About the artists…

Jean-René Leblanc and Carl Spencer. Calgary-based artists, their collaboration on the artwork Toro Embistiendo was commissioned by the French CBC to be presented as a documentary as part of the 100^th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede. It was also featured in the web documentary series Cowboy: a Canadian Dream in 2013. They are both actively involved in the arts community as Board Directors at Emmedia Gallery and Production Society and co-founders of the Sensorium Lab, a cross-disciplinary research group focusing on artistic research that develops systems of interaction that encourage kinesthetic perception and interpretation. Their practice explores the relationship between technology and culture through issues related to interactivity. Their artworks individually have been presented in Canada, the USA, Europe, Asia and Australia.

About the work…

This image was taken from one of the bulls who participated in the realization of the work Toro embistiendo, presented in the Vitrine of TOPO.

Toro embistiendo explores the image of the bull as emblematic figure of the culture of the rodeo and the cowboys in Canada. The title uses the Spanish language to refer to the bull that charges, an explicit reference to bullfighting so present in the Hispanic culture. This installation explores the game of the confrontation between the spectator and the video of a bull in his enclosure which begins to load when it is excited by passing in front of the showcase where the work is presented. Leblanc and Spencer propose a playful and metaphorical installation using interactivity to create a bridge between the real and the virtual.

• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g.  Format: 9,5×20 po. / 24×50 cm.   Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.

About the artist…

Élène Tremblay (1962-2016). Through photography, video and mechanized installation, her work explored the recurring questions of the failure of contact in the simulacrum, the vulnerable and pathetic body in its posture, the call to the spectator’s empathy, the false address and the dramatization of the gaze of spectator.

Holder of a doctorate in Arts Studies and Practices from the Université du Québec à Montréal, she has published in 2013 L’insistance du regard sur le corps éprouvé, pathos et contre-pathos (éditions FORUM Ed., collection Cinethesis, Udine, Italy). Professor in the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the Université de Montréal, she has been previously director of programming at Espace Vox in Montreal and curator of several exhibitions.

About the work…

The image comes from the video work Effets du vent sur un petit arbre décoratif. A small tree is subjected to the increasingly powerful wind of a wind tunnel. The tree remains rooted even though its branches tilt almost horizontally.

The sarcastic and reflective approach of the video illustrates the quite natural disturbance of the wind but through an artificial intervention. This video was produced in a scientific engineering laboratory that is usually used to measure the impact of wind on buildings (Wind Tunnel Lab, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University).

• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g.  Format: 12×20 po. / 30,5×50 cm.  Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.

About the artist…

Julien-Robert is a multi-disciplinary artist who explores the relationships between sound and image. He creates audio-visual performances and installations enriched by his experiences throughout his musical journey. He began his studies in instrumental and electroacoustic composition before expanding his artistic expertise to include video creation and interactive devices. During the creation process, he pays particular attention to the staging of his works in order to devise the most complete and authentic experiences possible for the audience. He has composed the music for several dance, short film, and theatre performances presented in various festivals around the world. Currently, he is working in collaboration with Julien Compagne to combine music, video and technology, transforming the three elements into a new artistic form that is the foundation of their group Video Phase.

About the work…

Fit in the Crowd is an interactive triptych video installation illustrating some aspects of urban life. With images projected in the manner of a blinding strobe, the work evokes the oversaturation of messages to which we are exposed every day and suggests moments of comfort, of refuge, where life stops for a moment. It thus questions the space we inhabit, in an urban environment, in relation to the comfort it gives us by its anonymity.

• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g.  Format: 16×20 po. / 40×50 cm. Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.

About the artist…

Maxime Boisvert has a background in both visual arts and photography. He is currently applying for a Master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM. His work has been presented at the Parameter (2015/2016) and Short Exposure exhibitions, among others. Boisvert is the recipient of many awards and scholarships, including those of excellence Mc Abbie, Omer DeSerres, Thomas Corriveau and Mario Côté. Its production is supported by the UQAM FARE recruitment excellence scholarship. In his practice, Boisvert amalgamates Quebec history, culture and literature. Her approach is driven by a desire to discover and question her heritage in order to register and continue by participating. Photography and text are the main tools of his research. However, he tries to vary the approaches in which they are used and thus to exploit in a different way their power of evocation. His projects are related elements, whose purpose is to put them in dialogue and see what emerges from it. In his practice, he uses as raw material the existing elements of Quebec culture, on the one hand as a source of inspiration and on the other hand to pay tribute to them, question them and update them.

About the work…

A typist, connected to a computer, autonomously and continuously taps poetry generated live by an algorithm inspired by Markov chains. The source text, used by the JavaScript code to create poetry, is composed of the works of two French-Canadian poets, Saint-Denys Garneau and Alain Grandbois. Although they are poles apart from each other on many levels, they have both been of paramount importance in the genesis of Quebec literature. The poetry generated from Regards et jeux dans l’espace of Saint-Denys Garneau on the one hand and collections The islands of the Night and Shores of the man of Alain Grandbois is typed in the “infinite” by the typist on a sheet of continuous paper. Reconciling them through this project is a way of questioning their heritage, their impact on our culture and what they say about it, and therefore, what they say about us. As Pierre Nepveu says in his book on the genesis of Quebec literature, Garneau and Grandbois are among those poets who are “now perceived as both symptoms and lighthouses, used to trace or develop the history of Quebec. as myth and destiny, as a psychic adventure or as an existential project (an unfortunate project, aborted, to be rephrased, and to be totally taken up again). “This project has thus become a pretext for a re-reading of these poets, perhaps to their actualization and their reappropriation.

• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g.  Format: 20×16 po. / 50×40 cm. Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.

About the artist…

Santiago Tavera is an interdisciplinary digital artist born in Colombia. He migrated to Canada at a young age where he began his exploration of digital culture in relation to the experience of a transcultural body. Santiago uses digital media as a tool for experimentation that can simulate a state of disembodiment. His creative-research explores digital media and its capacity to alter visual and spatial perception. His work examines viewers’ sensory stimulation within the digital realm and the physical one, exploring the effects digital media has on social interactions, communicational skills, inhabitation of spaces and notions of time. Santiago’s digital drawings and designs work as blueprints for potential immersive installations and interactive projects. He constructs digital architectural environments, where there is a constant translation between digital and physical lines, lights and colours.

Santiago holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) with a Specialization in Visual Arts and a Major in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario. He is currently completing his Masters in Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, where he currently resides.

About the work…

Models of Spatial Fictions is a series of digital animations from the Translational Spaces project. These graphic animations are designated by the artist as digital architectural environments within virtual landscapes. The visual plot is based on diagrams, cartoons, models of virtual architectures and drawings of structures in transition that explore the temporal and spatial movement of shadows and lights. It is a set of tables and dynamic spaces mainly composed of graphic and three-dimensional forms evoking places of memory, imagination, desire and dream, real or invented spaces. These animations are reflected in the website www.dssots.com, where the artist associates short fictional texts around the translation * of forms and identities in real and virtual spaces.

• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g.  Format: 16×20 po. / 40×50 cm. Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.

About the artist…

As a new media artist Joseph Lefebvre creates interactive installations, web art projects and live visual performances. His digital and interactive works have been presented at various international events and festivals such as Siggraph, ISEA Montreal, Cyberart Bilbao and Netart Sao Paulo. He holds two master’s degrees in Visual arts and Communications from the Université du Québec à Montréal. He works at the Société des arts technologiques (SAT) since its founding in 1995 where he is currently the director of the residency program and the coordinator of the SAT[MixSessions] and Digital Factory activities. He lives and works in Montreal.

About the work…

The exhibition “Une curieuse vitrine” was composed of a multitude of intriguing and heterogeneous objects as well as colorful projections that animated geometric volumes.

At the heart of this festive atmosphere, we discover a complex world where horror strangely rubs shoulders with frivolity: photos of Senegalese and Moroccan riflemen dead for a nation that is not theirs, piled human skulls in salt dough that refer to the genocide operated by the Khmer Rouge. In this work, the artist remixes, often in a traditional way, various objects, memories and elements of culture that are dear to him and transmits facts to us in a committed, sensitive and clairvoyant way.

• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g.  Format: 20×16 po. / 50×40 cm. Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.