Étant données

In this age of Digital Everything, a new infrastructure is gradually framing our perception and reconfiguring our experience. With that in mind, the group exhibition Étant données brings together art experimentations that digest, not without irony, information systems data and algorithms to generate imagery. It reveals how singular artistic methods are obliquely embracing this new zeitgeist, in the process suggesting atypical ways of looking at the world by drawing on GPS readings, data from smart watches, and material from Google Earth, drones, 3D cameras and printers, and Web browsing histories. As a result, the quantified self, geomatic and climatological measurements, and media surveillance all clash, manifesting a subjective vision that increasingly wavers between ubiquity and perplexity.

This exhibition presents the initial outcomes of a research-creation program codirected by Jean Dubois and Alexandre Castonguay (UQAM), in collaboration with Caroline Bernard, assisted by Nans Bortuzzo, Guillaume Bourdon, Thomas Ouellet Fredericks, André Girard, Damien Guichard, Alice Jarry, Guillaume Pascale, and Sophie Perry.

The research-creation program “Au-delà des images opératoires” is supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture, the École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM and the centre de recherche en arts médiatiques Hexagram_UQAM.

VOX presents Étant données in collaboration with “Au-delà des images opératoires” research-creation program, as part of the 5th edition of the Montreal Digital Spring and the satellite exhibitions program of the 4th International Digital Art Biennial – BIAN. Special thanks to CHOQ.ca, media partner for the exhibition, also to La Vitrine and Félicia Balzano, for the integration of content in the light installations of the 2-22’s facade.