Programme

Écouter un mouvement du voir

Since 2005, UQAM’s research and interdisciplinary creations group ARC_PHONO, directed by Mario Côté, has been mandated to record the sounds of typically North American indoor spaces (churches, libraries, newsrooms, shopping centres, hospitals, restaurants, bingo halls, and so on). History, the period in which they were built, the architecture, the materials used, their common functions, as well as the unprecedented development of urban planning have all left their mark on these places. They hold incredibly rich sound opportunities, or “sound identities” as they have been called. From these audio archives, artists were invited to create works that would explore, in a unique manner, the many connections between sounds and images.

The Exhibition Écouter un mouvement du voir (Listening to a visual movement) showcases seven artists who all worked with ARC_PHONO’s audio archives. In their own way, these works allow us to question the relationship between audio and visual phenomena. How can a sound element find its counterpart or evocative nature, its difference or opposition in a unique visual universe? What is the ongoing relationship between these two phenomena—at once in harmony, at once in disharmony? The exhibition invites us to “listen” to the images through the works displayed, which all create an important relationship between images and sounds.