Ireland. Cheryl is also the CEO of Miyoh Music Inc., an Indigenous niche music publishing company and record label.

https://www.cheryllhirondelle.com/home

Artengine is delighted to be supporting the newly formed organization Mindful Habitats with their online presentation series Negotiating Digital Space in Cultural Significant Storytelling. These series explores the relationship between narrative and our experience of the environment around us.

Check out the upcoming talks below and register on their site to join.

The Omnipresence of Screens: Ideal Projections:

Brian Greenspan in conversation with Louise Pelletier: June 29, 2022 10 AM to 12 PM

In the webinar, The Omnipresence of Screens: Ideal Projections, Louise Pelletier examines how different points of view negotiate the role of the image in a digital era, while Brian Greenspan explores the concept of narrative transportation through screens and the visualization of ideal spaces.

Remixed is an immersive listening party that can be experienced at-home or in-person. Together, we travel down the spine of change, connected by our custom app, the portal into the performance. Five years in the making, Remixed gathers true stories of transformation from all over the globe in a personal and multi-faceted meditation on how we instigate change in our lives, in our communities, and in the world. In Remixed, we’re listening for the sound of change.

During our Artengine residency, we are developing the immersive environment of Remixed’s in-person version. The design integrates biomimetic and kinetic sculptures that unfurl over the course of the performance. Responsive and playful lighting creates a heightened and collective experience. Ever-changing, the space imitates cycles found in nature and breathes a life of its own. The installation’s movements conceal and reveal listeners, playing with public and private and creating a space of possibility.

Credits

Created by: Trophy

Director and Producer: Sarah Conn

Dramaturg and Collaborator: Laurel Green

Environmental Installation Design: Allison O’Connor

Mobile Development / Lighting Design: Guillaume Saindon

Mobile Development: Kieran Dunch

Backend Development: Julien Desautels

Sound Design: Nancy Tam

Decade Music Curation: AL Connors

Created in collaboration with community members and change-makers across Canada and beyond.

Remixed’s development partners include Artengine, In the Soil Arts Festival, undercurrents festival’s under development program, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa. Remixed’s community partners include Parkdale Food Centre, Ottawa Seed Library, and Wellspring Calgary Cancer Support Centre.