Biennale de Montreal 2002 -> Review

—> Biennale de Montreal 2002 <—-

The Centre International d'Art Contemporain de Montreal's (CIAC)
recently held its third edition of the Biennale de Montreal
(http://www.ciac.ca/biennale2002/index.htm) featuring a selection of
web art works. The CIAC, a Montreal-based arts institution, has been
active in promoting web art since 1997. The Electronic Magazine of
the CIAC (http://www.ciac.ca/magazine), founded by Sylvie Parent who
was its editor from 1997 to 2001 and curator of the first two
Biennales (1998 http://www.ciac.ca/biennale/index.html + 2000
http://www.ciac.ca/biennale2000/), has been a major force in
promoting and presenting web art in Montreal and to the French and
English communities of Canada as well as internationally. Over the
years the magazine has featured interviews with, and works by, many
of the most important Canadian and international web artists of the
recent years.

This third Biennale de Montreal continues in the CIAC's commitment to
including web art in an event which predominantly features
traditional forms of art making such as painting, drawing, photo, and
installation. The web component of the Biennale was unfortunately
only featured online and not in Quartier Ephemere's "Foundry Darling"
(http://www.quartierephemere.org/fonderie/index.html) located in Old
Montreal where the exhibition was held. This former factory was
recently beautifully renovated by the Montreal-based architectural
collective Atelier In Situ (http://www.insitu.qc.ca/), whose practice
is focused on the integration of digital technology into historical
architectural sites. Although this was a missed opportunity to
display the works of the selected web artists in a more visually
expanded installation format, the selection of the web works in
"Aesthetics = Ethics" curated by Anne-Marie Boivert, the CIAC's
current web art curator and editor of the Electronic Magazine were
noteworthy for their colourful playfulness.

The ten works selected for the show stem from conventions of play and
identity politics. The first set of web works investigate the
relationships forged online through the means of self-expression,
communication and collectivity as displayed through the aegis of
mediated identities. Many of the works are in fact developed from the
notion of the self-portrait - expanding on the possibilities of
reflexivity and self discovery. Stemming from the Biennale's main
overarching theme "Life is life!…Pleasures, passions, emotions" the
second set of web works are articulated around concepts of pleasure,
escape and artifice.

Self / Mediated Identities

Anonymous' (Nino Rodriguez) "Portrait of the Artist as a Home Page"
(http://www.geocities.com/portraitoftheartistasahomepage/) (USA,
2001) displays an endless series of home pages featuring quotes and
photographs of "Ninos" on the internet. Like the endless interest
groups online, the artist has created an association of commonalities
which is based on name as identity, creating an endless stream of
home page portraits. The "Ninos," linked by their mutual name, are
here also index through their differences and particularities as we
note each one's specificity.

When Michael Danes' "The Body of Michael Danes"
(http://www.mdaines.com/body/) (Canada, 2000) was first launched it
was immediately canonized within the history of web art as one of the
first conceptual performance pieces done with the conventions of
eBay. By placing "his body" on sale via the web, Danes' problematizes
identity and ownership through a proposition that, though absurd on
some levels, echoes a Blade Runner-esque intervention into e-commerce.

In "Selbst-los/Self-less" (http://www.wolf-kahlen.de/) (Germany,
1999) by Wolf Kahlen we are invited to collectively de-materialize
the artist's portrait through our presence on his site. Every visit
causing the pixilated destruction of his image is re-composed by the
public's intervention. In a time where documents and memories are
evanescent - the act of erasure/creation references a death through
the digital apparatus, and hence the death of the "portrait" as a
historical record.

"Self-Portrait version 2.0" (http://www.spv2.net/) (USA, 2001) by
Brooke Singer was created as a data-mining-based portrait of the
artist where we access personal and web-derived information about the
artist. In a similar vein, "Electronic Soul Mirroring"
(http://www.e-sm.org/) (USA/Italy, 2000) by Carlo Zanni (AKA Beta)
equally accurately reflects our online identities by mirroring the
contents of our personal computer hard drives to stand in as our
virtual representation on the WWW. In a continuation of Beta's
interest in identity construction - the self is the computer and vice
versa.

Pleasure / Artifice

The second set of works, as mentioned, is more playful and colourful…
Frederic Durieu's "Experimental Zoo"
(http://www.lecielestbleu.com/html/main_zoo2.htm) (Belgium / France,
2001) permits us to intervene on a fabricated natural landscape with
significant visual impact. Playfully offering up a Darwinian take on
bio-manipulation, our actions in this psychedelic fauna and foe
environment permits us to animate and play god with the featured
puppet-like creatures, such as giraffes, penguins, mosquitoes +.

Lia's "Re-Move" (http://www.re-move.org/index.php) (Austria, 2000-2)
is focused on the drawing gesture in reference to the overriding
presence of drawings in the Biennale. Here we are beckoned to compose
from modernist-influence graphic animations such as lines, squares,
dots etc. At once simply designed and effectively engaging, the
results conjure up memories of lyrical etch-a-sketches and telephone
doodles.

"Nomad Lingo" (http://www.year01.com/nomadlingo/door.html) (Canada,
2000-1) developed over the course of one year by jJhave features
poetic word animations; Jillian Mcdonald "Home Like No Place"
(http://www.chambreblanche.qc.ca/projets/homelikenoplace/welcome.html)
(Canada, 2002) evokes Dorothy's journey in the land of Oz; and Tara
Bethune-Leamen's "Virus Corp"
(http://www.studioxx.org/coprods/tara/index.html) (Canada, 2001)
features a anime-type animal based on a character from "Princess
Mononoke" who imprints its benign traces a website of your choice.

The two main themes of the exhibition - ethics and aesthetics (or
identity and artifice) - are complementary in different ways. With
the one set of works offering an escape from "reality" and the other
from "self" the web remains a forum where identity is diverted, place
is artifice and exchanges are hued in the nebulous light of the
computer screen.

Valerie Lamontagne


http://www.ciac.ca/biennale2002/index.htm
http://www.ciac.ca/magazine
http://www.ciac.ca/biennale/index.html
http://www.ciac.ca/biennale2000/
http://www.quartierephemere.org/fonderie/index.html
http://www.insitu.qc.ca/
http://www.geocities.com/portraitoftheartistasahomepage/
http://www.mdaines.com/body/
http://www.wolf-kahlen.de/
http://www.spv2.net/
http://www.e-sm.org/
http://www.lecielestbleu.com/html/main_zoo2.htm
http://www.re-move.org/index.php
http://www.year01.com/nomadlingo/door.html
http://www.chambreblanche.qc.ca/projets/homelikenoplace/welcome.html
http://www.studioxx.org/coprods/tara/index.html)



—–> Ellipse. Art on the Web
http://www.mdq.org/ellipse

—–> MobileGaze: on-line culture.
http://www.mobilegaze.com

—–> Matter + Memory: net.art exhibition
http://www.mobilegaze.com/m+m