Event X : A Whole Decade
of Work with Women in Art and Technology!
October 5-6 2006, at Monument-National
In 1996, Studio XX became the first feminist artist-run centre in
North America as a non-profit organisation with the main objective
of supporting technological creation, exploration and critique by
women. In order to highlight its 10th anniversary, Studio XX invites
the public and all people engaged in the media arts to a conference
on October 5th and 6th 2006 that will look back on the last ten years
so as to inspire the ten years to come! Event X will feature lectures
and panels by local and international artists and curators, as well
as performances by Canadian artists, at the Café and Hydro-Québec
Studio of the Monument National (1182, St-Laurent Blvd.).
In a world where an increasingly large number of women are technologically
savvy, but where the expression “cyberfeminism” still
leads to confusion, it is of special relevance to be thinking about
the present state of affairs by measuring the distance achieved over
the last ten years. Inspired by an article on new technologies that
featured in Wired magazine and was entitled “10 Years that Changed
the World”, Studio XX wants to examine its effect and affect
as a site of education, production, information, dissemination and
exchange within the networks that it contributed to build, in order
to optimise its action for the upcoming decade.
Program
Thursday October 5th
(free admission)
5:00PM-7:00PM
Cocktail, presentation of founding members
Kathy Kennedy - concert-performance
with the Choeur Maha
Kathy Kennedy is a sound artist with a background in classical singing.
Her art practice generally involves the voice and issues of interface
with technology, often using telephony or radio. Her large scale sonic
installation/performances for up to 100 singers and radio, called
"sonic choreographies," have been performed internationally
including the inauguration of the Vancouver New Public Library and
at the Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Series. This mix of choral activism
and technological engagement are an apt introduction to our conference.
Friday October 6th
(free admission except for the 2 evening performances at the Studio
Hydro-Québec of the M.N.)
Conferences
10:00AM :: embodied and
disembodied: motion and sensuality
- Nat Muller (Netherlands) - in english
Is an independent curator and critic based in Rotterdam. She also
serves as new media curator at De Balie, Amsterdam. Nat is primarily
interested in viewing social and political processes through a cultural/artistic
lens. She has published articles in off- and online media, and has
given presentations on the subject of media technology and art (inter)nationally.
Her main interests include: the intersections of aesthetics, technology
and politics; (new) media and art in Middle East.
- Isabelle Choinière - in french
Isabelle Choinière studied Fine Art with a specialization in
choreography at Concordia University. Since 1984, she has been interested
in the hybridization of the languages of dance and digital art. She
has been recognized, since her first presentation (Communion) as a
pioneer and avant-gardist. Isabelle Choinière has developed
a specific language in order to explore the physical and psychic limits
of the natural body and the synthetic body. Her refined performances
integrate a reflection on time and space and what emerges is an increased
conception of the body.
Isabelle Choinière will present the
results of her residency at the Studio XX (a co-residency with Maison
de la culture Mont-Royal and the Dance dept. at Uqàm) on october
6 at 6 pm at l'espace de production Hexagram, room VR-105, 209 Ste-Catherine
E.
Moderator Ernestine Daubner
Ernestine Daubner is an adjunct professor at the Centre interuniversitaire
des arts médiatiqures (CIAM) de l'Université du Québec
à Montreal. She also teaches at the Art History department
of Concordia’s University.
1:30PM :: Volumes
: space and sound
- Karmen Franinovic - in english
Unfamiliar Moves and Anomalous Artifacts
- ABSTRACT
What is this cyclist doing with a giant balloon attached to his helmet?
Why is this elderly woman spinning a black reflective dish? Is the
group of people that are holding hands celebrating something or meditating
together or what? Why does my voice resound through the square? Recycled
Soundscapes, Kontakt, and Sky Hooks are three responsive environments
with interfaces that invite unfamiliar movements and interactions.
They work to subvert established bodily practices in urban space,
such as listening to others, producing sounds and touching strangers.
The results are new urban ecologies in which sound acquires a more
tangible and social dimension.
_Karmen Franinovic is an architect, artist, and interaction designer
focused on the creative, critical and active use of technology in
architecture, public space and everyday life. By introducing interactive
technologies into physical architecture and immaterial space, she
seeks in her work to stimulate social and bodily interaction and to
raise awareness of the surroundings and its diverse ecologies. Her
theoretical research on hospitality, home, exile, borders, body-action
and collective events manifests in responsive spaces, digital architecture,
video and interactive installations.
http://www.zero-th.org
- Diane Willow (USA) - in english
Diane is an artist and researcher who is drawn to hybrid zones and
trans-disciplinary approaches. Currently a professor in the new media
area of Time & Interactivity within the Department of Art at the
University of Minnesota, her interests range from sound art and tangible
media to interactive installation and responsive environments. Her
explorations with sound have been focused on a modality broadly defined
as dynamic, socially engaged spaces for contemplation. The interplay
of nature, technology and community, the experience of multi-sensory
engagement and her ongoing reflections on cultural dialogues embedded
within interactive art have informed her work in varied contexts including
her appointment as artist in residence at the MIT Media Lab.
- Nancy Tobin - in french
Intervention-
44.1 Khz / 16 bits vs 96 Khz / 24bits
High resolution audio : what does this mean exactly? How does resolution
influence our perception? Using excerpts from a current research project
derived from a collaboration with choreographer Danièle Desnoyers
: Duos pour corps et instruments (company
Le Carré des Lombes), I will address the questions raised by
the increased accessibility to high resolution formats in audio.
_ Nancy Tobin is a sound artist and designer. Over the past fifteen
years, she has developed a specialization in vocal amplification for
theatre and in the use of unusual audio speakers to transform the
aural qualities of her compositions. Her designs for multimedia installations
have been presented in Montreal at the Contemporary Art Museum and
at the International Festival of New Cinema and New Media. Currently,
she is finishing a series of thematic compositions for compact disc
on memory, play, silence and contemplation.
Moderator Marie-Christiane
Marie-Christiane Mathieu Ph. D., is a new media artist and the director
of Studio XX. She teaches at the Art History department at UQÀM,
she also teaches at L’École multidisciplinaire de l’image
at Université du Québec in Outaouais.
3:30PM :: Women's network
- bilingual conference
This panel will tackle the relevance and reasons for maintaining feminist-based
artist-run centres. Representatives of La Centrale, GIV, Mawa and
Studio XX will debate on this topic.
La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse is
an artist-run centre incorporated in 1974 which has as its mandate
and general policy to give voice to the diversity of work in women’s
contemporary art at local, national and international levels. La Centrale
supports research, intervention and the creation of multiple discourses
on artistic practices, feminisms and interdisciplinarity.
Groupe Intervention Video (GIV) came
into existence in 1975. GIV, as a diffuser/distributor and producer,
stands out in its implication in the diverse stages of work by video
makers, and in pursuing a policy of overall assistance with the artists.
Through time, use of video has been, and remains, strategic, a close
companion of activists and artists, inserting itself in the intimacy
of communities and processes, revealing individual and collective
imaginaries and pains. Collaborations undertaken with new media artists
these past years allows us to glimpse into the itinerary that the
organisation pursues, with importance on exploration and multiple
appartenance.
Mawa (Manitoba) Mentoring Artists
for Women's Art encourages and supports the intellectual and creative
development of women in the visual arts by providing an ongoing forum
for education and critical dialogue. Mawa gives women artists in the
early developmental stages of their practice the opportunity to work
with established artists in a year-long mentorship relationship.
Founded in 1996, Studio XX is Montreal’s
foremost women’s digital resource centre. Through a variety
of creative activities and initiatives, the Studio works with women
to demystify digital technologies, to critically examine their social
aspects, to facilitate women’s access to technology, and to
create and exhibit women’s new digital art. Studio XX is committed
to providing digital technology training and instruction to women
at all levels of experience, both artists and non-artists.
Moderator Mélina Bernier
Mélina Bernier is a graduate student in social intervention
(human science faculty) under the direction of Maria Nengeh Mensah,
professor at the École de travail social (UQÀM).
6:00PM
General Assembly of StudioXX
Presentation of Matricules
Performances
8:30PM
Diane Landry (Quebec) Morse Alphabet
Soup
The artist will present a brand new performance developed via the
complicity of light and lenses, forming an inspiring canvas of silhouettes,
images and words within which the public will be able to circulate.
Multidisciplinary artist, Diane Landry creates performances, automated
installations, sonic sculptures and new dynamic works. Her projects
have been presented throughout Canada, the United States, in Mexico,
in Argentina, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Sweden and are
included in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Fine
Arts in Quebec. She has also developed numerous projects in the framework
of artist in residency programs. In January 2003 the Quebec and Chaudiere-Appalachian
Regional Arts Council granted Diane Landry a prize of international
acclaim. In 1995 she received a Murphy-Cadogan Award from the San
Francisco Foundation. Landry received her bachelor’s degree
in visual art from Laval University, which included an exchange with
the University of Bordeaux, in France. She holds a master's degree
in art from Stanford University in California.
Shawna Dempsey et Lorri Millan (Manitoba)
Target Marketing
A piece called «Target Marketing», from the Winnipeg-based
duo dempsey/millan will be performed by Shawna Dempsey in a costume
which emulates the human target silhouette used by pistol marksmen.
The text juxtaposes a media phenomenon (increased violence shown on
the news) with a discussion on brain function.
In a collaboration that has spanned well over a decade, Winnipeg multi-disciplinary
artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan have created a body of internationally
acclaimed work that addresses feminist, lesbian, and social concerns
with biting wit. Dempsey and Millan’s controversial music video,
We’re Talking Vulva, represented Canada at the 3rd Istanbul
Biennial, and has screened to an estimated audience of a million people,
world-wide.
Contacts:
Julie Tremblay
Communications Coordinator, Studio XX
Email: julie@studioxx.org
Telephone: (514) 577-0226
Myriam Yates
Programming Coordinator, Studio XX
Email: programmation@studioxx.org
Telephone: 514 845 7934
Fax: 514 845 4941
338, Terrasse Saint-Denis, Montréal (Québec)
H2X 1E8
(514) 845-7934 / http://www.studioxx.org
Information: info@studioxx.org
Founded in 1996, Studio XX is Montreal's
foremost women's digital resource centre. Through a variety of creative
activities and initiatives, the Studio works with women to demystify
digital technologies, to critically examine their social aspects,
to facilitate women's access to technology, and to create and exhibit
women's new digital art.
Studio XX thanks its members and partners for their continued generous
support : the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the
Canadian Arts Council, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Monument-National,
Boréale.
   
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