Programming

April 19 — 29, 2021

Stephanie Castonguay

Capturing light frequencies

At home residency followed by a virtual performance presented in collaboration with perte de signal

Friday April 23, 2021, at 6:30pm
As part of the Forum Avantage Numérique (with ticket purchase)

Thursday April 29, 2021, at 8:30pm
On Facebook Live (free)


Modified scanner heads are freely used as experimental instruments and are employed as audiovisual interfaces during performance. Capturing the reflection of physical artifacts, such as minerals, electronic waste and bioplastic materials, these instruments translate the analog world into a poetic vision captured by these machines.

This process of magnification and temporal distortion decontextualizes these material objects to reveal an abstract topographic landscape, reminiscent of the visual aesthetics from a spectral analysis. Echoing the origin of technology, the reappropriation of these devices evokes the concepts of time and memory in an archaeological approach to media.

Capter les fréquences optiques. Stephanie Castonguay © 2021

Capter les fréquences optiques. Stephanie Castonguay © 2021

Partners

Perte de signal
Avantage numérique
The Petman Foundation
Pix Film Collective

This performance was made possible thanks to the generous technical support of perte de signal. The creation of instruments was supported by the PIX FILM collective during the Studio Immersion Program residency made possible thanks to the financial support of the Petman Foundation, as well as the support of the Fond de Recherche du Québec Société et Culture (FRQSC). The artist would also like to thank Raphaël Demers for his collaboration.


Stephanie Castonguay

After studying music and art and teaching herself how to use inductive sensors, solar panels, DIY amplification circuits, and processing systems to broadcast sounds, Stephanie Castonguay has coupled her academic background with her DIY ethos. Driven by experimentation, she investigates electronic audio circuitry as a physical process and phenomenon that leaves a palpable, audible trace. Her approach to sound and DIY electronics is playful, practical and organic: she disassembles and repurposes small, obsolete, barely audible machines to reveal the resonance, glitches and random sounds unexpectedly hidden within.

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