sound recordings, interactive installation | duration: 2 hours total | isadora, Bell Telephone booth interface, projection, arduino
A series of short audio interviews with people living, working and passing through Montreal's downtown district. Together they paint a complex portrait of the city - overlapping concerns and conflicting perspectives, on everything from art to gentrification, policing to protest, sex to sustainability, and tourism to trade.
Une série de courtes entrevues audio avec des personnes habitant, travaillant et passant dans le centre-ville de Montréal. Ensemble, ils peignent un portrait complexe de la ville - préoccupations qui se chevauchent et perspectives contradictoires, sur tout, de l'art à la gentrification, de la police à la protestation, et du tourisme au commerce.
'PART OF '"ON EST TOUS UN GROUPE D'AMIS ICI" (WE ARE ALL FRIENDS HERE)', Montreal 2015
CROSSED LINES was developed with Montreal artist and knitter Marilene Gaudet. Originally presented as an interactive sound installation housed in a Bell telephone booth in Place de la Paix, the work invites you listen to interviews with a variety of people in downtown Montreal. By referring to the directory, users could dial and listen to the thoughts of tourists, strippers, small business oweners, artists, homeless, protesters, police and more, all whilst seeing the sound visualised in realtime as a knitted waveform.
The interviews were recorded as part of a 6 week research residency in May / June 2015, and build a complex portrait of the city's downtown district. Notably in the 5 years since recording, a number of the small business traders have disappeared from the downtown area - a sign of the changing economics of Montreal.
The installation was originally presented as part of the ESPACE COMMUN exhibition (2015). CROSSED LINES is one of a series of works, collectively entitled - "On est tous un groupe d’amis ici” (We are all friends here) - created with MTL artist Marilene Gaudet, that also include knitted textile installations, and a stop motion knitted animation.
Produced by National Film Board of Canada, Quartier des Spectacles, Mutek and FACT Liverpool
Podcast version kindly supported by the City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec through their VAS arts programme.
Exhibitions
November 2015 – Human Futures, FACT, Liverpool, UK
October 2015 – Espace Commun, Montreal, Canada
RELATED LINKS
Marilene Gaudet - https://cargocollective.com/marilenegaudet
Article - La Presse - 'Le Lac Meech', Oct 2015 - http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/6ac184a0-8331-4129-88b2-6aba00f4b921|_0.html
Article - ONF - 'La boîte vocale publique' - https://blogue.onf.ca/blogue/2015/10/15/la-boite-vocale-publique/
Article - ONF - 'La société du spectacle' - https://blogue.onf.ca/blogue/2015/10/13/societe-du-spectacle/
Article - ONF - 'Chérie, j’ai hacké la machine à tricot!' - https://blogue.onf.ca/blogue/2015/10/08/cherie-jai-hacke-machine-tricot/
Article - ONF - 'Espace commun? | Un parcours de 8 oeuvres inédites pour repenser l’art dans l’espace public à l’ère numérique' - https://blogue.onf.ca/blogue/2015/10/01/espace-commun/