Artengine is delighted to collaborate with Critical Mass on their first Illuminights – an outdoor projection for Port Hope, Ontario.
Fluid Light brings a cross section of projects that combine analogue and digital technologies with both contemplative and playful video projections into the streets of this changing Ontario small town. With work from Johann Baron Lanteigne, Laura Taler and Mercedes Ventura.
Our technology saturated world is always in motion. It seems like none of us can stay still. We pull at technology and it pulls at us. But we are always in motion, always changing. Some changes are faster than others, like changes in our profile pic or our clothes; some are slower, like learning to ride a bike or getting old, but we are, nonetheless, always transforming…always becoming something else. The works presented here on the streets of Port Hope offer a playful reflection on the fluid relationship between ourselves, change and the technology we live with.
Johann Baron Lanteigne is interested in how our gestures, and even our sense of self, stretch into the screen. We seem to be always tangling and untangling ourselves from its luminescent embrace, and these videos play around with the boundaries between where we end and the technology begins. He moves us back and forth over this fascinating border between us and our screens.
Mercedes Ventura is also thinking about this relationship to the screen, but she raises questions of identity and representation. Her work explores the opportunities that arise for us to recreate ourselves on the screens around us. Each time we make and remake ourselves for the screen, how do we keep track of what is true and what is an act? Does this matter?
Laura Taler shows us a different understanding of fluidity and the self. Like Ventura, Taler also presents her body on the screen but she seeks to calm the frenetic pace of change. Taler shares a meditative image, inviting you to be present in your body. While at first glance it feels like an analogue opposite to the colorful and energetic works of Ventura and Baron Lanteigne, Taler uses technology to play with time, fragmenting moments and her body. She seems to be asking, or perhaps offering, a way to bend time and slow us down into the here and now.
We hope these artworks help illuminate the winter nights of Port Hope, offering a playful and unique perspective on who we are when we live with so much technology.
Watch these videos below to hear more from the artists about their practice and their projects. (Videos produced by and courtesy of Critical Mass)
A winter series of Outdoor Art Illuminations will be displayed in 3 locations in downtown Port Hope for 3 nights, during the Candlelight Festival. Critical Mass collaborated with Ottawa-based new media specialists and artist-run centre, Artengine, to curate this pilot projection art series, made possible with funding from RTO8.
The works presented – Fluid Light – aim to offer a reflection on the fluid relationship between ourselves, change, and the technology we live with. The hope is that these artworks will help illuminate the winter nights of Port Hope, offering a playful and unique perspective on who we are when we live with so much technology.
Dates: Friday, Nov 25th, Friday, Dec 2nd, and Friday, Dec 16th
Times: 6:00 p.m – 8:00 p.m.
Illumination Site Locations include: Port Hope Public Library (Mary J Benson branch), The Little Station and Port Hope Knights of Columbus Hall.
ABOUT CRITICAL MASS
Critical Mass: A Centre for Contemporary Art is a Port Hope-based not-for-profit arts organization, led by a volunteer group of curators, artists and art supporters dedicated to bringing contemporary art experiences to the community we live in.
