Belinda Campbell Pascal Dufaux The Kaleidoscopic Room
© P. Dufaux, 2015
In partnership with Les Filles électriques and the Festival Phénomena
This event is part of the Montreal Digital Spring 2016
Bringing together visual artist Pascal Dufaux and performance artist and musician Belinda Campbell, The Kaleidoscopic Room is the second part of a collaboration begun in 2012 for the 24 Gauche events (organized by Magali Babin and Patrice Coulombe).
Presented at part of the Phénomena Festival, this performance is a live sound and visual exploration between Pascal Dufaux’s three “seeing machines” and Belinda Campbell’s performative and musical presence. The kinetic video machines create an immersive visual environment in real time, in which the musician moves and drifts between the images, shadows, and reflections. Inspired by how Dufaux’s kinetic machines look, Campbell’s musical aesthetic contrasts a futuristic technological universe with traditional instruments such as the bandoneon (used in folk music and tango) and the karimba (an instrument used by griots and African storytellers). The asynchronous juxtaposition between image and music gives a fictional and almost dreamlike aspect to the strange documentary film that is automatically produced by the kinetic video.
Watching this improbable and open encounter between the objects of a futuristic science and the traditional instruments of the past, viewers take part in the strange production of a film in real time, whose subject is the kaleidoscopic mirroring of the live performance of its own soundtrack.
This project is made possible through the Support for Emerging Practices (SPE) program, spearheaded by the Conseil des arts de Montréal in partnership with the Conférence régionale des élus de Montréal (CRÉ) and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ).
Tickets available at the door
$5 (cash only)
Installation
On view Thursday, March 14, as of 4 pm,
and Friday, March 25, from 10 am to 5 pm
© P. Dufaux, 2015
Belinda Campbell is a classically trained pianist. A few years ago, she began integrating instruments into her multidisciplinary practice. In 2010, she composed a work for choreographer Caroline Dubois, which she presented live at Tangente. She is interested in the musical instrument in the contexts of sound and performance art. She has presented her work at various festivals, including Phénoména and Viva! Art Action.
Pascal Dufaux has been making kinetic video machines and installing them in various exterior and interior spaces for several years. Reappropriating video surveillance cameras, these machines use a motorized mechanism to make the cameras rotate in orbits and scan their immediate environment. Just like probes sent into space, they inform viewers of their surroundings. Pascal Dufaux has presented his work in many venues in Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world.
