26.03 > 17.04.2021 | « Érosions – Flux & Densités » – Exhibition Alain Wergifosse – La Chambre Blanche (Qc)

As an introduction to the second part of the cross-residencies in digital creations and arts-sciences initiated by Transcultures (La Louvière-BE) and La Chambre Blanche (Quebec-CA), Alain Wergifosse (Belgium) has created at a distance what he designates as “a resonating space” in the gallery of the Quebec visual/digital arts centre.

To do this, the artist confined to Belgium relies in part on his accomplice in recent months, the art historian and curator Anne-sophie Blanchet (Quebec). In the spirit and respect for their exchanges, she will be, in a way, his eyes and ears during the assembly of this immersive installation combining two corpus of video works: “Erosions” and “Flux & Densities”.

Thus, like this residency where the notions of meeting, listening, compromise and letting go have proved to be central, it is a question here of relating recent and older works in order to create a context of experimentation, contemplation and reflection that is both sensitive and critical.

In short, it is not only a question of showing some of the aesthetic experiments carried out by Alain Wergifosse since November 2020 (during the 1st part of the residence/exchange), but also of echoing in a poetic way the collaborative work and cross-research that allowed such a project to take shape.

For the fifth edition of their digital creation/arts-sciences residency exchange initiated in 2015, La Chambre Blanche (artist-run centre dedicated to experimentation in visual and digital arts based in Quebec City) and Transcultures (centre for digital and sound cultures based in La Louvière – Belgium) inaugurates a new formula associating an artist and a researcher around the same prospective creation.

For the 2020-21 season, it is the art historian and Quebec artistic curator Anne-Sophie Blanchet and the Belgian intermedia and sound artist Alain-Wergifosse who have been selected by the partners, following a call for projects launched jointly by the partners.

Two residency periods are planned: the first at Transcultures was devoted to refining the design and challenges of the project. For Alain Wergifosse, it was about preparing his next immersive installation ‘Flux & densités’, experimenting with materialistic images with an optical microscope and its electronic and sensory devices. This first phase of experimentation was intended for the composition of new images and new sounds around transforming matter and the manipulation of moving light by mechanical, optical, digital, electronic and chemical means.

At the end of this design phase fueled by discussions with Anne-Sophie Blanchet (who will also begin writing critical texts on the artist’s approach and this creative process), Alain Wergifosse proposed a video also foreshadowing what will be developed more widely in this second phase of production/finalization at La Chambre Blanche.

Anne-Sophie Blanchet (Qc)

Anne-Sophie Blanchet is an art historian and curator. Collaborating regularly with cultural organizations and academia, she has worked in the visual arts community for over ten years.

She is the author of several essays and critical texts focusing in particular on contemporary art as well as on the challenges of conservation and exhibition of certain current artistic productions in the museum context.

His recent research is particularly interested in performance and sound art as well as their mediation in public space.

Alain Wergifosse (Be)

Insatiable explorer of sound, image and the media since the 1980s, Alain Wergifosse amplifies all kinds of resonant objects and specializes in the electronic processing of feedback to achieve his organic compositions and improvisations. He has traveled the world solo and with various groups and collective projects (Obmuz, Macromassa, SpecOp, Colectivo Anatomic among others).

From his base in Barcelona, ​​he composed, during ten years, the music and sound interactions of the shows Marcel lí Antúnez (ex La Fura dels Baus) and he collaborated with many artists of the experimental musical scene ( Zbigniew Karkowski, Cluster, Jaki Liebezeit, Francisco Lopez, Nad Spiro, Eli Gras,…) and actively participated in various adventurous initiatives in Spain and internationally.

In recent years, returning to Belgium, he has developed his visual work and produced immersive and interactive installations, self-generative videos, microscopies and other materialist compositions presented in several festivals and international events (City Sonic, MEM, Kikk, Semaine sound, Simultan, Transnumériques…).