Showcase of Canadian and Québec Artists in Japan

We are thrilled to strengthen the dialogue between Montréal and Japan by sending a roster of young and experimental artists from Canada to MUTEK Japan, providing an amazing opportunity for our national talent to shine internationally with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Underlining the art of live performance these artists will perform throughout the festival, running November 3 to 5 in Tokyo, as well as participate in the discursive Digi Lab program of panels, workshops and interviews.

Additionally on November 6, three artists will take part in the DIGI CAMPUS project consisting of a master class held by Tetra Tanizaki and free performances at the Kyoto University for Art & Design with the support of the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie du Québec.

Myriam Bleau — Soft Revolvers

Who: Montréal composer, digital artist and performer Myriam Bleau
Style: Physical A/V performances connecting gesture with sound, artist-designed vinyl plate instruments, algorithmically triggered samples of techno, hip hop and musique concrète, pure tones
More: Soft Revolvers won an honorary mention at major international media arts competition Prix Ars Electronica

Bleau performs an advanced version of her audiovisual piece Soft Revolvers, a project she designed using four large translucent acrylic tops, lit by LEDs and equipped with gyroscopes and accelerometers, their sensors collecting motion data that inform musical algorithms. As she spins the instruments' circular bodies, a halo of light emerges and the music plays – spliced and variably pitched, or in clearly rhythmic sequences, a completely absorbing solitary composition never to be heard the same way again.
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Myriam Bleau will participate in the DIGI CAMPUS event in partnership with the Kyoto University for Art & Design and the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie du Québec.

Maotik

Who: French-born, Montreal-based Mathieu Le Sourd
More: As lead of Moment Factory’s interactive team in 2011, Le Sourd produced large scale projects such as the multimedia experience in the new terminal at the Los Angeles airport as well as the visuals for Nine Inch Nails world tour in 2013

Kazuya Nagaya & Metametric — Constellations

Who: Japanese ambient producer Kazuya Nagaya and Montréal composer Jean-François Pedno
Style: Acoustic-electronic afterglow and introspective atmospheres
More: Nagaya has long worked with bronze bells, gongs and singing bowls used in Buddhist or Hindu rituals in Tibet, Bali and Japan. Pedno has composed music for dozens of theatre and dance works.

For their new sound installation and live performance Kazuya and Metametric combine the traditional Orin singing bowls with contemporary electronic music. The two artists will be performing surrounded by approximately 500 Orin singing bowls, which are arranged in a circular formation, and will find themselves amidst the bowls to let them ring, while adding the laptop as an additional instrument. This collaboration was seeded last year when Pedno met Kazuya Nagaya during the first edition of MUTEK.JP.

Woulg & Push 1 stop — Interpolate

Who: Montréalers, producer Greg Debicki (Woulg) and visual artist Cadie Desbiens Desmeules (Push 1 stop)
Style: Generative visuals and improvisational sonics marry in playful, mesmerizing synesthetic formations
More: Interpolate was originally developed as a 360 degree dome project

Interpolate uses live coding and generative processes to explore the relationship between audio and visual. This audio reactive performance is divided in four acts, image and sound meet, take turns in controlling each other and end up working in symbiosis. The stark, minimal, generative 3D geometry and particle systems take the audience through the music, conveying the physicality of the sound while mapping out the emotional landscape of the melodies. To interpolate means to determine an intermediate value or term in a serie by calculating it from surrounding known values; on stage Push 1 stop and Woulg send data wirelessly to each other in order to be able to patch new interactions between audio and visuals in real time, and interpolate the missing data between sound and image.
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Woulg & Push 1 stop will participate in the DIGI CAMPUS event in partnership with the Kyoto University for Art & Design and the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie du Québec.

Photo: Sébastien Roy

Nicolas Bernier — Frequencies

Who: Multidisciplinary artist and sound performer, Montréal-based, Nicolas Bernier
Style: A balance between cerebral and sensual, organic sound sources and digital processing
More: He is also known for object oriented A/V performances with Martin Messier

Frequencies finds the performer processing sequences of light and purely synthetic sounds with extreme precision – resulting in intermittent light blasts within small acrylic structures. Whether he’s hatching inventive sound installations, musique concrète or live video art, the multidisciplinary Bernier is ever mindful of striking a delicate balance between intellect and sensuality, and between organic sounds and digital processing.
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Guillaume & The Coutu-Dumonts

Who: Montréal-based Guillaume Coutu-Dumont
Style: Hook laden microhouse filled with melody and sparkle
More: Coutu-Dumont plays in Flabbergast with MUTEK programmer Vincent Lemieux and leads a band project called The Side Effects

A consummate musician with a proclivity for exuberant, worldly rhythms, jazz, gospel and techno, Coutu-Dumont has a background in electroacoustics and percussion. He released early recordings as surreal duo EGG (with Artificiel’s Julien Roy) before putting his funk wizardry to wax on Musique Risquée, Oslo and Circus Company with solo releases, and in several other collaborative projects.
➤ Listen to his live set at MUTEK Buenos Aires

➤ Here is the full program of MUTEK.JP