Category Archives: Events

Table of contents – SHAUNA JANSSEN

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SHAUNA JANSSEN

“Making Site-Specific Art and the Politics of the Event of Place”

FEBRUARY 4th
4-6 PM – TOPOLOGICAL MEDIA LAB

Shauna is an urban curator with a background in theatre and interdisciplinary studies. She received her Ph.D in Humanities (2014), Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University, where she has also taught in the Departments of Theatre and Art History. Her current research focuses on the cultural politics of postindustrial urban spaces in relation to themes of public space, queer space, community activism, spatial justice, post-humanism, material and performative practices. In 2010, Shauna founded Urban Occupations Urbaines, a curatorial platform for artists, communities and the public to creatively and critically engage with cities and urban change. As an urban curator of collaborative, spatial, social, and communal actions within and upon the city of Montreal, Shauna has worked with La Fonderie Darling, the Griffintown Horse Palace Foundation, Heritage Montreal, Centaur Theatre, Montréal Arts Interculturel, Le Corridor culturel de Griffintown, Le Sud-Ouest de Montréal, Parks Canada, and the Centre d’histoire de Montréal. Recently, Shauna served as co-director and curator of Points de vue, a montreal based socially-engaged and activist art platform. Shauna’s writing has appeared in On Site and Ceramic Review. Shauna has also given public lectures and presentations at The Canadian Centre for Architecture (Ephemeral City, 2010), Articule (“Would you be my curator?” 2012), and The McCord Museum (City Talks, 2013). Shauna is an affiliate of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Concordia University.

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Table of contents – ANDREW FORSTER

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ANDREW FORSTER

“Creepy”

FEBRUARY 11th
4-6 PM – TOPOLOGICAL MEDIA LAB

Andrew Forster is a visual artist. His work includes collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects, installation, live events for public space, prformance-video, sculpture and design for public space. Current work has two primary directions: firstly, movement-based performance, installation, video-installation, shown in visual art and dance venues (both as solo work and in collaboration) and, secondly, public text installations, design for public space and responses to art-in-architecture and urban design competitions (in collaboration with design professionals). Past work includes: a touring production of Samuel Beckett’s That Time (with artist Michael Fernandes); the development of the winning design in a competition for a new entrance to Place des Arts, Montreal (with architects Atelier Big City); Cinema, a performace in public space for an audience seated indoors (SAT, Place de la paix, Montreal); a performance for 75 people entitled En masse, (with choreographer Suzanne Miller); Ossip, a dance performance based on the poetry of Ossip Mandelstam. Current ‘research’ is about contemporary art as a critical practice in relationship to design practice (art in the space of design). MA thesis was on the design for public space and architecture of Vito Acconci. Forster teaches part-time in the Department of Design and Computation Arts with a focus on art and design as tools for investigating urban issues and public space. He has participated in several invitational design competitions for public space, notably with Atelier Big City: Place des Arts, Montreal (2002); identity program for ‘Quartier des spectacles’, Montreal (2004); and the Gatineau Monument Competition (2005).

http://www.reluctant.ca/

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Table of contents – DAVID MORRIS: The Place of Animal Being

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DAVID MORRIS

FEBRUARY 18th
4-6 PM – TOPOLOGICAL MEDIA LAB

David Morris co-director of the TML, is expert in the field of phenomenology with a focus on the philosophy of the body, mind and nature in relation to current biology and cognitive science. Morris is currently working on a SSHRC funded research and book project that focuses on issues of development and ontology in Merleau-Ponty and current biology. Morris has published articles, conference proceedings, as well as the book, “The Sense of Space” (SUNY Press: 2004). Morris has organized and presented at international conferences, and is also experienced at organizing workshops, such as the Interdisciplinary Workshop on the “Future of Development: Concepts, Insights, and Challenges” in 2013.

https://concordia.academia.edu/DavidMorris

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Table of contents – ALBERTO PEREZ-GOMEZ

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ALBERTO PEREZ-GOMEZ 

“Place and Architectural Space”

MARCH 4th
4-6 PM – TOPOLOGICAL MEDIA LAB

Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City in 1949 and became a Canadian Citizen and a Quebec resident in 1987. He obtained his undergraduate degree in architecture and engineering in Mexico City, did postgraduate work at Cornell University, and was awarded a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. by the University of Essex in England. He has taught at universities in Mexico City, Houston, Syracuse, and Toronto, at the Architectural Association in London, and was Director of the Carleton University School of Architecture from 1983 to 1986. He has lectured extensively worldwide.

His numerous articles have been published in the Journal of Architectural Education, AA Files, Arquitecturas Bis, Section A, VIA, Architectural Design,ARQ, SKALA, A+U, Perspecta, and many other periodicals. His first book in English, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award in 1984, a prize awarded every two years for the most significant work of scholarship in the field.

In January 1987 Pérez-Gómez was appointed Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of Architecture at McGill University, where he directs the History and Theory option. From March 1990 to June 1993, he was also the Founding Director of the Institut de recherche en histoire de l’architecture, a research institute which he instigated, co-sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Université de Montréal and McGill University. Students of Dr. Pérez-Gómez now teach most Canadian architecture programs, and in many North American and European Universities.

Dr. Pérez-Gómez is the author of Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited (MIT Press, 1992), an erotic narrative/theory of architecture that retells the love story of the famous fifteenth century novel/treatise Hypnerotomachia Poliphiliin late twentieth-century terms, a text that has become the source of numerous projects and exhibitions. He is also co-editor of a now well-established series of books entitled CHORA: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture (McGill-Queen’s University Press), which collects essays exploring fundamental questions concerning the practice of architecture through its history and theories. A recent major book co-authored with Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (MIT Press, 1997), traces the history and theory of modern European architectural representation, with special reference to the role of projection in architectural design. In his most recent book, Built Upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics(MIT Press, 2006), Pérez-Gómez examines points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural history and philosophy, and draws important conclusions for contemporary practice.

http://www.mcgill.ca/architecture/faculty/perez

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Table of contents – MATTHEW-ROBIN NYE

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MATTHEW-ROBIN NYE

“Architecture… in Process”

APRIL 1st
4-6 PM – TOPOLOGICAL MEDIA LAB

Queer Space can be concrete or abstract: a space expressed in the material dimensions of the built environment, or conjured through social and discursive practices. At present, my research and production explores and maps its political potential and aesthetic dimensions through the latter, articulated in relation to social and visual arts practices. A queer orientation towards a subject is inherently a dis-orientation. Architecture, in its present form, aids in the entrenchment of oppressive social structures that benefit the few at the expense of the many. Disorientation as a queer tool is also a spatial gambit: A re-orienting of Architecture through the lens of queerness shifts it away from the production of hegemonic structures towards a landscape versed in resistance to the norm.Matthew-Robin Nye is an interdisciplinary artists with an education and professional background in the architectural and construction industry. His current research is concerned with the definition and production of Utopic Queer Architectural Space through oral history projects, performance, video work and installation. Formerly a member of the Flux Factory collective in New York City, he has exhibited, lectured and held residencies in Canada, the United States, South America and Europe. Notable collaborations include projects with The Art Gallery of York University (CAN), Paper Tiger Television (US), Greenpeace, Raketa Press (SE) and recently, the premier of ‘SEROCENE’ at the MIX NYC Experimental Queer Film Festival. Presently, Matthew-Robin Nye is a participant in the SenseLab, and is currently preparing a curatorial project on Architecture by Artists in Vancouver, opening in 2015.

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To Live in the Age of Melting: Northwest Passage

PosterDesign-november28

Screening at the lab of the film:

To Live in the Age of Melting: Northwest Passage

Where: Topological Media Lab
When: Friday November 28th
Time: 7PM

Please join us Friday, November 28th at the Topological Media Lab for a special screening of a new film by Evalyn parry (Toronto) and Elysha Poirier (Montreal).

To Live in the Age of Melting: Northwest Passage traverses the territory between live performance and film in a unique collaboration between theatre innovator and musician evalyn parry and visual/projections artist Elysha Poirier.  Taking iconic Canadian folk song ‘Northwest Passage’ as a point of departure, the film embarks on an evocative visual and sonic journey that travels from Franklin’s doomed 19th century expedition to contemporary Arctic sovereignty.  Climate change, the human nervous system, colonial legacy, and ‘tradition’ are woven into a provocative tale of what happens when the North – and parts of ourselves  – begin to melt.

There will be a short presentation after the film, followed by an open discussion.  This includes the recent discovery of one of the lost ships from Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition.

Evalyn  Parry

Steeped in the folk tradition but born to innovate, evalyn parry’s genre-blurring work is inspired by intersections of social activism, history and autobiography.  An award-winning songwriter, poet and theatre creator, she’s best known for her innovative show SPIN – featuring a bicycle played as a musical instrument – which has toured the continent. www.evalynparry.com

Elysha Poirier

Elysha Poirier is a visual artist and designer working in various forms of performance, theatre and installation. Her methods in painting and design have been adapted to video for live interaction and scenography. She has performed with a diversity of artists stemming from dance, experimental music, film and theatre and is also a researching artist at the Topological Media Lab (Concordia University) working with students, faculty and international artists focused on movement, experimental philosophy and architecture.  www.elyshapoirier.com

 

Pre-mediation show

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Pre-mediation show

Where: Topological Media Lab, EV.7.725
When: Thusday november 27th
Time: 6:30 PM
Navid Navab and Felix Del Tredici are joined by local musicians and other members of TML in a night of improvised hallucinations within TML’s responsive ecology. Standing upon nothing and going nowhere at all, we will drip, drift, clash, clang, sweep, swish, expand, sneeze and fall into the warmth of a winter’s night. Bring your own boots and blankets.

Navid Navab

Responsive Sound Instruments

Navid Navab is a Montreal-based Alkemist, composer/improvisor, and media artist. Interested in the poetics of gesture, materiality, and embodiment, his work explores the social lives of objects and the enrichment of their inherent performative qualities. Navid uses gestures, rhythms and vibrations from everyday life as basis for real-time sound generation, resulting in augmented acoustical-poetry that enchants improvisational and pedestrian movements. His works, which range from gestural sound compositions to responsive architecture, site specific interventions, theatrical interactive installations, interactive scenographies, and improv-based performances, have been presented at various museums, festivals, and events worldwide.

Felix Del Tredici

Bass Trombone
A native of Montreal, Felix Del Tredici strives to push the boundaries of the bass trombone through interdisciplinary collaborations, the commissioning of new works, and improvisation. The New York Times has described Del Tredici as an “extraordinarily versatile trombonist” who gives performances that are “disturbing yet fascinating” and “hair-raisingly virtuosic”. He has studied at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, and is a member of the Fonema Consort, the New York Trombone Consort, and Ensemble Moto Perpetuo.

Architecture Concordia at TML

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Architecture Concordia at TML

Where: Topological Media Lab, Concordia, Ev-7.725
When: Friday november 21
Time: 6PM

Architecture Concordia’s first speaker series presents:

Indra Kagis McEwen

“Plečnik perennis? A Slovenian architect’s conversation with antiquity.”

Website: http://art-history.concordia.ca/people/faculty/mcewen_kagis_indra.php

jake moore

Hot Spot: a Montréal artist’s conversation with public space
(prompted by the architectural projection, Murs aveugles (Blind Walls), 2014, Isabelle Hayeur)

The recent removal of Isabelle Hayeur’s architectural projection, MURS AVEUGLES, from the BNL MTL has sparked outrage amongst many artists as well as business owners and community members of the “Main”. Those concerned have emotional depths in parallel but their reasons for this disquiet are glaringly distinct. Many feel the threat to freedom of expression is the pinnacle of rights to be protected while many community members, including the owner of the building that Hayeur projected onto, feel the work was incendiary and posed a threat to the building and her business’s well being.
This public art work then becomes the locus of discussion around notions of public, property, architecture as defensible space as well as the internal and external divisions and definitions of building itself. The particular site is deeply contested and welcomes a critical analysis of the multiple social spaces being activated, articulated and occupied here.

Website : http://www.studioxx.org/en/entity/jake-moore

To be held in The Topological Media Lab: Concordia University on 7th floor of the East side of the Engineering and Visual Arts Complex. Room EV-7.725. 6 PM

https://www.facebook.com/events/491019267725636/

Plant-Thinking Seminar

AA

PLANT-THINKING SEMINAR

Based on the book Plant Thinking : A Philosophy of Vegetal Life by Michael Marder, this reading seminar is a starting point for discussion and aims at engaging and nurturing a creative community of thought interested in a better understanding of vegetal life.

SCHEDULE

Start: November 7th
End: December 19th
Weekly meeting, every Friday 2-4PM (11AM-1PM, Phoenix)

Nov 7– Week 1: Overview of the book, discussion

Nov 14 – Week 2: Chapter 1
Presentation:
-Sonifying Plants Project by Andy Poblete
Notes of the week here

Nov 21 – Weeks 3: Chapter 2
reschedule of the meeting with Michael Marder for Dec. 5th

Nov 28 – Weeks 4: Chapter 2
Presentation:
-Desert Life by Byron Lahey and Amy Renee
-Arctic Life by Elysha Poirier and Katherine

Dec 4 – Weeks 5: Chapters 3 & 4
Presentation:
-Laura Boyd-Clowes or Natasha Myers (TBC)
This week, Michael Marder himself will be joining the Plant-Thinking conversation in the first hour of our seminar for a Q&A.
Exceptionally, the seminar will be at the Ressource Center (EV 11.725)

Dec 11th – vernissage Le Possible/The Possible by Cynthia Hammond

Dec 12 – Weeks 6: Chapters 3 & 4
Artist talk by Dr Cynthia Hammond
Title: Le Possible
http://www.cynthiahammond.com/
Abstract: In October 2014, the Canadian-Pacific Railway company bulldozed a section of a protected urban landscape in Montreal, called Le Champ des possibles, or the field of possibilities. This landscape had been given the status of a public park in 2013, but compared to most of Montreal’s green spaces, it is a very unusual park. Formed initially through the construction of the railway, this postindustrial landscape self-seeded during a generation of municipal neglect. In time, its indeterminate characteristics and remarkable biodiversity endeared it to nearby residents. It has also been home to itinerant populations, numerous art installations and events, and many species of plant, bird, and insect. In this seminar,Cynthia Hammond will present the urban and biogeographical history of Le Champ, and talk about the vitality of human-biological collaboration on the site since 2009. She will also present her project in progress, Le Possible, a response to and call for action about the recent devastation. Le Possible is a collaboration with artist Camille Bédard, urban curator Shauna Janssen, architect Itai Peleg, and urban naturalist Roger Latour. This work will be on display at Studio XX from Dec. 11-Dec 20th, as part of
the exhibition, To Participate, curated by Mark Clintberg and Erandy Vergara-Vargas.

 

Dec 19 – Week 7: Chapters 4 & 5
project presentation and discussion
(double long session)

RESSOURCES

READINGS

Patterns of growth and perception: the site, the city and the wild by Flower Lunn 

“Tree Rings,” The Atlantic by Hugh Crawford

DOCUMENTATION

 http://vegetal.posthaven.com 

http://vegetal.posthaven.com/polytemporal-timelapses-of-plss-plants

Plant-thinking Vimeo’s group

Plant Thinking and Human Movement, project by Oana Suteu Khintirian

Interview with Michael Marder on Plant-Thinking 

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Jamoma Training

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The Jamoma training will be hosted by TML artist-researchers working with this program. They will present and explain different examples and provide a DIY hands-on workshop.

NEXT WORKSHOPS

October 22th, 12-3, With Evan Montpellier

This workshop will cover a set of Jamoma modules for manipulating video in realtime.

Topics that will be covered include:

-Installing Jamoma.
-The Syphon framework of sharing video between applications via the GPU.
-Capturing from multiple live input devices (cameras, playback decks, etc.)
-Postprocessing effects on the GPU via GLSL shaders.
-Basic mixing and compositing.
-Sending and receiving compressed video over local networks or the
internet via TCP.

Participants who wish to follow along with the demonstration should
bring an Apple computer with Max 6 installed, but computers are not
required and anyone is welcome.

November 27th, 12-3, with Nikos Chandolias

 

More info concerning the workshops coming soon !