{"id":579,"date":"2011-05-27T06:03:28","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T06:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=579"},"modified":"2011-12-03T00:21:13","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T00:21:13","slug":"gwenael-belanger","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/art\/gwenael-belanger\/","title":{"rendered":"Gwena\u00ebl B\u00e9langer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Falls and Swoops
\n<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Patrick Iberi in conversation with <\/em>Gwena\u00ebl B\u00e9langer (interview was translated both ways, French\/English, by Susie Veroff)<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/h6>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n

Patrick Iberi<\/strong>: It\u2019s my pleasure to welcome you to issue 10 of MTLS. I\u2019d like to begin with a request for you to shed some light on the entrapped images in your Chutes<\/em> (Falls) collection. The common feature of this body of work is the uniformity of various objects photographed in free-fall. What\u2019s the idea behind this?<\/p>\n

Gwena\u00ebl B\u00e9langer<\/strong>: My first series of Chutes<\/em> (Falls) was made in 2002 and it is really the piece of work that launched my career. It was at the event ART MAKES BOOM! This is an important event in Montr\u00e9al for young artists and I had just finished my Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Qu\u00e9bec in Montr\u00e9al. The Chutes<\/em> series begins with the simple idea of photographing an object falling freely, a split second before it impacts the ground. The photographic medium specifically works to help us seize a moment that is difficult to perceive with the naked eye and can produce striking images. The image taken in full motion allows us to see invisible details, as Eadweard James Muybridge did with Cheval en mouvement<\/em> (Horse in motion) (1878) and Etienne-Jules Marey with \u00c9tude de la course du cheval<\/em> (The study of the horse race) (1886) respectively by breaking down the movement of a galloping horse. Like\u00a0 \u201cteaser\u201d advertising, image fixing like this causes a movement that at first captures our interest and curiosity, and then poses a puzzle. What happens before and after the shot? For the viewer, Project Falls (2003) and The Great Jumble (2005) seem to create an involuntary tendency of anticipating and then prolonging the action in one\u2019s virtual and off-field imagination. I must also say that I\u2019m interested in what is known, that is, what we know and recognize, what is common, ordinary, and usual. I call this everyday reality. Everyday life is made up of things we experience every day and do not notice and is also often a repetition of actions, and unimportant gestures. It is often said that this is the normal state of affairs, that which is usual, customary and common. I am not particularly interested in my daily life and I do not base my inspiration only on my personal history. I wonder more about what seems obvious \u2013 things whose origin we have forgotten. The term \u201cinfra-ordinary,\u201d borrowed from Georges Perec, could well describe the type of day that I am interested in questioning. Everyday life is not trivial, but it can become so depending on the opinion we have of it. I hope to validate this rather than make trivial by carefully observing the complex mental games of perception we play that convert the everyday into the ordinary, the boring or the unexpected. I put an ordinary object in a situation that is not trivial. This action then demands to be looked at from another point of view, and that creates a shift in perception. I have always being fascinated by the different games of perception, such as trompe l’oeil, or anamorphic and optical illusions. I also have this habit of scrutinizing objects, trying to understand the mechanism at work. It was while doing my Master\u2019s degree that I started to really identify the question of the image as an important part of my creation. This appetite for the effects of representation and image guided me in the past to graphic design in an attempt to understand the workings of the creation of images better. It is also this passion that drove me to create my first photographic project, Falls<\/em> (2002), in which I adopt this medium, allowing me to find answers to many questions and to make visual the dimensions of my research.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> Your portfolio is dominated by initiatives centred on the mutability and perpetual movement of objects; an example is the Courir les rues <\/em>(Running in the streets) project where you wandered through the city to capture elements overlooked by the urban dweller. What was the biggest test in scrutinising those images with your lens?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> The project Courir les rues<\/em> (Running in the streets) (2005) came from a commonplace observation that had captivated me since childhood \u2013 that is, the perspective of a passenger looking outside from a moving vehicle. The passing scenery parallel to the road is fascinating. The challenge is to catch everything, the eye not knowing what to fixate on. The elements in the background do not scroll at the same speed as those in the foreground, and are in focus. Ed Ruscha with Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) and Stan Douglas with Every Building on 100 West Hastings (2001) attempted to propose a similarly impossible perspective by showing what lies beyond our field of vision and representing, in a single plane, a complete street. In my own way, I wanted to explore the space-time dimension of the movement that we feel in a moving vehicle in order to materialize this visual experience, which could be considered banal. I fixed my movements in time-space using a cinematographically transformed 35 mm camera with a motor to shoot five frames per second in a moving car. This resulted in long horizontal photographs created by the merging of the images taken by the camera during the ride. They show not only a technically impossible panorama, but also the distance from one point to another. The photographic trace produced by the shutter speed recreates the effect of apparent motion observed with the naked eye. That which scrolls close to us moves faster and is more difficult to perceive. In fact, our retinal perception is misleading, it is the sense of dynamic depth that informs us about the space we travel in.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> What was it like starting out as an artist and what is the biggest challenge so far?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> In the beginning, the most difficult task was to get a solo show either in a gallery or an artist\u2019s centre. In my case, I was lucky and was able to exhibit at Skol, which is an artist centre in Montreal \u2013 that was in 2001 at the end of my bachelor\u2019s degree. This gave me a big dose of confidence to continue. The challenge was to work outside the structure of academic (University) life and succeed in creating my place in the visual arts community in Quebec. A time period of 5 years elapsed between my undergraduate and Masters studies and that was a very productive period in which I relied constantly on my intuition and I focused all my efforts on producing works for various exhibitions. This period was very productive and rich in experience. But after five years, I felt the need to stop, to step back from my practice. Finishing the Master\u2019s degree became an opportunity to observe my artistic practice, to question and understand. I wanted to identify this inner attitude and intervene in my ways of observing and producing. It became imperative for me to be able to clearly identify my creative process in its dynamics, in its concrete development. I wanted to use these self-discoveries about my work as a springboard to better cultivate my young artistic production.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> Your work so far has been restricted to photography, video and installation. Are you interested in exploring any other medium of art?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> In order to deepen my reflections on the status of the image, I wanted to continue my research on the use of 3D computer modelling in my work, which I started with the project \u2018100, rue Blainville.\u2019 Although one can see the great potential of this medium in the production of images in film and advertising, it is more hesitant as a medium in current practices of contemporary art. Yet this is an extremely powerful tool that confronts the very way we define an image. Technology has evolved and the people who use this medium have more and more control. It allows you to work as much with a fixed image as with an image that is moving, opens up new possibilities; it would be interesting to incorporate into an artistic practice, which has much different goals and viewpoints than commercial applications. The images produced with this medium, which are quite realistic, make the boundaries even more blurred between reality and what it seems to be. It can make any manipulation of the image more complex and adds a new dimension to the photographic image.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> Winning the Prix Pierre-Ayot prize landed you in good company with the likes of Michel de Broin, Rapha\u00eblle de Groot and Nicolas Baier. Your work was also included in the well-respected 2008 Quebec triennial; has this benefitted your career in any way?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> The Pierre Ayot prize is really a very nice recognition in the visual arts community in Quebec. It was really an honour for me to end up on this list of Quebec artists I admire. This prize obviously gives credibility to your work. Maybe for art collectors or institutions interested in my work, this award corroborates their interest, and it certainly helped to promote some acquisitions. Regarding the Triennial, it was a magnificent exhibition that I am very proud to be part of. The exhibition was really beneficial to all artists, thanks to the visibility of the event. The critiques were glowing, and all the artists benefit from that. For my part, the Commissioners invited me to participate in various exhibitions following the Triennale (Vancouver, 2010, ICA, Portland, Oregon).<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> Could you kindly share some details about Casser l\u2019image (Fragmenting the Image)? For our readers, this is your recent exhibition curated by Yann Pocreau and co-produced by EXPRESSION, Centre d\u2019exposition de Saint-Hyacinthe together with the Mus\u00e9e regional de Rimouski<\/em> (Regional Museum of Rimouski). It is an ambitious body of work that has been described as a ten-year collection of retrospective art.<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> This was actually the commissioner, Yann Pocreau\u2019s idea.\u00a0 His intention was, in his words: \u201cTo consolidate a dozen recent projects by the artist retrospectively while keeping in mind what had attracted me to this work which is simplicity and efficient deconstruction of the image and structure.\u201d He proposed the project for the Centre d\u2019Expression in St-Hyacinthe and then at the Regional Museum of Rimouski. The exhibition also travelled to Moncton at the University Gallery there. We were luckily able to produce a beautiful catalogue with many colour illustrations and texts by Yann Pocreau, Bernard Lamarche and Melanie Boucher.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> In one of your several media release, you are quoted as describing your work as possessing what you term a bricoleur<\/em> attitude. You go on to explain that this consists of playing with the limits of the perception we have of reality and its grey areas using graphic and photographic processes. I\u2019m inclined to think of this statement as a curtailed and predictable analysis of your work. Could more be said perhaps for the manipulation of the natural laws of gravity and an insight into the matrix of objects in free-fall in some of your work? I\u2019m referring to Grand Fatras<\/em> to be specific.<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> When I talk about my handyman attitude it is mostly to describe my creative process and my experimentation in the studio. In this sort of experimentation space, intuitions guide the selection of ingenious and creative manipulations, without one immediately worrying about the final result. It is not necessary to know in advance whether the test undertaken will generate a concept, an idea that will ultimately lead to a concrete project. Initiate a change first, then see what happens. With the intention of revising that which is common, changes call into question what we see and perceive. Exploiting the potential of objects means finding out what things are what we can make them say.\u00a0 Experimenting by manipulating and transforming the \u201cobject\u201d is put into action by including the following: changing its appearance or integrity, placing it in a new context and testing its functions and characteristics. In the case of Grand Fatras, I wanted to test the experience of falling in an outdoor environment and with much larger objects. Of course, it took more preparation and logistics. So we rented a crane to launch objects. In my projects, there is always an element of the unknown, or things I cannot control. In Grand Fatras, it was difficult to accurately predict the fall and the impact of objects. Some objects hit the ground while others seem to float or to avoid it. This gives a strange feeling to photography. Later, I wanted to do projects that exploit only the time of impact. This brought to fruition the project Le Faux Movement<\/em> (The False Movement) where you see dozens of mirrors that break at the same time in a large panoramic photograph. The challenge of this project was how to dose the spectacular effect of the breakage and yet maintain the mysterious or intriguing aspect of the image.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> <\/strong>It is interesting that you mention Le Faux Movement<\/em>, <\/em>which i think is a fantastic piece of work. In the same vein, I\u2019m equally charmed by the multi-mirror installation Poursuivre le hors-champ<\/em> [Continuing off-field]. The idea of a mirror that moves and an image constantly changing in front of it is enthralling; this is given more fizz with your explanation of the process as \u201cshowing what is in the dead angles\u201d. I observe that the large mirror is broken up in small squared shapes; just wondered if there might be the same variety of reflection if the mirror is split up in different shapes – say triangles or even rhombi, what do you think?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> With the intention of working with the mundane and everyday, I wanted to work with probably the most common images: one that is reflected in a mirror. Most of the time the mirrors around us are square, allowing me to work in a very simple grid. Seeing one\u2019s reflection in a mirror is probably the most common experience there is. How many times do we look in the mirror each day? When we look in a mirror, it is first and foremost one\u2019s own image that is important to us. This double reality has something fascinating and mesmerizing. It confirms, in a sense, that we exist because, really, the idea that the ghost who walks in front of a mirror does not see his own reflection is well known. When you begin to dwell and reflect on this phenomenon, something escapes us and goes beyond us, as if there was magic in this. It is the habit of daily life that makes this phenomenon quite banal. This project seeks to bypass the common experience. It formats the idea of making the image elusive, difficult to define. It adds complexity to identify and reconstruct the image. In addition, the project also gives importance to what we do not care about when we look in a mirror, that is to say, our environment, the place where we are. The installation is based on an ingenious mechanism that allows the work to both put into place distort the image and the perspective of its collapse. The movement of the mirrors seems completely random. Some mirrors are moving smoothly and all of a sudden, very jerky movements occur. The mirror creates spatial complexity in the small gallery and the image that the viewer receives becomes elusive. Clashing perspectives and scales of magnitude are also confounded. The viewer is faced with a huge image, strangely familiar, but constantly changing, demanding his continual reassessment. The installation tries to unveil what is in the blind spots, to capture what is outside the framework, to ultimately generate a new vision of what escapes us, in short, a new definition of off-screen. I responded with this project, to a challenge I gave myself \u2013 which is to make a picture without a photograph. In this regard, Marie-Eve Charron, in her article in Le Devoir on March 8, 2008, said:<\/p>\n

Generated by the reflection, the work depends on the environment, but deviates from it by developing another place, imaginary and ethereal, made out of unexpected fields. […] It is the image under construction and the perception of it that seems to have interested the artist. […] The device certainly accentuates the gap between self, body and what is seen, but it also exploits the idea of lapse of time. The images are made and unmade in time, confronting the viewer to experience and interpret that what he is seeing, what he saw and what he anticipates to see in the future. All this from his unique presence.<\/p>\n

This project speaks of the image without using photography. Once the device is in place, the installation becomes a machine that has the ability to generate constantly renewing images. If we fix the installation with the photographic medium, including playing with the exposure time, we get a freeze frame that generates new representations of movement and the distortions that follow.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> Your last sentence in response to my question above provides the cue for the next question. In this age of digital technology where manipulation of images is increasingly rife, distortion of prints is still a favoured technique in your work, I\u2019m curious to know how you ensure your photography and other initiatives remain bound in art, i.e. embody an artistic index?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> I think my work managed to stand out not only because of the seductiveness of my images, but also through the questions and queries they offer. I have a conceptual approach to photography that in particular reflects the status of the image. So even if I am interested in manipulating the image and its forms of seduction, my work is not based solely on this aspect. My goal is not to take very clean, very slick photographs as seen occasionally in advertising. For me, the poetic impression is very important as well as the mysterious, unknown quality that goes beyond the viewer. It is always interesting that the audience asks questions. It keeps them in front of your work for longer.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> \u201cLe Tournis\u201d is a six-minute looped video installation showing an interior space (your studio) from a central viewing point. The camera continually revolves on itself, scanning the space at high speed. Does your video work mesh with other mediums especially with the peripatetic nature of your photography?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> In fact, for all my Chutes (Falls) projects, I filmed with an HD camera and I take the photographs with another camera at the same time. For some projects, I use both still images and moving images depending on what project. The best example is the production of works Le Faux movement<\/em> (The False Movement). I used an 8 meters long photograph and for Le Tournis<\/em>\u00a0 (The Turn), I chose a 6-minute video. Both projects are generated by the same event. What fascinates me is that the moving image and the fixed image have their respective characteristics, as well as their different ways of projecting the composite image. What we see, observing the photograph is the gap between photography and video, at the aesthetic level, even if it is documenting the same event. Photography is very appealing when it is pictorially rich. First, it uses the technique of light \/dark and establishes the contrast between the bright spot where the impact takes place and the back of the room away from the source. Secondly, it combines the fuzzy moving shards of mirrors and the blur caused by such a small depth of field. These combinations provide stunning visual effects. So in terms of depth of field, a burst of mirror has very sharp edges.\u00a0 The sharp edges of the glass where the light is refracted are the only indication that leads back to the materiality of the object. Meanwhile, the blur affects only the vague outline visible from the mirror, that is to say, its thickness, since what is reflected in the mirror does not move.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> Are there more exhibitions lined up this year. What is your next move?<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> I presented a solo exhibition at Galerie Graff in May, and participated in a group exhibition in Mexico City this summer. So I am now going back to my studio to do some intensive work and to continue my research. Otherwise, in 2012, I have a residency and an exhibition at the Centre Sagamie in Alma, Quebec. There may be a project exhibition at Nettie Horn London, but everything needs to be confirmed.<\/p>\n

P.I.:<\/strong> It\u2019s taken a while to catch up with you for this exchange Gwena\u00ebl. Many thanks for being generous with your time and my best wishes to you. Hopefully we\u2019ll meet up soon.<\/p>\n

G.B.:<\/strong> Thank you very much Patrick. See you soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Falls and Swoops Patrick Iberi in conversation with Gwena\u00ebl B\u00e9langer (interview was translated both ways, French\/English, by Susie Veroff) Patrick Iberi: It\u2019s my pleasure to welcome you to issue 10 of MTLS. I\u2019d like to begin with a request for you to shed some light on the entrapped images in your Chutes (Falls) collection. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":154,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-579","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/579\/revisions\/658"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}