Technologies have a good back. Alone, by themselves, they would be responsible for the profound transformations of our world… We are finally beginning to denounce the fact that technologies are nowadays exploited by economic interests, companies hungry for profits, as machines were during industrialization. But there is more. Our dependence on these technologies is dictated by a whole network of discourses and values to which we adhere. They would allow us to be more productive and more competitive in this world of global competition. Isn’t it reasonable to think like this? It is also a whole vision of modernity which is embodied in technology. It is our belief in its power that should be questioned. We should put an end to many clichés, such as that of technology as an absolute source of progress, or that of the utopia of increased freedom that it would offer us. To put it succinctly, technology literally makes us fantasize…
Fantasy diversions
In her exhibition at the B-312 gallery, the artist Manon De Pauw showcases these screens, those of telephones and tablets, which, in just over 15 years, have taken on the importance in our lives that the we know. Certainly, De Pauw reminds us of the hypnotic effects of these screens, but she goes beyond this level of reading by placing them in a historical aesthetic framework. We are not far from Plato’s cave or the shimmering surface in which Narcissus was lost…
In the presentation text, Alanna Thain cites the writer Maxime Gorky, who discovered the Lumière brothers’ cinematography, a symbol of triumphant industrial capitalism, in July 1896 at the Nizhny Novgorod Industrial and Artistic Exhibition. A year after the invention of cinema, Gorky criticized the first films in these terms: “kingdom of darkness” which “disturbs and depresses.” It seems to be a bad omen, being saturated with an obscure sinister meaning, which makes the heart faint. We forget where we are. Strange visions invade the mind, and consciousness darkens and fades away.” So the problem is not new…
In his installation, De Pauw shows us how screens and contemporary technology can be diverted from their primary function in a magical way. Here she offers us an original shadow theater thanks to a collaboration with the choreographer Pierre-Marc Ouellette, with whom she has already worked – among other things on the creation of two interdisciplinary performances, Ordinary matter in 2014 at Usine C and Somatic cocoons in 2017 at the Agora de la danse —, and four dancer performers, Karina Champoux, Philippe Dépelteau, Luce Lainé, Mya Thérésa Métellus. An approach that will bring to mind the blocked objects of the surrealists…
Forms of the imagination
Still on the side of the use of objects transformed in a poetic way thanks to the power of the imagination, you will also have to go see the exhibition by Stephen Schofield. In one of Schofield’s works, entitled The envelope, we will already be able to recognize a very common object in Montreal, an orange cone… But Schofield’s creative process goes further than that of the appropriation of everyday objects. As he explains about his sculptures, “the genesis of each piece corresponds to a simple object that is in my studio, but the sculptures are not necessarily a representation of this object”. He is therefore inspired by the shapes of “a wheel, a cup, a package and a bag” to create works where the world is reinvented…
The artist also decided to show old drawings, from 1983, representing a baby playing with a ball and a cube. While the dreamlike value of these objects for a child’s mind is undeniable, Schofield reminds us that for adults, the material world is also a possibility for projecting the human imagination.