Montreal's Newest Creativity Festival Brings Electrifying Artwork To Colossal Dome

Three breathtaking new A/V works from Joanie Lemercier & James Ginzburg, 1024 Architects, and Nohista.

April 30, 2014, 4:45pm

It’s the very first edition of Montreal'six (Immersion Experience) Symposium, the Society for Arts and Technology'sshowcaseas part of the city's all-new “Printemps Numérique" digital arts initiative. Scheduled over five days, the "immersive creativity"-centric event will include keynotes, residencies, artist talks, technical and software demos, and a series of audiovisual pieces focused around various themes and digital practices.

Among the several digital artworks to make their global debut inside the SAT's massive 360° dome (known as the Satosphere—a 60-foot-tall planetarium-like structure), three works, Nimbes by Joanie Lemercier & James Ginzburg (1/2 of Emptyset), Quantum by Francois Wunschel & Fernando Favier from 1024 Architecture and IRM by Bruno Ribeiro AKA Nohista have caught our eye in particular:

Nimbes takes the viewer on a dystopian journey through spooky, menacing architectures and landscapes on disproportionate scales. Quantum takes the viewer through a disorienting environment that merges astro-physics and pixel aesthetic codes. Finally, IRM offers a synesthetic exploration of a human body made of generative and dynamic audiovisual elements. The trio of stunning A/V works push audiences to the vanguard of sensorial exploration.

Selected to participate for their abundances of creativity and their expertise in the field of new media arts, not only did each of the artists go beyond the creative limits of the Satosphere, they also went above and beyond their own creative practices. “The idea was to stir up this defining medium with original carte-blanche creations chosen by their respective creators: all new media artists, fresh to this specific spherical format, and able to carry it, by pure intuition, to innovative states of perception in relation to their actual practice[s],” said Louis-Philippe St-Arnault, director of production and of immersive development at SAT.

While the works themselves are out of this world, one thing is certain: the selected artists know how to work within a given space. Each artwork fully maximizes the dome’s impressive technical features, employing it as both a structure and a substrate. The pieces will be up from May 21th, but if you can't make it to Montreal before then, check out some captured moments from the artists' residencies few weeks ago: