Frances Adair Mckenzie Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes Claude Bastien Aaron Bradbury Olivia Mc GilChrist Stéphanie Morissette Ida Toninato Digital Detox: Living the Virtual
MUTEK and OBORO are excited to team up to present the virtual and augmented reality exhibition Living the Virtual as part of the Digital Detox initiative. Presented at OBORO’s New Media Lab, the six selected works explore the theme of digital detox, our relationship to the natural world, and the impacts of digital technologies on our lives.
This exhibition aims to build bridges between OBORO and MUTEK’s artistic communities, to generate reflections and conversations around augmented and virtual reality, and to introduce the public to the practices of artists who are using these mediums.
Digital Detox is an initiative stemming from reflections that emerged in 2020 during the pandemic. Like many cultural organizations at the time, MUTEK moved its activities into the virtual space. We quickly noticed a distinct fatigue in our networks related to the consumption of screen-based content. This reflection was naturally extended into a questioning of the “ecological fatigue” generated by this sudden overproduction of digital nature. With Digital Detox, we hope to generate a concrete reflection around these themes.
MUTEK acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts as part of the Digital Detox special project.
Frances Adair Mckenzie is an interdisciplinary artist based in Montréal whose practice includes video installation, sculpture, animation, and collaborative ventures. She holds a diploma in New Media from B.C.I.T. and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University. She has exhibited work at the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides; Centre Clark and Oboro in Montréal; and Parisian Laundry and the Satosphère of the Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT).
Shonee (born Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes) is a Canadian-Costa Rican digital media artist who sees the potential in video and speculative fiction to depict artificial life. Growing up on the edge of a jungle has fueled her practice, as she now strives to reestablish nature’s place in her life given her current status as an urbanite in Montréal.
Seasoned director and producer Claude Bastien excels in both video creation and interactive media. Her joint passions for content, history, architecture, public art, humans and society led her to produce more than three webseries and to create interactive installations.
Aaron Bradbury is the Director of Immersion at NSC Creative, based at the National Space Centre (UK). He has directed many immersive projects for corporate clients, educational institutions and theme park attractions. He has a background in the arts with a First Class, Fine Art Painting degree and several years’ experience as a digital artist working in interactive installation. Over the past 10 years he has been working with immersive media and developing his own artistic approach to immersive filmmaking.
Olivia Mc Gilchrist (she / her) is a white French-Jamaican multimedia artist and doctoral candidate exploring how colonial legacies extend their reach to Virtual Reality (VR) technology. She has exhibited in Canada, Jamaica, USA, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Austria, France, Switzerland, UK. Building on her experience as a white Euro-Caribbean and research in the portrayal of her hybrid identity within contemporary Jamaican culture, Olivia explores how this can be represented in VR.
Sherbrooke-based artist Stéphanie Morissette combines illustrative, architectural and visual storytelling with technology. Her work approaches conflictual relationships between humans, nature and technology from the past, present and future. She touches on psychology, biotechnology, post-colonialism and decolonisation while underlining the complex power dynamics each actor has. Her ecofeminist approach is tinted with bits of dark humor, thus inviting participants in an open dialogue on different political topics.
Based in Montréal, saxophonist and composer Ida Toninato develops her art through various projects combining acoustic explorations, the use of reverberating spaces and the creation of hybrid soundscapes. Her latest album, We Become Giants, was entirely composed in a water cistern providing 40 seconds of reverberation. Her recent explorations focused on virtual reality, in collaboration with Montréal studio TREBUCHET.