The MUTEK Forum welcomes more than a hundred speakers through panels, presentations, case studies, workshops and networking opportunities. Hexagram is featured within the programming axis titled “New frontiers of digital and audiovisual creation” along with those who contribute to develop, diversify and interconnect local and international creators and professionals. The first elements of the professional activities program have been unveiled and the MUTEK Forum Passports can now be purchased at preferential rates.

Via the online platform of the Forum, Hexagram presents 13 short video capsules featuring selected members’ research-creation projects. Jean Dubois, Hexagram co-investigator member (and co-director 2018-2021) curated 26 projects that offer a preview of experimental, practice-based research and creation work at the intersections of artistic and scientific disciplines. This initiative takes place in the framework of Hexagram’s 20th anniversary.

The collection of short video capsules introduces MUTEK Forum attendees to an array of research-creation approaches that stem from academic research but circulate in the artistic as well as the cultural milieux.

The videos are grouped into two categories:

1. RESEARCH-CREATION CROSSOVERS (9 CAPSULES)
• Canada MÉDIANE research chair (2021): An overview in images of the themes and work of the MÉDIANE Research Chair by Ælab with Gisèle Trudel [co-investigator member, UQAM] & Stéphane Claude [collaborator member, Oboro].
• Fossilation (2021), a bioplastic membrane, apparatus capturing the residual energy of the building as it interacts with light. A co-created artwork by Brice Ammar-Khodja [student member, Concordia University], Alexandra Bachmayer [student member, Concordia University], Samuel Bianchini [collatorator member, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs], Marie-Pier Boucher [collaborator member, Toronto University], Didier Bouchon, Maria Chekhanovich [student member, Concordia University], Matthew Halpenny [student member, Université de Montréal], Alice Jarry [co-investigator member, Concordia University], Raphaëlle Kerbrat, Annie Leuridan, Vanessa Mardirossian [student member, Concordia University], Asa Perlman, Philippe Vandal [student member, Concordia University], & Lucile Vareilles.
• Kalos eîdos skopeîn (2019), a transpersonal experience examined in the poetic traversal of an immersive and danced work, directed by Andrée Martin [co-investigator member, UQAM];
• Le Circuit de Bachelard (2014), a Lumino kinetic installation situated at École de technologie supérieure, in Montréal, co-created by Jean Dubois [co-investigator member, UQAM] & Ghyslain Gagnon [co-investigator member, ÉTS].
• Ensemble d’oscillateurs (2016), musical frictions and sine wave: a group exploration of the musicalizationof an elementary sound, by Nicolas Bernier [co-investigator member, Université de Montréal].
• Point d’origine (2019), an installation transposing monumental architecture into acoustic and musicalsequences, co-created by Nicolas Reeves [co-investigator member, UQAM] & David St-Onge [co-investigator member, ÉTS].
• SENSEFACTORY (2019), a large-scale multi-sensory immersive experience between humans and artificialintelligence : a collaborative artwork by Dietmar Lupfer, Chris Salter [co-investigator member and co-director, Concordia University], Erik Adigard, Sofian Audry [co-investigator member and co-director, UQAM], FM Einheit, Alexandre Saunier [student member, Concordia University], Alex Schweder & Sissel Tolaas.
• Xenolalia (2021), a generative installation, between bio-art and artificial intelligence, co-created by Sofian Audry [co-investigator member and co-director, UQAM] & Tez.
• Laboratoire Mimesis de l’École NAD – UQAC: An overview of the recent works of the lab members Ké Medley [student member], Louis-Philippe Rondeau [co-investigator member] and Yan Breuleux [co-investigator member].
2. OVERVIEW OF EMERGING TALENTS (4 CAPSULES)
• Project Compilation #1 by student members Estelle Schorp [Université de Montréal], Marc André Cossette [Concordia University] & Sandra Volny [UQAM].
• Project Compilation #2 by student members Ahreum Lee [Concordia University], Emilie Morin [Concordia University] & Erin Gee [Université de Montréal].
• Project Compilation #3 by student members Guillaume Pascale [UQAM], Juliette Lusven [UQAM], Max Boutin [UQAM] & Olivia Mc Gilchrist [Concordia University].
• Project Compilation #4 by members of the TAG center for research-création in technoculture, art and games Enric Granzotto Llagostera [Concordia University], Jess Rowan Marcotte [Concordia University] & Steven Sych [Concordia University]. This artwork selection has been directed by Rilla Khaled [Concordia University, co-investigator member].

Contact : Manuelle Freire, General coordinator Hexagram – coordination.hexagram@gmail.com

• CONCERTS BY THE NETWORK MEMBERS

  • MESOCOSM 08.25 | 18:00 – LIVE
    The Mesocosm trio brings together video artist Emma Forgues and musicians Philippe Vandal [Concordia University, student member] and Joël Lavoie. Mesocosm will perform during the Play 3 evening at the Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts. Tickets and information on the MUTEK website.
  • ALMA Fragments: The Shape of Things 08.26 | 21:30 – LIVE
    ALMA is the union of artists and researchers Marc-André Cossette [Concordia University, student member] and Alexandre Saunier [Concordia University, student member]. They will present their artwork Fragments: The Shape of Things, a two-part live performance. Tickets and information on the MUTEK website.

• TALKS AND PRESENTATIONS BY NETWORK MEMBERS

  • 08.26 | 13:15_14:15
    Amanda Gutierrez [student member, Concordia University]
    PANEL: Does Volume Equal Power? The Use of Sonic Intensity in Electronic Music and Digital Arts.
  • 08.27 | 13:15_14:15
    Erin Gee [student member, Université de Montréal]
    PRESENTATIONS: Turn It Up: The Amplify D.A.I Collaborative Fund – Session 2
  • 08.26 | 14:45_15:45
    Jacqueline Beaumont [Concordia University, Milieux Institute]
    PANEL: Mediating the Future of Fashion: E-Textiles and Biotechnology
  • 08.30 | 12:00_13:00
    Katja Melzer [collaborator member, Goethe Institute]
    KEYNOTE: Safa Ghnaim, Tactical Tech
  • 09.01 | 14:45_15:45
    Lucas LaRochelle – Queering the Map [Concordia University, Milieux Institute]
    PANEL: Imagining Radical Futures: On Cross-Cultural Visions of Humanity and AI
  • Orit Halpern [Co-Investigator member, Concordia University]
    08.24 | 12:00_13:00
    KEYNOTE: The Artificial and the Synthetic: Intelligence, Language, Model
    08.24 | 13:30_14:30
    ROUNDTABLE: AI Theory with Benjamin Bratton and Orit Halpern
  • 08.26 | 14:45_15:45
    Whitefeather Hunter [collaborator member, SymbioticA, University of Western Australia]
    PANEL: Mediating the Future of Fashion: E-Textiles and Biotechnology
  • 31.08 | 12:00_13:00
    Ying Gao [collaborator member, UQAM]
    CONVERSATION: The Poetics of Interactive Clothing

• EXHIBITIONS

  • Virtual Wonders Exhibition
    August 24th to September 5th, 2021
    Online, at virtual.mutek.org
    Free with registration

  • Commonolithic & Olivia Mc Gilchrist [student member, Concordia]
    WorldSpace V2 is a WebVR experience that offers a playful perspective of navigating the gravitational pull of a large object as a small sphere in 3D space. Accessed through Mozilla Hubs, the work affords a moment of flaneur-like exploration in the company of a broken toy as a celestial body, surrounded by sounds evoking the object’s materiality.
  • Steven Sych [member of TAG] & Timothy Thomasson [student member, Concordia]
    Telephone Paintings is an infinite 3D art gallery produced by an AI. The work uses three generative adversarial networks (GANs) in tandem, creating an infinitely varied set of paintings in 20th century constructivism style, descriptions of the paintings and an imagined historical genesis for each artwork. The paintings and their descriptions are displayed in a 3D procedurally generated gallery: an industrial, corridor-like space, populated at random intervals with everyday objects, never repeated. The audio is an abstracted soundscape of server farms – fans and rhythmic mechanical pulsing – a sonic nod to the technological genesis of these works, which is placed in stark contrast to the imagined histories found in the descriptive placards.
  • Stephanie Castonguay [student member, Université de Montréal] & PRIFMA
    Solar Bodies is an audiovisual exploration of immanence through landscapes of textured light. PRIFMA’s visuals paint evolving landscapes combined with Stephanie Castonguay’s experimental sound design. Distant drones and fragmented glitches contrast with the colorful, crystallized visuals. The experience is an abstraction of light as a sentient being. A strobe-like effect persists throughout the video. Castonguay’s self-made instruments are designed to probe the electrical materiality, causing organic soundscapes to emerge.

  • Exhibition Le Livart
    August 20th to September 5th, 2021
    3980 Saint-Denis Street, Montréal, QC H2W 2M2 (basement entrance)
    Free

  • Maxime Corbeil-Perron [student member, UQAM] presents OPTX.drips.

  • Exhibition Parc Lahaie
    August 27th, 28th and 29th, 2021
    Saint-Laurent Street, between Laurier and Saint-Joseph

  • Ying Gao [collaborator member, UQAM] presents Purple Skin, Oliver, Flowing Water, Standing Time.