make-A-move - Art Souterrain
Interactive, new media Installation
Art Souterrain Festival, 2015
Place des Arts
Montreal, Canada
February 28 to March 15, 2015
make-A-move is a new media, site-specific, responsive installation commissioned by Art Souterrain 2015 for Place des Arts, one of the reputed underground malls in Montreal, Canada.
The work was installed in a prominent space between the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art and two theatres where pedestrians accessing the underground mall and the subway system were immediately confronted with the piece. The Art Souterrain Festival 2015 - whose theme was “Security in our society: what remains of our personal freedoms?” - was held in collaboration with "Nuit Blanche," a yearly winter event where thousands of Montreal citizens flood the city's underground malls to experience art events: installations, performances, music and dance, until well past midnight.
make-A-move featured two animated portraits - a female and a male model from Montreal, documented by the artist. The portraits reacted to the movements of pedestrians, and elicited engagement and excitement on the part of the public-at-large. When people walked in front of the two screens, the portraits uncannily followed them with their eyes. This was a co-production between media arts center Agence TOPO and Art Souterrain Festival. The work was subsequently shown in a new iteration at Agence TOPO in Montreal, from November 5th to December 15th, 2015.
make-A-move invited regular citizens to a game of cause and effect whereby they discovered their own measure of control over the portraits’ automated ‘gaze.’ The male and female avatars on the screens playfully engaged visitors with ideas about the use of personal and public space and the manipulation of camera based surveillance mechanisms that lead to questions such as: "Who is looking at whom, and why?" “Where are you, where have you been, and who else is there?”
Pat Badani
Links:
Agence TOPO residency to produce the work:
--http://www.agencetopo.qc.ca/wp/en/events/event/pat-badani-chicago-
automne-2014/
--http://www.agencetopo.qc.ca/wp/en/events/event/-
make-a-move-pat-badani-28-fevrier-au-15-mars-2015/
Art Souterrain Festival:
--http://2015.artsouterrain.com/en/theme-2015