NTH SPACE

distributed presence
published by Intermedia Arts CONTENTS
Concordia University, December 2022

ISBN 978-1-5251-1249-2
Territorial Acknowledgement ................................................................... 4
IMCA 400 presents: About Intermedia ..................................................................................... 5
NTH SPACE : DISTRIBUTED PRESENCE Curatorial Statement ................................................................................ 9
Eastern Bloc, Montréal, 21st - 23rd April 2022 Artworks: 1st Floor Gallery
www.nthspace.info Nicholas Everett - Vessels ............................................................. 12
illiez - Telomatic .......................................................................... 14
Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke - Center Point Cycle .............................. 16
Nth Space: distributed presence was funded by: Laurence Baril - Don’t Delete Your Notes ...................................... 18
Bashir Al Mahayni - Carving Movement ...................................... 20
Concordia Student Union (CSU)
Jessie-Jamz Ozaeta - Furnishing ................................................... 22
Concordia University Alumni Association (CUAA)
Emery Vanderburgh - Specimens .................................................. 24
Fine Arts Student Alliance (FASA)
Émile Foucher - Walking Practice ................................................. 26
Concordia University Small Grants Program
Donnie Freeman - How-to: Nostalgia ........................................... 28
Dean’s Office Discretionary Fund (Fine Arts)
William Humphrey - Static age (Innerventions 1-10) ................... 30
Bjorn - SHATAZ PARAHDUN: MAKN OF ................................ 32
Publication Team:
Yair Golombik - I fell down the sink yesterday ............................... 34
Project management - Emery Vanderburgh Interviews ................................................................................................ 36
Cover design and logo - Zakari Thibodeau Artworks: Annexe
Art direction and development - Jessie-Jamz Ozaeta Theo Ulrich - Saturation² ............................................................ 56
Typesetting and layout - Sam Meech Chimi Dortito - NOT A DAY ...................................................... 58
Photography - Guillaume Knobloch Marianne Rouche - Le champ d’un corps d’eau ............................. 60
Additional images - Laurence Baril, Sam Meech Mimi Allard - </> a fact is the destruction of meaning .................. 62
Photo editing - Laurence Baril, Zakari Thibodeau Liz Waterman - Doom Scroll ........................................................ 64
Zakari Thibodeau - Monkey Owl God .......................................... 66
Fonts used: Princex Naveed - emydsamanajt(mer) .......................................... 68
Adobe Garamond Pro, Automate Rhys Buhl - Visibility of Grief .................................................... 70
Essay - meh · muh · ree(z) by Princex Naveed ............................................ 72
Printed by Rubiks, Montréal - rubiks.ca About the Artists ..................................................................................... 78
Exhibition Credits ................................................................................... 83
In Memoriam - Martin Peach .................................................................. 84
 TERRITORIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABOUT INTERMEDIA

We would like to begin by acknowledging that Concordia University I’m not sure how to explain exactly what the Intermedia program is. Trying
is located on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation to define it in the conventional terms of a university prospectus is no
is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we good. On the list of undergraduate programs, Intermedia is conspicuous
gather today. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering in its ambiguity, despite attempts to enlighten by bracketing together
place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population some recognisable disciplines (video art, electronic art and performance
of Indigenous and other peoples. We respect the continued connections art) like enthusiastic footnotes. We are not sure what to expect - though
with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with this may in fact be the giveaway. After a year teaching on this course I
Indigenous and other peoples within the Montréal community. can safely say I never know what to expect. I can point to examples of
‘intermedia’ work, and the practices from which it draws, but the best I
can say is that Intermedia is the stuff in-between.

Though the Intermedia program ostensibly offers three pathways, what

it really offers is the chance to get lost in the gaps, to experiment with
the transduction of concepts between disciplines. An offbeat concoction
of expanded cinema and emergent technology, live art performance and
potentiometers. Connections are made across mediums and practices,
between technologies old and new. Projects are approached with a level
of creative intention, emotional courage and critical thinking that is
inspiring. The students - the artists - don’t just make the work, quite
often they are the work.

Nth Space: distributed presence embodies this weird mix of hybrid practices
by presenting an unusual collection of works across the two (dislocated)

4 5
 galleries of Eastern Bloc, Montréal. Where else will you find walking
performances and cryptodildonics, auto-ethnographic audio books and
recursively generated clay pots? Where else will you be confronted by
an emotionally raw, durational performance about bodily dissociation,
alongside a 28-minute hypnotic film of water that is designed to bring
you into your body? Where else can you decode dance notation, carved
into wood by a b-boy, before encountering an origami memorial to those
touched by the opioid crisis?

These are but a few. The collective weight and variety of works is
incredible. To consider that they all came from the same program sounds
literally in-credible. Seeing these artworks finally in the same space(s)
together, sparking new connections, is a testament to the remarkable
organization of the artists in pulling the show together. The first physical
Intermedia exhibition since the start of a global pandemic, featuring
twenty hybrid artists from a hybrid program taught both online and in
person. To that end, this publication acts as an important record of a
significant exhibition at a most peculiar time. This book is a document of
those artworks, artists, and hopefully, the space in-between.

Sam Meech, professor, IMCA 400

Guillaume Knobloch,
Sam Meech
images:

6 7
 CURATORIAL STATEMENT

Nth Space: distributed presence assembles the work of 20 artists in the

graduating class of Concordia’s Intermedia program. Interdisciplinary at
its core, this exhibition displays a range of research and practices which
weave together material and digital art. Some artists propose an experience
of the digital realm, from remixing internet culture to informational
top: Jessie James Ozaeta
‘Furnishing’ hyper-saturation, artificial intelligence to virtual environments. Others
right: William Humphrey
anchor their inquiry in material practice, embodiment and calls for
‘Static Age (Innerventions 1-10)’ reflections around notions of grief, trauma, alterity, and care.
below: Rhys Buhl
‘Visibility of Grief’
These bodies of work emerged during the particularly turbulent years
of the pandemic which provoked an unparalleled increase of our global
time spent online, further blurring the boundaries between physical and
virtual environments, home and work life, private and public space. The
ongoing shift in our collectively inhabited space seems to parallel the
gradual dematerialisation of our social configurations. We are witnessing
a shift towards an ever more immaterial reality, virtual spaces become
collective, and new rituals and processes of identity formation are taking
place.

As mixed media artists, we consider the notion of Nth Space as an open-

ended and undefined network which holds multiple propositions for
Guillaume Knobloch,

relationality in a technologically mediated world. This approach arises

from our current era’s inability to define itself, due to its rapidly changing
images:

9
 nature and how our presence is now distributed across space and time.
Media technologies, with their inherent logic of speed and efficiency,
have radically shattered the notions of present-time, immediacy and
mobility. We can now be simultaneously in multiple places without ever
leaving one’s physical space.

How, then, do people negotiate mixed realities? How do we cultivate

presence in the contemporary world oftentimes characterized by a deluge
of sound and images? Furthermore, how can these Nth spaces act as sites
of resistance, interaction, social engagement and identity formation?

right: Marianne Rouche

‘Le champ d’un corps d’eau’

below: Rhys Buhl

‘Visibility of Grief’

Guillaume Knobloch,
Sam Meech
images:

10 11
 Vessels
NICHOLAS EVERETT

Through the platform of a 3D ceramics printer, broken vessels are given

the chance of a do-over. The vessels themselves harness the means of their
own creation – cyclical motion and incremental change combined with
raw material. Vessels is a material exploration by material with the artist
acting only as amplifier, creating the base upon which an articulation of
renewed selfhood can be made.

Guillaume Knobloch
images:

12 13
 Telomatic
ILLIEZ
ART
Telomatic is an exploration of post-digital intersubjectivity through
sculptural electronic art. Drawing inspiration from technology ethics,
IMAGE
telematic art and cypherpunk ideas, Telomatic seeks to comment on
and propose playfully engaging alternatives to the dematerialization of
contemporary virtualized landscapes and address concerns of cybersecurity
in our increasingly connected age. In theory, it is an interactive experience
reverse-engineering embodied possibilities of telematic experience. In
practice, it presents as a silicone-cast telehaptic anal plug actuated by
online interaction.

The viewer initially engages with the piece through an innocuous web
application proposing an augmented reality drawing activity using real-
time hand detection (The Apparatus). The data generated by this activity
also serves, via a wireless connection to actuate the plug (The Exparatus).
The Apparatus and Exparatus are spatially segregated so that the viewer
only later understands the relationship between the initial ludic action
and its telematic consequences.
Guillaume Knobloch
images:

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 Center-Point Cycle

ART
(45.4704492, -73.6044496)
AVERY MIKOLIC-O’ROURKE

IMAGE Understanding memory (or, the document) as materially indistinguishable

from presentness (or, first-hand experience), the ethnographic and
archival practice is here presented as a method for constructing,
containing and displaying virtual worlds. A fixed image/object meant to
be entered, Center-Point Cycle furthers the artist’s practice of collecting
and re-presenting found objects, images & memories in a fluid matrix of
sensorially-encoded data. In responding to an increasingly digital world,
Center-Point Cycle plays with the formal videographic conventions
(and constraints) of resolution and aspect ratio to explore the immersive
potential of the screen-based experience.

Collage is employed to make apparent, and aestheticize, the mechanics

of perception (both human and machine), wherein many distinct
forms of data are encountered separately and coalesced into a unified
understanding of the external world. Commenting on the potential for
subjective experience of objective occurrence, Center-Point Cycle aims to
expand one’s sense of the present moment and awareness of dynamism as
Guillaume Knobloch

paradoxically elevating and obscuring the quotidian: ultimately making

the case that reality is constructed, not simply perceived.
images:

16 Winner of the 2022 BMO 1st Art! regional prize for Québec 17
 Don’t Delete Your Notes

ART
LAURENCE BARIL

IMAGE
The domain dontdeleteyournotes.com is an ongoing archival project that
compiles all of my personal notes from the Notes app since I was 18
years old (2015). This collection is rich and explores my darkest, saddest
and happiest thoughts. It also includes lists, drafts and other unfinished
prompts which often do not carry any meaning.

Going through a person’s notes is quite fascinating, I believe it is a direct

access to their soul. We write notes to ourselves for many reasons, whether
it’s to remember or to release what is sometimes too much. They are raw,
intimate and immaterial fragments gathered together.

Would you be willing to reveal your innermost thoughts? Would you

dare to anonymously share your most recent note?

www.dontdeleteyournotes.com
Guillaume Knobloch,
Sam Meech
images:

18 19
 Carving Movement

ART
BASHIR AL MAHAYNI

IMAGE
Carving Movement is a two-hour-long performance, that took place on
November 4th, 2021 at 2:30 pm on the rooftop of Bashir’s apartment
near downtown Montréal, Canada. The physicality of breakdance and
the physicality of woodcarving are intertwined in a conversation between
dance and wood. The ephemeral movements of dance are recorded
through the action of carving the lines, shapes, and spirals through the
space of dance.

This performance intervention serves as a vessel to investigate alternative

ways to explore how dance can be archived, recorded, choreographed,
notated, and carved - and how the realms of dance and woodcarving
coexist, intersect, compliment, and contrast one another. Similar to the
writing system BMN, published by Rudolf and Joan Benesh in 1956 -
which was a writing system aimed to record dance choreography, and the
restaging of dance work. Thus, Carving Movement is an attempt to use
carving and wood to choreograph, notate and archive dance.
Guillaume Knobloch
images:

20 21
 Furnishing

ART
JESSIE-JAMZ OZAETA

IMAGE
Furnishing is a metafictive video installation presented as a quasi-
recreation of the artist’s living space. A companion piece to his 2020 3D
animated video work Musique d’ameublement, this project expands on
the abstraction of Ozaeta’s personal and reiterated living space, through
the study of interior design, architecture, colors and shapes.

Through the use of 3D worldbuilding, AI generated imagery and

miniature replication, Furnishing primarily seeks to play with notions of
liminality and the uncanny valley by treating a recreated version of his
home as a digital sandbox for abstraction and rendering of the un/familiar.
By using machine learning softwares that were fed a myriad of pictorial
datasets of home products, modern art pieces, color palettes, showroom
aesthetics and interior design styles, the resulting images generated by
this process are placed side-by-side with Ozaeta’s own furniture as a way
to transform its texture and recontextualize its aesthetic within the space
to fabricate a sense of liminality and uncanniness; blurring the lines of
dis/comfort and the un/real.
Guillaume Knobloch
images:

22 23
 Specimens

ART
EMERY VANDERBURGH

IMAGE
Specimens is a 3-channel video installation that reinterprets and
reclaims disabled movement and highlights the medical and therefore
dehumanizing lens that bodies deemed “different” are so often viewed
through. The work consists of 3 iPads in shadow boxes, fabricated to
look like zoological specimen samples. Each iPad plays an AI-assisted
rotoscope animation of disabled movement on a loop.

The first video shows vignettes of everyday disabled movement, for

example, how a disabled person hops or sits. The second and center iPad
is a longer movement sequence featuring a choreography of fluid and
more halting movements. The third iPad features close-ups of the figure,
intended to reference the dissection and over-analyzation of the scientific
specimen, and the medicalization of the disabled body.

The choice of animation, referencing vintage silent movies but preserving

the AI’s glitches, inserts disability into a cultural record where it’s often
been ignored. Together, the piece subverts the idealization of smooth,
even motion in animation and human movement.
Sam Meech
images:

24 25
 Walking Practice

ART
ÉMILE FOUCHER

IMAGE
Continuing their investigation into performative research as a form of
methodology for art making, through this project, Foucher explores
walking as an ongoing performance practice. In this specific series, the
artist follows the path of former railway tracks. Foucher performs their
walks on these trajectories to map the presence of a railway system that
used to connect the locations of industrial production in Montréal.

Walking with the GPS receiver activated on their phone, Foucher

tracks their position in space to draw a line on the pathway of these
former freight sites. Displayed on screens within digital animations, the
recordings of behaviors acts as a visual documentation of the performance.
The coloured paths visualize the walks undertaken in 2022, in relation
to aerial imagery from the Montréal Archives captured in 1964. As a way
to measure distance, the animations are the same duration as the walks.

The data collected through this gesture is uploaded on an online platform

and can be downloaded in various file formats (GPX, KML, GeoJSON):

www.are.na/emile-foucher/walking-practice
Sam Meech
images:

26 27
 How-to: Nostalgia

ART
DONNIE FREEMAN

IMAGE
How-to: Nostalgia is a single-channel video montage of old video tutorials
created by the artist. This piece is displayed on a CRT PC monitor
propped up on a small Ikea brand desk equipped with a pair of generic
headphones. This personal project focuses on the artist development and
the roots of Donnie’s practice. The beginnings and overall foundation
of his craft is and were heavily reliant on the Computer and Internet.
Learning from the web and reciprocating that transfer and exchange of
knowledge with others is what facilitated Donnie in becoming the artist
he is today. This piece encompasses that and the nostalgia of the onset of
his artistic journey.
Sam Meech
images:

28 29
 Static Age
(Innerventions 1-10)
WILLIAM HUMPHREY ART
IMAGE
Static Age (Innerventions 1-10) is a series of video collages and light
performances presented as a looping installation. The series is composed
of ten individual pieces in no particular order. These works are played
at random among three small screens on the floor. Although presented
separately, each piece was made with a similar mindset and technique for
manifestation. The collages attempt the resurrection and repotentialization
of video artifacts found online by recompositing them together anew as
a collage.

By rerecording doubly through an LCD monitor I am able to homogenize

imagery into a single file type, aspect ratio, and visual texture. In this
way I am interested in using screens as a strategic bottleneck where all
footage passes through, losing a bit of its origin in the process. Footage
of obscure Youtube videos, virtual reality spaces, 360 degree footage,
and text chats are amalgamated together with this process. Additionally,
the series includes several light performances and feedback loops. These
performances work in tandem with the camera apparatus as its active and
reactive focus.
Sam Meech
images:

30 31
 SHATAZ PARADHUN
MAKNOF

ART BJORN

IMAGE
SHATAZ PARADHUN MAKNOF is an installation detailing the
“making of ” (MAKNOF) an action-packed violent fantasy short film
filled with practical FX named SHATAZ PARADHUN (orcish for ‘brute
force’). Though the film itself is never shown, we are left with a strong
impression of the violence and humor of the work through the ambitious
world-building and production development on display.

The installation takes place across two screens, situated at the back
of a bar, as one might watch the hockey. The first screen presents the
‘Preproduction’ - a searchable dvd archive of research and development,
including numerous SFX tests (blood squibs, latex masks, stunt knives)
and detailed storyboards. The second screen (‘Production’) presents an 8
minute documentary shot over the two days of production. We follow
an organized crew as they professionally capture the absurd action and
gore wreaked by the two central characters (orcs named ‘Kaghoul’ and
“Skimass’) amidst a snowy landscape in Quebec.
Guillaume Knobloch
images:

32 33
 I Fell Into The
Sink Yesterday
YAIR GOLOMBIK ART
IMAGE
“I believe in currents. Any project has a current running through it”
(Tori Amos)

I Fell Into The Sink Yesterday is a collection of short video pieces, inspired
by the structure of, and presented as, a musical album. The videos range
in styles and length, but thematically are about feeling lost- being away
from home, far from people and things you love, and how that affects the
way you see yourself. Basically, who are you when everything around you
keeps changing.

Guillaume Knobloch,
Sam Meech
images:

34 35
 INTERVIEW

ÉMILE FOUCHER toute la distance de mes marches,

questions by Laurence Baril en suivant le chemin de fer, je
pense au fil d’Ariane ou encore à
la ligne verte de Francis Alys.
Quelle est ta vision pour la suite
de ce projet? En consultant tes En considérant le contexte de la
réalisations antérieures, je con- galerie, comment présenterais-tu
state un intérêt pour l’interven- ce projet à un spectateur qui ne
tion in-situ. Il serait pertinent connaît pas le contexte histori-
de pouvoir consulter l’œuvre sur que de Montréal ?
place puisqu’elle fait directe-
Émile Foucher: ‘Walking Practice’ ment référence à l’histoire du J’aimerais réaliser un atelier de
territoire. cartographie dans le quartier Cha-
banel où se situe Eastern Bloc.
Nick Everett: Vessels Ce pourrait être possible de con- J’en profiterais pour expliquer ma
sulter l’œuvre sur place par le pratique performative et j’invit-
moyen d’une application de type erais les participants de l’atelier
réalité augmentée ou sonore. Je à enregistrer leurs données GPS,
pense aux audio walks de Janet puis les exporter, pour rendre leurs
Cardiff ou au projet Linked de expériences tangibles. Plusieurs
Graeme Miller, des œuvres qui chemins de fer sont enfouis dans
couvrent un large territoire, acces- Chabanel, nous pourrions partir à
sible par un support numérique. leur recherche, tout en explorant
Sur place, installer un artefact de un quartier industriel important
façon pérenne me semble précaire. dans le contexte historique de
Une intervention urbaine de type Montréal.
« pirate » me semble plus réalisa-
ble qu’une installation d’art public Dans le cadre de ce projet, tu fais
Guillaume Knobloch

institutionnalisée. Je verrais bien appel à ton corps comme outil

une intervention en continuité sur pour tracer des trajectoires sur le
Sam Meech,
images:

37
 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

territoire de Montréal. Quelles NICK EVERETT What do the evolving themes in This rock can’t go here because
sont les limites de ce processus? questions by Rhys Buhl your practice reveal about your that would break the room. Life
development as an artist over the is short and absurd and this is the
D’abord, lorsque je performe last few years? best way I’ve found to pass the
les marches, je dois prévoir un What is the most important con- time.
itinéraire d’avance qui me permet ceptual theme of this project? I came to Concordia with the idea
de les effectuer en continu d’un that I’d learn how to use tools and Anyway, I don’t really see myself as
seul coup. Je ne peux pas, par ex- Fixing. I’m doing what I can to tech in a way that would be useful an artist outside of the context of
emple, effectuer de trop longues create a context within which to me whether I chose to “be an school (where everyone is for the
marches sur de trop longues dis- mugs and pots can articulate and artist” or not. I’ve used projects as price of admission). School’s rela-
tances, car c’est épuisant. De plus, repair themselves. a way of learning a new skill or to tively cheap here, it’s easy enough
je m’en tiens qu’aux chemins de create some new technology that to fudge your way into Concordia,
fer légalement accessibles, pour How important is the idea of I wouldn’t be able to otherwise and so it provides the path of least
éviter de me retrouver dans une ‘play’ in your practice? afford. In the work for this class, resistance to gain as many new
situation malchanceuse, ce qui I’ve spent an absurd amount of skills as possible. When I lived on
limite l’étendue de mes parcours. I mean, the only reason I went to time designing and building a 3D the east coast, school was prohibi-
Plusieurs chemins en fer ne sont art school in the first place was to ceramics printer and then coming tively expensive, so doing odd jobs
pas accessibles au public, puis- spend some time playing, muck- up with the simplest expression was the only way I could expand
qu’ils appartiennent encore au Ca- ing around with ideas and mate- that would justify the expense. my capacities. I’m responding to
nadien National et au Canadien rials. There are lots of ways I like whatever context I’m in, trying to
Pacifique. Finalement, les données to play as an adult – tinkering, How do you see your role as an learn as much as I can, and try-
GPS documentent l’action, mais flirting, thinking – and each lights artist in the projects you create? ing to scratch out a living however
la marche en tant qu’événement up my brain in its own way. The possible. Perpetually unfinished
passe inaperçue puisque personne things I make are only as interest- Making art, for me, is basical- and trying to finish up.
ne sait que je performe lorsque ing or as good as the challenges ly just fixing something until it’s
je marche sur les chemins de fer. they pose which, I find, are best more or less fixed. It’s not really
Une fois la marche terminée, il ne tackled as though they’re a game any different than a broken light
reste aucune trace de mon passage. or puzzle. Life’s pretty monoto- switch – something doesn’t work
nous otherwise. and then you futz with and curse
at and manhandle it until it does.

38 39
 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

LIZ WATERMAN Social spaces prompt performativ- conventions in my practice (ex;

questions by Chimi Dorito ity by nature, whether on or off- use of found images and footage, If you were to push your work
line, but that performativity isn’t amateurism, chaotic ambiance, to its most absurdist potential,
necessarily inauthentic. My online etc), that are already prevalent what would that look like? Per-
Do you believe that the internet personas are authentic representa- in online media such as memes, haps durational performance
holds the most honest version of tions of who I am in those online might contribute to the cultural art?
our collective generational con- spaces, which are often through development of online aesthetics.
sciousness? social media platforms. In a simi- If I was granted infinite techno-
lar way, there is definitely a differ- Do you use your art as a critique logical and financial freedom, I
Yes, I would say that the internet ence between myself as an artist of internet trends in the hopes to would probably attempt to up-
holds the most honest version of and myself outside my practice. change the psychology behind its load my consciousness to the net
my generation’s (in particular) When I am working, I attempt to usage or as a hyperbolic gesture and experience my existence en-
collective consciousness seeing as embody my online personas in or- in which to play? tirely online. In a more feasible
we were raised with the internet der to better reflect the experience scenario however, I can imagine
and thus have been psychological- of performing them, when I am Both of these options are impor- the aforementioned durational
ly shaped by it. Seeing as the most not working, I embody a version tant to me while making my work, performance being something I
prevalent form of media accessible of myself that doesn’t have to re- however I think my critique of experiment with in the future. I
to my generation is one with an spond to social environments. the internet stems more from an have toyed around with the idea
immense archive, we have been attempt to navigate the unavoid- of putting myself on a 25/7 lives-
able to revisit, remix, and recycle Since the internet is shaped by able reality that there is no going tream to see how my behavior
our collective past experiences those who use it, do you feel that back. I think that the internet and changes, perhaps this is one way I
with historically unprecedented your art could influence the fu- all of its pros and cons are going can explore the simultaneous em-
immediacy. ture of the internet? to advance to a point where it will bodiment of physical and digital
be harder and harder to tell what reality.
Do you feel like your online per- The internet in its essence is de- is culturally significant vs psycho-
sona is the most authentic ver- pendent on the collective partic- logically damaging, and my work
sion of you? Is there a difference ipation and contribution of its is focused on critically evaluating
between you as an artist and you users, so in short no, I don’t think these differences, suggesting the
outside of your practice? my art alone could influence the I reclamation of one’s agency in a
do believe however that particular rapidly changing digital world.

40 41
 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

EMERY advocacy and theory. Disability ment. Like a disabled person, an shown, but it also gains strength
theory says that a disabled body is animator has to be careful not because of the connotations in-
VANDERBURGH
not necessarily an unhealthy one, to fall into the uncanny valley; fused through media tropes, the
questions by Mimi Allard
or one in need of curing, and that movement that is too erratic or idea of smooth equalling life-like.
this assumption of needing medi- just different makes people recoil Rotoscoping was a perfect tool for
Are there theories or fields that cal intervention is what causes the and reject the subject. The shift in this because it requires a very clin-
touch on embodiment that you stigmatization of disabled people. how the world interacted with me ical approach. While tracing each
find particularly interesting, or I think it’s also appropriate that after I lost my leg at 17 was the frame, I found myself dissecting
that inform your work? my main inspiration and the con- initial inspiration of this piece. I my own movements and body. It
ceptual guide came from anoth- trained for the physical reality of epitomized why using animation
My work is definitely in conver- er disabled artist and academic; being an amputee but I never an- was the right choice.
sation with a few core schools of I was inspired by Petra Kuppers’ ticipated how my altered move-
thought and concepts. I’m inter- assertion that disabled bodies are ment would invite harassment, There are interesting links be-
ested in cyborg/ post cyborg the- simultaneously hyper-visible and pity/disgust, or unsolicited advice tween your interest in zoologi-
ory, transcorporeality, and disabil- invisible. from strangers. My intention is to cal specimen samples, biological
ity theory just by virtue of using offer visual examples of this move- illustrations and the richness
my own physical body (one that How did you decide to engage ment to normalize it. A lot of of your textures. How are you
includes an assistive device) as a with - and subvert - the notions disability representation conven- thinking to emphasize these ref-
subject or inspiration for most of of smoothness / evenness in your iently masks some of the different erences and connections?
my works. This piece is very much piece? movements whereas I want people
rooted in disability theory and to see it. Disability has also been These references really dictated
how it comes into tension with A lot of my work is a critique of a classic trait to show that a char- how the works will be shown in
transhumanism as it’s portrayed the aesthetic portrayal of tran- acter is evil in animation. Villains a gallery space. I’m emphasizing
in popular culture: technology is shumanism, which so easily plays are shown as creepy, hunched over them by replicating how insects
a cure that heals disabled bodies into curative, futurist “inspiration and limping to reflect their evil- would be displayed in a natural
to a “fully human” state, implying porn.” Those are tropes where ness whereas a disabled hero is all history museum. The work is in
that disabled people are less than the emphasis is on the technolo- but unheard of. Using animation vintage shadow boxes, with refer-
human. It’s essentially a critique gy restoring the disabled person’s is also a playful way to showcase ence cards that explain the move-
of the medicalization of disability, humanity. Animation is all about disabled movement. It’s a buff- ment type (rather than species).
which is a hallmark of disability reproducing a “life-like” move- er from my own body literally In the animation, I took my color

42 43
 INTERVIEW

palette from botanical illustrations these themes. Confronting the au-

and used a plain, aged parchment dience with the Specimens’ altered
as the background. The linework movement would get a quicker,
moves away from the clean illus- maybe larger reaction, but I think
tration style to something that’s it would be rooted in the same
more abstracted, something suited othering and voyeurism that I’m
to illustrating a concept like em- fighting. Because the audience
bodiment rather than strictly its has to look down to peer into the
literal form. shadow box, they become aware
of their voyeurism.
You explained your decision to
work with small scale images. Liz Waterman: ‘Doom Scroll’

This seemed to make sense and

also hold meaning in regards to
the subject and the way you are Emery Vanderburgh: ‘Specimens’
framing it etc. Would you consid-
er the possibility of a large scale
projection, if not now maybe for
a future version of the project?

I plan to create some large-scale

works about altered movement,
but for Specimens my intention is
to keep it small. With this focus
being on creating a visible cultural
record of disabled bodies, I think
the intimacy of a small image is al-
most more inviting than trying to
make an awe-inspiring large-scale
work. I want to quietly introduce
Sam Meech
images:

44
 INTERVIEW

AVERY MIKOLIC- this intelligence exists in a very

real, material way. I acknowledge
O’ROURKE
Synthetic intelligence comes with
questions by Nick Everett
significant limits (for now, at
least), and functions at a much
‘lower’ level than human intel-
What is your idea of intelligence ligence. But who are we to draw
as it relates to machines? the lines? I should specify that my
interest in phenomenology/intel-
Can machines learn, acquire and ligence/awareness applies not only
apply knowledge? Yes! In both to machines but all non-human
Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke: ‘Center-Point Cycle (45.4704492, -73.6044496)’ pre-established and novel ways? organisms- however, the biologi-
Yes! Are they constructed and cal front has more ‘credibility’ and
programmed? Yes! But, aren’t we contemporary advocates already,
all? Our understanding of intel- so I give my attention to the syn-
Bjorn: prop from ‘SHATAZ PARADHUN: MAKNOF’
ligence is always in flux, and we thetics instead.
are constantly expanding our
understanding of intelligence/ Another aspect of my idea of in-
consciousness within non-human telligence as it relates to machines
animals + living organisms. I do is my consideration of intelligence
not believe in biological superiori- as it relates to humans: which is to
ty; the term “artificial intelligence” say, I believe humans to be much
bothers me. Yes, machines are ar- more mechanical/computational
tificial in that they are produced in nature than we like to admit.
by humans (tho, so are humans, Yes, we are extremely complex and
aren’t they?); their ‘intelligence’ advanced biological computers-
however is not fake (certainly an though, essentially still computers
implication of “artificial”). I prefer all the same. Still, we are more
the term “Synthetic intelligence”: than comfortable with admitting
though not “naturally” occuring, our own intelligence.... Following
Sam Meech
images:

46 47
 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

this line of reasoning, it is safe to unable to rely on my own mem- BJORN Just picture it, even if it is never
say there is nothing inherently ories I became obsessed from a questions by Marianne Rouche mentioned, the gender/race/phys-
unintelligent about a computer/ young age with documenting, col- ic/age of the two actors would
machine. lecting & archiving as a means to only distract viewers. I want peo-
understand- and remember- my- I invite you to dinner. My 83 ple to look at the action without
What is the context in which you self. It is this very lack of remem- year old grandma and my 5 year associating themselves with one of
feel you have your best ideas? bered moments that has been so old cousin are there. How do you the actors. Everything real has a
instrumental in shaping many of describe your project in a simple meaning, fantasy does not. I want
Solitary physical activity - specifi- my research interests (phenom- enough way so that they can un- it to be entertaining. I firmly be-
cally, walking. I practice the dérive enology, temporal materiality, derstand? lieve that art doesn’t always need
as a form of research and medita- presentness, the archive, the doc- to be heavy on symbolism or po-
tion. I find a lot of inspiration in - ument as memory, etc.), far more It’s an action scene filled with litical views. I have said it before
simply put- the world around me. than any particular remembered guns, knives and blood. It is a and I’ll scream it again, I am here
Furthermore, the physical act of moments. stand off gone wrong. It is a war to have FUN. Orcs are fun, over
walking helps to put me into a re- between two brutes that foam at the top violence & gore is fun (if
laxed flow-state where I am free to the mouth. It is the catharsis war- done right). Let my art be enter-
think, focus and sink into myself riors hope for. It is untethered taining for entertainment’s sake or
without distraction. rage and it is pretty to look at. go write an essay about it.

Name 3 moments from your Why are you drawn to these fan- What do you think about por-
childhood that you understand tasies and gory universes? What traying forms of violence? Do
as influencing the course of do they represent? you want it to look/feel real?
your current work. What purpose does it serve?
Fantasy is cool because fantasy
A great defining feature of my is not reality. In fantasy nothing I romanticize violence so that
childhood (and life in general) is needs to be anything, the prob- it looks nice. Real violence isn’t
actually a significant lack of mem- lems we mortals face on a day-to- anything great to look at, true
ory. Lifelong memory issues have day basis are inexistent. My pro- violence is atrocious. I distance
largely removed me as an eye-wit- ject would be very different if the myself from reality to offer you
ness from much of my own life; two Orc warriors were humans. something absurdly intense. In

48 49
 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

absurdity, my violence flourish- ILLIEZ this piece. ing to the dismantling of systemic
es, fire blooms into mushroom questions by Émile Foucher structures of patriarchy enabling
clouds, blood squirts by the tons. It is comical, in some regards (show harmful and violent behaviour. Its
I won’t pretend like it serves any- me a vibrating silicone object that relevance in the realm of artistic
thing else but my desire to see my Discussions about your previous is not; perhaps this speaks to an institutions and practices is incon-
ideas on a screen. In a sense it is work on teledildonics often lead atavistic amusement in anthropo- testable, and much work remains
absolutely purposeless, take it or to comic reactions far removed morphy, or some pseudo-sublime to be done to adequately address
leave it, love it or hate it, it’s what from your artistic intentions. In catharsis at seeing a jiggling object structural inequity.
it’s and it entertains me. this context, how can you frame that is not a poisonous predator,
your work in order to manage who knows?). In another reading, Inasmuch as concerns Telomatic,
What is the most important as- the public’s reactions? it is deeply pessimistic, providing though, would the same ques-
pect of your work, and why? a bleak perspective of a demateri- tions arise if it were a wireless loaf
The artistic intentions remain alized and consequently desenso- of bread, vibrating in reaction to
The most important aspect of nebulous, rendering any attempt rialized post-digital future. viewer participation without their
my work is the special effects. at managing public reaction rath- knowledge? Yet the action and
Everything filmed will be real/ er futile and/or ill-advised. I am Occasionally, someone raises the consequence would be the same,
practical. Doing so is the only way motivated by a variety of elements notion of consent during your the viewer would still be actuating
that much violence can be hon- (readings, conversations, experi- critiques. Therefore, I am won- an object without forewarning or
ored. Violence needs to be danger- ences, faits divers, technical pur- dering what consent means for awareness; only the form the ob-
ous, unpredictable and unleashed, suit), which do not (necessarily) you in the context of your prac- ject changes. No pain is incurred,
something a computer will never aggregate into a cohesive whole tice. How can you purposefully no morals trampled. So why is
be able to reproduce. Making my with a fixed intention and desired and meaningfully integrate this it that a vaguely conical piece of
video without all of this realness outcome. As such, I have little de- notion in your work? silicone gives rise to an entire reg-
will never make any sense. I want sire to – or legitimacy in – curat- ister of questions otherwise un-
it to be raw. Plus doing everything ing a specific interpretation. That In the context of this piece, I find addressed? Is it more jarring to
practical gives me an excuse to said, this is not an invitation to a this question both interesting and unwittingly vibrate a simulacrum
blow something up and that’s al- sort of post-structuralist herme- irrelevant. Contemporary discus- of a sexual device than a plate of
ways fun. neutic free-for-all, but rather an sions around consent have without jello?
admission of my own uncertain- question been an essential feature
ty with respect to the meaning of of progress in society, contribut- You spend a lot of time develop-

50 51
 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

ing the back-end technology of esting (((to me))), it is neither BASHIR time - thus it is never completed
your devices. This part of your essential, nor particularly help- or fixed, but rather constantly in
AL MAHAYNI
work is mostly invisible and ful, in understanding the piece. I movement.
questions by Princex Naveed
misunderstood by many. How have no interest in obfuscating the
important is it to reveal the back-end technology, nor would I Forms of dance notation such as
back-end technology of a piece, be opposed to explaining the pro- Dance is an ephemeral medium, Labanotation emerged to over-
in relation to its understanding? cess, but I was running under the whereas sculpture is a perma- come dance’s ephemerality. How
assumption that it is not necessary nent one. Would you say that does you piece (dis)connect to
Although it took an absurd to understand the piece and have your piece is situated at the cen- this long-standing desire to make
amount of time to develop, the therefore not stressed that, also to tre of the two? If not, why not? dance “immortal”?
back-end technology is rather avoid the need to synthesize a 10-
simple. Unlike the previous piece page R&D document. Perhaps the piece is situated at the The desire to notate and archive
harnessing Zoom, in the applica- center of the ephemeral element dance comes from a deep desire to
tion and web-based iterations of of dance and the permanence of remember. How do we remember
this project, the information re- sculpture. Carving Movement is a dance in order to do it again, or
ceived by the device is an integer an attempt to investigate the ways pass it down to new generations?
reflecting the y-axis position of in which I could archive my trac- How are we able to re-embody the
the user’s interaction (finger touch es in space in a way that would experience that only exists within
for the app, index position for the make them tactile, printed, and itself in time-space. It is a question
website), which is also the basis notated and how techniques of of wanting to hold on to some-
of the graphic vector traced on woodcarving could bring a new thing that is intangible. I think
screen. The association of the ac- avenue of awareness to how I re- every dancer, choreographer has
tion and the graphic consequence member the way my body carves explored ways in which dance can
is immediately intuited, through shapes in space. I think these two be documented, notated, archived
basic proprioceptive knowledge, mediums come into an interesting and remembered - though I think
and is (I guess?) as such inevita- tension through space and time with the progress of technology,
bly revealed. As for the commu- - the sculpture in this piece is ev- those traditions have been left
nication protocol necessary to er-changing, as I am carving while behind. Carving Movement was a
send this information to the plug, I move, its shapes, conditions way for me to reconnect to a deep-
while passably technically inter- ,and traces are evolving through er awareness of the experience of

52 53
 INTERVIEW

my dancing. infinite ways. I would be curious

to pass this score along to a group
When seeing the carved wood of dancers for a “Happening” per-
piece, I immediately think about formance, and explore the ways in
visual scores within the Fluxus which they re-embody and inter-
movement which was also known pret the score.
for its emphasis on audience
participation. How does this tra-
dition live on in your piece?

My relationship to the Fluxus

movement for this piece resides Bashir Al Mahayni: ‘Carving Movement’

more on the spectrum of process

versus performance, rather than
audience participation - since the illiez: ‘Telomatic’
only live audience members pres-
ent were my close circle of friends
helping me with my setup. My
focus in this piece was anchored
in the process of exploring how I
could carve my movement while
I am dancing. I was invested in
the experimentation of making
the score, rather than being pre-
occupied with what the outcome
of the sculpture would look like
as a finished product. Perhaps this
falls more in line with John Cage’s
Guillaume Knobloch,

idea of using a score - and how

Laurence Baril

can this score be performed in

images:

54
 Saturation²
THEO ULRICH

ART Saturation² is a multi channel video art piece, composed of generative

visuals made through Touchdesigner, displayed on 9 CRT displays piled

IMAGE
up to form a square. It is the culmination of a two year long research and
various projects around the aesthetic of noise and its correlation with the
overabundance of content online.

The artwork suggests that the constant visual and auditive interference
have left no room for contemplation and have abstracted any form of
comprehension of our modern world, challenged daily by the myriad
of different “truths” offered to us by biased media and algorithms. The
constant noise of our digitally mediated life is here represented visually
through the artist’s lens.
Guillaume Knobloch
images:

56 57
 NOT A DAY

ART
CHIMI DORITO

IMAGE
NOT A DAY is a single channel video installation of a durational
performance about grief and self-loathing. The artist’s relationship with
their body and long history of chronic pain is achingly put on display
through the artist’s repeated singing of the song ‘Not a day goes by’ by
Stephen Sondheim.

As the artist contorts their naked body while belting the lyrics “you won’t
go away, and so there’s hell to pay, until the day I die, I will die day after day
until the days go by”, the camera captures the body as disconnected entities,
each telling their own story. The piece builds to a full body performance,
shown as an act of hope that one day the patterns of disassociation and
mourning will one day dissipate. The video then starts again, played on
loop, true to the cyclical nature of trauma and healing.
Guillaume Knobloch
image:

58 59
 Le champ d’un corps d’eau
MARIANNE ROUCHE

ART Le champ d’un corps d’eau is a 28-minute, single-channel video work

composed of abstract visuals of light and water. The footage magnifies

IMAGE
the infinitely small yet vast landscapes that bodies of water generate,
and reflects upon the interwoven relationship between simplicity and
complexity, order and chaos. In a paradigm in which the notion of time
implies speed, efficiency, and utility, this slow meditation questions what
it means to be present.

In the quest to explore water’s materiality, the work mobilizes haptic

imagery by using formal techniques such as ambiguous, grainy imagery,
and extreme close-ups of water to immerse the viewer sensorially;
disintegrating the figure/ground distinction and blurring the boundaries
between self and image. The accompanying soundscape is composed of
synchronous field recordings of water, and original compositions born
out of individual collaborations with two electronic music composers:
Daniel Cortica and Simon Talbot.
Guillaume Knobloch
image:

60 61
 </> a fact is the
destruction of meaning
MIMI ALLARD ART
IMAGE
</> a fact is the destruction of meaning explores transparency and opacity
both as phenomena and metaphors. The interconnections and points of
friction between the seemingly opposite notions are staged in a sculptural
installation, where transparent, reflective and opacified surfaces are
sharing space.

While transparency represents a highly sought for and positive value,

it can simultaneously become a means of control and surveillance. The
project reveals another paradigm, re-centering opacity as a vital force that
is, like indeterminacy and ambiguity, consubstantial to life, repossession
and imagination.

Guillaume Knobloch
image:

62 63
 Doom Scroll
LIZ WATERMAN

ART Doom Scroll is a video installation that examines the relationship between
the viewer and the continuous stream of banal video content on social

IMAGE
media platforms. The video is composed of a seemingly endless number
of TikTok-style videos rapidly “scrolling” from one to the other without
playing all the way through. The individual videos themselves mimic
popular TikTok trends, such as lip syncing to sound clips, acting out
romantic scenarios for the audience, and giving advice.

These ordinary videos are interspersed with jarring footage that subverts
the conventional trend formats of TikTok, which range from heavily
costumed caricatures of these trends to surreal found footage. These
videos, while on an individual scale are at best complete fluff and at worst
uncomfortable to watch, cumulatively become a sensorial cacophony
that desensitizes the viewer to the material being displayed in front of
them. Doom Scroll, which is presented on an unending loop, should
evoke the experience of being physically unable to stop scrolling and the
deep uneasiness that comes from feeling trapped.
Guillaume Knobloch
image:

64 65
 Monkey Owl God

ART
ZAKARI THIBODEAU

IMAGE
Monkey Owl God showcases the impact of an archeological discovery
on society from the perspective of a social media algorithm. Using
emerging AI technology, biotech company Wynn Labs™ has constructed
an audiovisual simulation of the Noctua Simia species based on the
creature’s fossilized bones. This latter becomes the fuel for the genesis of
online sub-cultures.

Given the polarizing nature of the internet, some users think it’s a
complete hoax while others worship the monkey-owl as a new kind of god,
reemerging from the past to deliver an oracle to humanity. Or is Wynn
Labs™ hiding something from the rest of the world? Perhaps the creatures
were brought back from extinction and are being held captive by these
scientists to use for experiments? Is it our job to go rescue these beings?
Monkey Owl God aims to position the viewer in a place of uncertainty,
in which one’s own moral compass is demagnetized, conveying the hyper
linear hypnotism of current social media algorithms.
Guillaume Knobloch
image:

66 67
 emydsamanajt(mer)
PRINCEX NAVEED

ART emydsamanajt(mer) examines aspects of (dis)comfort in trans* sexualities

by integrating sound art into fibre and material practices. Inspired by

IMAGE
pallet beds commonly found in Berlin, an audio play can be experienced
by laying on an installation made out of refurbished wood, while the
sound softly emerges from beneath the listener.

The audio play, entitled Being Saman:e, narrates a fictionalized

ethnography about Saman:e Tomek Fyszer (they/she): a 27 year-old trans-
feminine Pole of mixed descent living in Berlin. Three audio excerpts
(between 3-8 minutes each) serve as vignettes into Saman:e’s life between
Berlin and their hometown in rural Poland. Thematically, the audio play
troubles phenomenons such as queer exile and recreational substance use
by narrating the story of Saman:e’s ‘no strings attached’-relationship with
her cis-gender lover Roy (he/him).

The story is fiction, but the desire was not.

Guillaume Knobloch

Acknowledgements: woodwork by Tom Simpkins (he/him), copy editing by Lewis Blakey (they/
them) and Helle Monne Huisman (she/her), dramaturgy by Chimi Dorito (she/her).
image:

68 69
 Visibility of Grief

ART
RHYS BUHL

IMAGE
Visibility of Grief is a commemorative public submission project seeking
to process community grief associated with the Canadian opioid crisis.
Through the symbolic folding of paper flowers, the artist renders tangible
the burden of living with such heavy grief. Manifesting in a memorial
sculpture, acts of personal labor, public contribution, care, and endurance
bring attention to the growing death toll directly caused by government
inaction. The project includes submissions of poetry, prayers, reflections,
letters to loved one(s), images, photos, drawings, handwritten notes,
contributed through a Google Form (bit.ly/visibilityofgrief ).

While this project is about grief processing and commemoration, the

installation also functions as an interactive way for visitors to encounter
the effects of this crisis, whether familiar or for the first time. Participants
may look through the submission catalog, as well as discover the names
of loved ones and various selected quotes by shining a UV flashlight on
invisible ink painted throughout the installation. By transforming the
installation under a black light, the artist pinpoints the difficult tension
Guillaume Knobloch

between visibility and invisibility with respect to the highly stigmatized

topic of substance use and grief surrounding overdose deaths.
images:

70 71
 meh · muh · ree(z)

a reflective essay by Princex Naveed

“I stand at the shore

The waves crash into me
I’m finally free of your memory”
- Com Truise (2017)

Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke: ‘Center-Point Cycle (45.4704492, -73.6044496)’

Two months after our group show has passed, I am sitting at home
thinking about what memory is worth sharing with you. Yet, I ask
myself: what is ‘memory’ in the first place? A quick google search leaves
me unsatisfied: memory is defined as 1.) thinking about the past, 2.) a
branch of cognition, or 3.) computer storage. I feel there is a mismatch
between these text-book definitions of memory, which to me seem very
unilateral, disembodied, and mechanical, and the various ways memory
as a motive manifested across different art works in Nth Space: distributed
presence. Does memory simply exist in our brain or hard-drives waiting to
be retrieved? Is memory something passive, maybe even disengaged, like
the online dictionaries suggest?

The first piece that came to my mind for this essay refutes these
definitions by questioning what reality is in the first place. In his video
installation Center-Point Cycle (45.4704492, -73.6044496) [2022],
Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke pieced together XXX video frames of the same
Sam Meech

Laurence Baril: ‘Don’t delete your notes’

images:

72 73
 highway to create one cohesive video-collage. For me as a viewer, the very her single channel video installation NOT A DAY [2022], Chimi Dorito
act of transforming something as mundane as a highway into a highly demonstrates what it means to use one’s own body as a site of memory in
aestheticised representation of a plain reality struck me. What followed the form of durational performance. Her installation is a loop in which
was an almost child-like quest of tracing a single car along all the others we view different parts of Chimi Dorito’s dissociated body, as she sings
and seeing it disappear, as it moved from one frame into another. Here, Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Not A Day Goes By’. Chimi Dorito strikingly
Mikolic-O’Rourke presents us with a ‘non-site’ like a highway, which depicts trauma as a never-ending embodied memory by singing over and
usually is too mundane to be acknowledged, to illustrate how memory over again: ‘you won’t go away, and so there’s hell to pay, until the day I die, I
as an act requires installing competing and coexisting views over each will die day after day until the days go by’. At the same time, she repeatedly
other. breaks up the cycle of pain through moments of care, as we come to see
Entangling observations are also at the core of Laurence Baril’s practice. Chimi Dorito’s body being represented in its entirety towards the end of
In her net art project Don’t delete your notes [2022], Baril dedicates each loop. Even now, writing about Chimi Dorito openly grieving her
our attention to another ‘non-site’ of memories through coding history of chronic pain and bodily dissociation feels stomach-churning
dontdeleteyournotes.com - an archive where Baril has uploaded all of to me, because her piece is not something which I remember in my mind
the notes from her phone from 2015 until today. These notes include only, but in my body as well. Hence, we ought to think of memory not
anything and everything: from mundane shopping lists and the address in simple ways like cognition, not residing in our brain alone but in all
of a Berlin hotel, to very personal confessions. Baril goes a step further of our body.
than simply allowing us to bear witness to her personal reality, by daring
us to reveal our “innermost thoughts” too via uploading the latest note Seeing the liberating potential of remembering through our bodies brings
from our phone to her website. While scrolling through the anonymous me to Rhys Buhl’s ‘memorial sculpture’ Visibility of Grief [2022]. Buhl
submissions, I can relate to the heartbreak ‘poetry’, the unfinished gathered submissions online of individuals who lost a loved one to the
(shopping) lists, and titles in bold with no note written under them. Canadian opioid crisis. In a dark area of the gallery space, each victim is
What started as a hyperpersonal display of multiple memory fragments represented in the form of a folded red or violet paper flower, while the
of Baril’s internal reality then cumulates with visitors’ submission into testimonies of their friends and families can be revealed and read on the
one performative meta-memory. And there is a certain comfort in that I wall by using a UV-flashlight or read in a handmade book presented with
find: we all have very unique thoughts but also can resonate with many the installation. Whether one has a biographical connection to the opioid
of the notes at the same time. In a way, memory is not simply thinking crisis or not, the visitor is left transformed by the interactive nature of
about the past but deciphering multilayered and opaque pasts. Buhl’s installation. While the narratives of the bereaved being the centre
of Buhl’s work, the grieving process is rendered not only tangible through
Yet, how do remember an experience which cannot solely be thought her work’s physicality but the memory is also experienced by us in an
of in terms of words or visuals but primarily as sensory perceptions? In inherently embodied manner.

74 75
 By writing this essay, I did not want to plainly think about our past
exhibition, but think through our shared past (exhibition) in an incomplete
attempt of re-defining memory. In the end, these four artworks allow
us to widen the way we come to conceptualise memory by making the
case for opaque definitions of it. In his project description, Mikolic-
O’Rourke’s claims that “reality is constructed, not simply perceived” from
which I deduce both a rejection of the existence of a disengaged objective
reality as well as a call for configuring objectivity as multiple entangled
subjectivities. Moreover, both Chimi Dorito and Buhl allow us to think
about memory not being transmitted narratively alone, as they succeeded
in transmitting a publicly invisible but multi-sensorial memory from
one body to another by focusing on the affective dimension of these
memories. Ultimately, memory is more than thinking about the past, Chimi Dortio: ‘NOT A DAY’

because some pasts have never ceased; their presence is distributed into
our present across nth spaces.

Guillaume Knobloch,
Sam Meech

Rhys Buhl: ‘Visibility of Grief’

images:

76 77
 ABOUT THE ARTISTS Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke @sid.baron
Intermedia artist Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke employs a variety of audiovisual and digital
media to re-conceptualise our understanding of biological, industrial and computer-based
systems.

Bashir Al Mahayni https://youtube.com/user/bboybeasho

Bashir is a bboy and movement artist originally from Damascus, Syria and now resides in
Montréal, Canada. His research revolves around the transcendence of human movement.

Chimi Dorito https://chimidorito.com @chimidorito

Chimi Dorito is the artist moniker of Selene Reya Leon. Chimi speaks the truth Selene is
too afraid to speak. Relentlessly, she digs deep to drudge up the darkest inner secrets of a
wounded girl seeking transformation.

Donnie Freeman @donnie.freeman

Donnie Freeman is a 24-year-old interdisciplinary artist hailing from Montréal, Quebec.
Born the sixth child of eight from an Egyptian father and Italian mother.

Emery Vanderburgh @emy.other

Emery Vanderburgh is an intermedia artist and disability advocate. Her work presents
colorful, surreal explorations of the self, disability, new materialism, and queerness.

Émile Foucher https://efoucher.studio @efoucher.studio

Émile’s approach is a hybrid of research-based and experimental processes, informed by the
front row from left:
fields of graphic design and urban studies.
Princex Naveed, Laurence Baril, Liz Waterman, Chimi Dorito,
Marianne Rouche, Yair Golombik Bjorn @bjorn.corbeil
Bjorn makes videos full of pumping adrenaline, absurd comedy and over the top violence.
He hopes that someday mosh pits will be allowed in cinemas.
back row from left:
Emery Vanderburgh, illiez, Rhys Buhl, Zakari Thibodeau, illiez @illeyai
Bashir Al Mahayni, Theo Ulrich, William Humphrey, A creative fabricator, illiez uses a variety of media in an attempt to shed light on the
alterity and alienation that can arise from intersubjective experience.
Jessie-Jamz Ozaeta, Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke, Bjorn
Jessie-Jamz Ozaeta https://lillonely.com
not pictured: Jessie-Jamz Ozaeta is a Montréal-based intermedia artist whose work reflects on ego and
narcissism in the digital age by interweaving 3D worldbuilding and music.
Mimi Allard, Émile Foucher, Nick Everett, Donnie Freeman
Laurence Baril @sirpathetik
Laurence Baril’s work concerns manipulation of both personal and impersonal memories,
voyeurism and its relation to intimacy, through photography, video, and web art.

78 79
 Liz Waterman @aphex.redditor
Liz Waterman is a post-internet video artist using appropriated footage and digital collage
to explore society’s adaptation to the ever-growing dominance of the internet.

Marianne Rouche @aman_rien

Marianne Rouche is a videographer, performer and sensory ethnographer interested in
phenomenology or, the subjective how and what it feels like to experience the world.

Mimi Allard https://mimia.cargo.site

Tiohtià:ke/Montréal-based artist Mimi Allard works with sound synthesis and collaged
media, seeking to engage with deep perceptions and states of [sub] liminality.

Nicholas Everett
Interested in sounds, noises, movement, symmetry, simple expressions of complex systems,
and the zone of proximal development.

Princex Naveed @princex_naveed

Artist-ethnographer and educator Princex Naveed problematizes ordinary objects and
everyday actions as destructive habits in their installation, performance, and documentary
media practice.

Rhys Buhl @thatssorhys

Artist and writer Rhys Buhl uses video, performance, and installation techniques to
investigate the role of spirituality in a secular-settler society. Her practice engages with
ritual-making and the veneration of icons in their potential for community-building and
healing.

Theo Ulrich @jeunep2

Born in New York but raised in Paris. Initially attracted to cinema, Theo has since
diverged into different practices surrounding digital media like video art, sound art and
collage art.

William Humphrey www.willegh.com @telekinok

William Humphrey tampers with video mechanisms and imaging technologies in order to
fragment them into a world of unseen sights, unheard sounds, and unconscious memories.

Yair Golombik @yair_golombik

Originally from Tel Aviv, Israel, Yair Golombik is a video artist and writer whose works
deal with mundane, everyday topics, such as millennial angst, #adulting and boredom.
Laurence Baril,

Zakari Thibodeau @zakari.thibodeau

Sam Meech

Intermedia artist Zakari Thibodeau aims to reveal the ways in which behavior is often
images:

conditioned or reconfigured by the widespread use of social media and attention-driven

interface design.

80 81
 DEDICATED TO MARTIN PEACH

Martin was a greatly beloved and respected technician in Concordia’s

Intermedia Program in the Department of Studio Arts.

Since 2001, Martin has been helping students realize their media arts
projects. He was nicknamed ‘The Wizard’ since no idea or problem -
however grand or complex - was too difficult for him to solve. He was
a brilliant programmer, circuit and sound designer. With his originality,
creativity and phenomenal expertise, he inspired and mentored many
generations of artists.

Martin was also a valued contributor and collaborator in many artists’

studios, including those of Bill Vorn, Lorraine Oades, Barbara Layne,
Laurence Baril

Ingrid Bachmann and many, many more. His expertise and generosity
will remain a lasting contribution to the Electronic Arts in Canada.
images:

He was also a committed environmentalist and avid cyclist. He liked to

draw on paper and guitars.

82 83
EXHIBITION CREDITS

Exhibition Chair Technical Co-ordination

Rhys Buhl illiez (Team Lead), Nick Everett, Bjorn

Curatorial Team Technical Support

Marianne Rouche, Mimi Allard Benoît Chaussé, Roby Provost
Blanchard, Sam Bordeleau
Exhibition Team
Rhys Buhl (Team Lead), Princex Naveed, Photography
Theo Ulrich, William Humphrey Guillaume Knobloch, Laurence Baril

Finance Eastern Bloc team

Rhys Buhl - (Team Lead), Alicia Turgeon, Camille Desjardins,
Emery Vanderburgh, illiez Yannick Bedard

Graphic Design Printing

Zakari Thibodeau (Team Lead), Chimi Solutions Rubiks
Dorito, Yair Golombik, Liz Waterman
Financial Support
Publications Fine Arts Student Association
Emery Vanderburgh (Team Lead), Concordia Student Union
Jessie-Jamz Ozaeta, Zakari Thibodeau, Concordia University Small Grants
Laurence Baril Program
...and everyone who attended the IMCA
Social Media party fundraiser :)
Chimi Dorito (Team Lead),
Liz Waterman, Yair Golombik

Web Development
Émile Foucher (Team Lead),
Chimi Dorito, Laurence Baril

84
A graduating exhibition of twenty artists from the
Intermedia undergraduate program at Concordia,
questioning symbiotic techno-human relationships
across video, performance, and installation art.

An important record of a significant show at a most

peculiar time. The first physical exhibition since the
start of a global pandemic, featuring hybrid artists
on a hybrid program taught both online and in person.

This book features documentation of the exhibition

and all 20 artworks, along with interviews with the
artists and a reflective essay on the show.

CONCORDIA
STUDENT
UNION

originally presented at
Eastern Bloc, MTL
April 21-23, 2022 9 781525 112492