articule is proud to partner with Cinéma Excentris for the presentation of Tidal Force. This video programme examines the forces of attraction and repulsion, currents, fluctuations that inform our environment as well as our mental landscapes. Using poetry, documentary and humour, the artists contemplate and recreate territories which demonstrates fears related to the other, politics and survival. Developed by articule’s programming committee, Tidal Force gathers works by canadian and international artists.

 

PROGRAMME :

Martin Heuser, Delicious Cake, Göteborg SWE, 2 min 30 s, colour, sound, 2011
Jo-Anne Balcaen, Mt Rundle, Montréal CAN, 3 min 15 s, colour, en, 2012
Emily Mennerdahl, Topography of Sea, Stockholm SWE, 16 min, sweden with english subtitles, 2010
Jennie Thwing, Plastic Landscape: Woods, Philadelphia USA, 3 min, colour, sound, 2010
Caitlin Thompson, Prairie Nautical, Montréal CAN, 4 min 30 s, colour, sound, 2007
Elise Rasmussen, When the Sun Crosses the Line that Wind Will Rule the Weather, Newfoundland CAN, 8 min 20 s, colour, en, 2009
Chih-Chien Wang, Avalleneda, Montréal CAN, 40 min, coulour, spanish with french subtitles, 2008

 

DETAILS :

 

Martin Heuser, Delicious Cake, 2 min 30 s, 2011

Delicious Cake shows a close up of the mouth of the artist while eating chocolate cake. The sound was captured as best as possible with the use of 4 audio channels. A text distributed to the audience refers to redacted documents obtained from the CIA that described some of their torture techniques.

 

Martin Heuser holds a bachelor's degree in music composition from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre - Brazil (2004), and a master's degree in Fine Arts with specialization in digital media from theC:Art:Media programme at Valand School of Fine Arts, Gothenburg University, Sweden (2009). His video,installations and performance works were presented in Sweden, Spain, Italy and Brazil.

 

 

Jo-Anne Balcaen, Mt Rundle, 3 min 15 s, 2012

Mt Rundle is a video about coincidence, destiny, self-affirmation, and the difficult and unpredictable nature of the creative process. The opening shot reveals an awkwardly rendered mountain landscape painting I made when I was twelve. Unbeknownst to me at that time, I was depicting a scene from my future: Mount Rundle, the iconic mountain that looms large over the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff National Park. It is where I would find myself on an artist residency twenty-five years later, experiencing a severe and poorly-timed case of creative block at one of the art world’s most venerated centers for creativity. 

 

Jo-Anne Balcaen (b. 1971, La Broquerie, Manitoba) is a Montreal-based artist who works primarily in video, sculpture and installation. Her work examines the commercialization of desire through popular culture, and how this creates an infated sense of expectation. Her recent focus has been the relationship between popular music and obsessive female fandom. Since 1995, Balcaen has exhibited her work in venues throughout Quebec, Canada, Europe, and the US.

 

 

Emily Mennerdahl, Topography of Sea, 16 min, 2010

This work takes as a starting point the portrayal of a landscape and a consideration of the relationship we sustain to a specific place. It continues to explore the construction of an image; the cinematic and the photographic as well as the structure of narrative and language.

 

The video is filmed in a fishing village on an island off the west coast of Sweden. However, the intention was always to create an anonymous and isolated landscape. It is evident that we are somewhere in the north yet exact time or place cannot be defined. It is filmed with long uninterrupted takes, taking the moving image into the direct stillness of a photograph. Long shots are used to create a pause within time and a correlation between stasis and mobility, movement and arrest. The imagery shifts from interior to exterior, portrait to landscape. The common denominator is the absence of movement and an austere sensibility.

 

The narrative is non-linear and there is no obvious end or beginning. A young woman narrates the script in Swedish with subtitles in English. As the story unfolds we understand that the voice and subtitles are not in sync. Telling the same story in different languages a narrative unfolds about a mother and a daughter, landscape, belonging, loss , absence and time.
 

 

Emily Mennerdahl is a visual artist working in video, subtle interventions/performances, sculptures and artist books. Her works are conceptual explorations about landscape and belonging. She is currently based in Stockholm, Sweden where she is originally from. She holds an MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University,Montreal, Canada and a BA (Hons) in Photography from Manchester School of Art, Manchester, U.K. Emily's work has been included in exhibitions in the U.K, Sweden and Canada and she is the recipienct of several awards. She is a founding member of the curatorial project and works part time as Associate Lecturer in photography at in the U.K.

 

 

Jennie Thwing, Plastic Landscape: Woods, 3 min, 2010
One in a series of animated videos depicting man's destructive relationship with nature.

 

Jennie Thwing is an artist, curator and educator who specializes in video and new media. Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally and she is a member artist in several recognized artist collectives in Philadelphia and New York. Her involvement in the art world directly infuences her teaching as she brings to her students an informed perspective on New Media in Art.

 

 

Caitlin Thompson, Prairie Nautical, 4 min 30 s, 2007
Calgary's unsuspecting Kensington neighbourhood is overrun by soft-sculptural sea creatures. Two sets of mollusk twins navigate alleys, streets and river banks in search of other worlds secretly pooling behind garage doors.

 

Caitlin Thompson is a sculpture graduate from the Alberta College of Art and Design. She have received grants from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council and have participated in residencies at Est-Nord-Est, Art Shanty Projects and Struts Gallery. She currently living in Montreal.

 

 

Elise Rasmussen, When the Sun Crosses the Line that Wind Will Rule the Weather, 8 min 20 s, 2009

When the Sun Crosses the Line That Wind Will Rule the Weather is a series of works considering aspects of Newfoundland culture, how this is being preserved and redefined in the present day. This two-channel 16mm film juxtaposes the extinction of the Beothuk tribe with the collapse of the cod fishery. It draws from stories specific to their locale and act as a microcosm to examine larger issues such as concepts of representation, colonization and the displacement of people.

 

Elise Rasmussen (born 1977, Edmonton, Canada / lives in New York, USA)received her BFA from Ryerson University (2004) and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) where she was awarded a full tuition Merit Scholarship. She has exhibited in the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, and is represented by Erin Stump Projects in Toronto, Canada. Her works explore topics as diverse as female piracy and the Strait of Gibraltar, the Beothuk and fishery of Newfoundland, feminism and misogyny in Ancient Greece, French youth culture, love, and how art makes people sick. Elise lives in Brooklyn and is currently working on a project investigating the death of Ana Mendieta and her problematic relationship with Carl Andre.

 

 

Chih-Chien Wang, Avalleneda, 40 min, 2008
"In Avellaneda, two groups of people gather around an old factory. Inside, the factory is flooded. Four people prepare to enter the water-filled space; they stand in the middle and sing. Outside the factory, a group of theatre people talk about their environment, their city and the fact that it has snowed for the first time in eighty-nine years. They also talk about their mission to improve patients’ rights at the hospital. The project shows people inside and outside a space—gathering, leaving and gathering again. Not solely concerned with issues brought up in their discussions or in the songs, the project illustrates connections among the people: how they move among each other, and how the group, as a whole, re-forms itself."

 

Courtesy of the artist and Pierre-François Ouellette Gallery

 

Born in Taiwan, Chih-Chien Wang has been living in Montreal since 2002. He obtained a BFA in Theatre and Cinema from the Chinese Culture University in Taipei in 1994, and worked for several television companies producing documentaries before moving to Canada. Wang obtained an MFA in Studio Arts at Concordia University in 2006. Wang has participated in residency programs at Prim (Montreal, 2005), El Basilisco (Buenos Aires, 2007) and Sagamie (Alma, 2008). Since 2004, Wang's works have been seen in exhibitions held in Montreal, Lausanne, Milan, New York, Ping Yao, Peterborough, Toronto, Boston, Miami and Beijing. Recent solo and group exhibitions include, in Montreal at Optica, Artefact, Dare-Dare (Mois de la photo à Montréal 2007), and the 2008 Quebec Triennial at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; in Toronto at Gallery 44 and as part of Nuit Blanche; and in Beijing at Zenith Gallery (2008). His work can found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée de l'Elysée (Lausanne), le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and in several corporate and private collections.

Special projects  

Participating Artists:
Curator(s):
Credits: Image : Emily Mennerdahl, Topography of Sea (image fixe), 16 min, 2010