MARIE-CHRISTIANE MATHIEU

Alabama - musique de char

2013

Biography

The artistic research of Marie-Christiane Mathieu is divided into two areas. The first, conceptual, examines through diverse installations the idea of the envelope, or the “bubble” in which each individual is confined. The second area, technological, unites objects, people and places through various systems of communication that channel information towards a centre: the individual. The artist’s theoretical positions are anchored in the concrete world of economy and politics, where the art object becomes a source of knowledge. As a speaker, Mathieu has been invited to numerous conferences in the United States, Germany and Brazil. She has also benefited from residencies at the Banff Centre, the Holocenter in Long Island, New York, and the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. Until 2007, the artist was the Executive Director of Studio XX in Montreal. In 2004, she obtained her PhD in art studies and practices from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Since 2008, she has been a professor at the École des arts visuels of the Université Laval in Quebec City.

About the work

This audio capture was made with a scanner on Boulevard Champlain, which runs alongside the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec City. The voices heard come from residents of Alabama. No additions were made and the track was not edited, except for an amplitude modification that made certain fragments of the conversations audible.

Given that the work was initially presented in the passenger compartment of a car, Alabama - musique de char evokes the massive automobile culture and expressway networks. The project, reminiscent of a route taken by a driver, incorporates both the physical features of highway infrastructures and the invisible heritage transmitted by radio waves and digital broadcasting.