An Essential Guide to MUTEK Exhibition

Photo: "Jello" by Adonia Bouchehri

Fostering technological change
First launched 22 years ago, MUTEK is an electronic-music and audiovisual-performance festival that has continued to grow and diversify by keeping pace with technological developments and supporting its artistic communities, which themselves are in a constant state of change. Since the Festival’s 20th anniversary in 2019, it has made exhibitions a core component of its programming, allowing the public to discover various works presented at partner institutions across Montréal. In 2020, the pandemic shifted those initiatives into virtual spaces, with the launch of the virtual.mutek.org gallery as a new platform for presenting original digital works.

For its 22nd edition, MUTEK’s exhibition will take on a hybrid format: a physical and a virtual component, Virtual Wonders, are now being unveiled.

Virtual Wonders

Online, at virtual.mutek.org
From Tuesday, August 24 to Sunday, September 5
Free with registration

While the last few months have intensified our relationships to the virtual and changed our perceptions of digital tools and spaces, a growing desire to disconnect has also taken hold in us. That said, this difficult time has underscored some of the extraordinary opportunities afforded by virtual spaces — as they have generated new locations in which to meet and exchange ideas — whether in the private sphere, the arts, research, or activism. As the world continues to resettle into a new equilibrium, the virtual exhibition that is part of MUTEK’s 22nd edition specifically highlights attributes native to the web that make it a tool for creation and a preferred medium of dissemination.

The 24 works that comprise Virtual Wonders make no attempt to serve as substitutes for reality — instead, they amplify and extend it as they play in the liminal space between that which takes place on the screen, and that which doesn’t. The pieces probe the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, and between human and machine. Whether they feature virtual reality or artificial intelligence, the exhibition’s captivating videos, net.art pieces, lively games, and interactive works have all been specifically designed to live on the web.

Among the videos is Jello, a strange piece born of artist Adonia Bouchehri’s time in quarantine, in which an isolated character develops obsessions with certain real and imaginary objects, including a huge jelly rat.

Several interactive web projects also make up the program, including cyberpunk game ENHANCE.COMPUTER by Nicole He, which invites players to use their vocal cords to solve a case; or Line of Sight by Taylor McArthur, which provides an experience of contemplative immersion set in a landscape inspired by the artist’s past experiences, allowing it to explore questions of Indigenous identity and ties to the land.

Using the web as a theme and medium, works associated with net.art and post-internet art will also be presented in the gallery. Greek artist Eva Papamargariti's practice, for instance, focuses on the simultaneity of digital and material spaces and the fragmentation of identity that results from the dissolution of the boundaries between the two.

MUTEK continues to forge fresh collaborations to reach virtual communities grounded in new worlds: WorldSpace V2, a project by Commonolithic & Olivia Mc Gilchrist, will be housed in the Society for Arts and Technology’s (SAT) SATELLITE WebVR platform; while Ender Gallery will host artistic residencies in the world of Minecraft.

In addition, blurring the lines between the natural and the artificial, Sofia Crespo and Feileacan McCormick’s This Jellyfish Does Not Exist generates instances of the titular sea creature using neural networks; while artist, musician and computer scientist Memo Akten continues his exploration of the mechanics of the natural world in The Awesome Machinery of Nature, an experimental computational composition celebrating the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things.

Adonia Bouchehri ^DE — Jello Anna Eyler et Nicolas Lapointe ^CA/QC — D.o.t.T.D (Dance of the Techno-Demons) Bomi Yook ^KR/CA — Dream Machine Brad Todd ^CA/QC — 3050 K Cinzia Campolese ^IT/QC — Idle (online version) Commonolithic & Olivia Mc Gilchrist ^{UK/QC+JM/FR/QC} — World Space V2 Ender Gallery ^CA — Ender Gallery Minecraft Artist Residency Entangled Others ^DE — This Jellyfish Does Not Exist Eva Papamargariti ^GR/UK Jawa El Khash ^SY/CA — Hammam Libby Heaney ^UK — FIGURES, £igur€$, go figure!? Matt DesLauriers ^CA/UK — Wayfinder Meagan Byrne ^CA — Wanisinowin|Lost Memo Akten ^TR — The Awesome Machinery of Nature Nicole He ^US — ENHANCE.COMPUTER Nirma Madhoo ^ZA — Azimuth Noah Pred ^CA/DE — Panarchae Raphaël Moreira Gonçalves ^FR — M.I.T.M. Stéphanie Castonguay & PRIFMA ^CA/QC+AR — Solar Bodies Steven Sych & Timothy Thomasson ^CA/QC — Telephone Paintings Studio Everywhen (Brad Necyk x Jonathan Kawchuk) ^CA — ALL SKY, MIRROR OCEAN Taylor McArthur ^CA — Line of Sight Ursula J'vlyn d'Ark ^US/QC — Ecotone Wenxin Zhang ^CN — Inorganic Mysteries

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Physical Exhibition

From Friday, August 20 to Sunday, September 5
6 locations across Montréal - Free

Taking place in several downtown locations from August 20 to September 5, this year's show is of an unprecedented scope. Indeed, the exhibition will be enriched by a selection of digital art installations presented as part of the special Digital Detox project, supported by the City of Montréal and the Canada Council for the Arts. The theme of digital detoxification will be explored in a critical way and from different angles through the multiple artworks that make up the program. In total, 27 interactive, audiovisual, mixed reality, virtual and augmented reality digital works by local and international artists will be presented in both outdoor and indoor settings.

Akousma + Audiotopie présentent Léa Boudreau et Nancy Tobin ^CA/QC Anna Eyler & Nicolas Lapointe ^CA/QC Aude Guivarc'h ^CA/QC Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes ^CR/QC Cinzia Campolese ^IT/QC Delphine Kim Thériault De Carufel ^CA/QC Élisabeth Picard ^CA/QC Francois Knoetze & Amy Louise Wilson (Lo-Def Film Factory) ^ZA François Quévillon ^CA/QC Gilles Tarabiscuité ^CA/QC Ida Toninato & Claude Bastien (Trebuchet) ^CA/QC James Benjamin ^CA/QCJean-Pierre Gauthier ^CA/QC Jeremy Rotsztain ^CA/US Josée Brouillard ^CA/QC Marshmallow Laser Feast ^UK Maxime Corbeil-Perron ^CA/QC Maxime Damecour ^CA/QC Olivia-Faye Lathuillière ^CA/QC Pierre Zandrowicz & Ferdinand Dervieux ^FR Sabrina Ratté & Guillaume Arseneault ^QC/FR+CA/QC Sahar Homami ^IR/QC+DE Sammy Lee & M. J. Harding ^CA+KR/UK+UK Stéphanie Morissette ^CA/QC Tactical Tech ^DE Xuan Ye ^CN/CA Ying Gao ^CA/QC

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