ALÉAS : Échos et reflets des éolithes​

For its final window display exhibition of 2023, TOPO announces a poetic work that gives voice to rocks chosen or imagined by Cléo-Palacio Quintin. At the launch on Friday November 3, the Quatuor Bozzini, who created the music for the project, will be invited to interpret the musical voice of a few rocks chosen by the public. Poet Thierry Dimanche, who wrote the poetic excerpts for the work, will in turn recite some of his own texts.

ALÉAS is a cycle of transdisciplinary creations combining the music and images (drawings, collages, objects, photographs, videos) of Cléo Palacio-Quintin with the poetry of Thierry Dimanche. The variations on matter presented in this kaleidoscopic object help to blur the boundaries between reality, illusion and the imaginary.

Eoliths ("dawn stones") are unusual flint fragments found in the geological strata of the Tertiary Era. When they were discovered in 1867, the impression that they had been fashioned by hand led to the belief that they were primitive tools used by humans (who would then have appeared more than 5 million years ago!) Doubt and debate persisted for a long time among anthropologists and geologists, until it was confirmed that they were indeed the product of natural phenomena.

The installation allows us to explore an imaginary world, featuring a panoply of eoliths, as created or chosen by Cléo. Each object has its own poetic voice and music performed by the Quatuor Bozzini.

This installation is part of the development process for a tablet application comprising a dozen interactive musical and poetic scenes, of which Échos et reflets des éolithes is one.

The artist would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts for their support, as well as TOPO for supporting the development of the application.

Cléo Palacio-Quintin

Transdisciplinary artist eager to create, flutist-improviser-composer Cléo Palacio-Quintin (1971) takes part in numerous premieres as well as improvisational multidisciplinary performances and composes instrumental and electroacoustic music for various ensembles and media works. Her hyper-flutes, which she has been developing since 1999, allow her to compose interactive visual and electroacoustic landscapes with an embodied approach to electronic sensor technologies. In addition to her creative work, she performs regularly as a soloist an improviser, notably with Ensemble SuperMusique and the duo Beta Lyræ. Over the years, her works have been performed by herself or by various ensembles in several countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, U.K., U.S.A.. She is the first women to obtain a Doctorate in Electroacoustic Composition from the Université de Montréal (2012) and is a collaborator of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), where she received the Director's Interdisciplinary Excellence Prize 2008 in recognition of her having created an innovative bridge between scientific/technological and artistic domains. Combining sounds, images and poetry, her works creates sensitive immersive ecosystems, which she invites listeners to discover.

Photo credit: Rico Michel

Thierry Dimanche

Trained in philosophy and literature, Thierry Dimanche has written several books of poetry since 2002. By turns critic, literary director and teacher, he's involving in various hybrid literary events, often in a musical context. In 2008-2010, he took part in the VSUP (Veuillez signaler un poème) project, a collaboration between five writers and five contemporary composers. He appears on the sound poetry compilations VQQV and Des monstres dans la gorge (Actuelle CD), and been part of the poetry-metal collective POMME (2012-2014). In 2015, his book Le milieu de partout (ed. Prise de parole) was awarded the Prix Champlain. With composer Robert Lemay, he worked on Deux mille mètres sous terre, including a recording made in Sudbury's underground particle observatory. In 2019, he published the mycological novel Cercles de feu (ed. le Quartanier), followed in 2022 by a paradoxical posthumous autobiography entitled Tombeau de Claude Gauvreau (ed. Leméac).

Photo credit: Michael Slobodian

Quatuor Bozzini

Quatuor Bozzini has been an original voice and strong advocate in new, experimental and classical music since 1999. Driving the hyper-creative Montréal scene and beyond, the quartet cultivates an ethos of risk-taking, experimentation, and collaboration, venturing boldly off the beaten track. With a rigorous eye for quality, they have nurtured a rich and diverse repertoire, regardless of trends. This has led to over 400 commissioned pieces, and some 500 premiered works. Their open, collaborative, artist-led approach has resulted in the realisation of numerous innovative and highly-praised productions, including inter-disciplinary projects with video, theatre and dance.