Champs Vagues, Joël Lavoie & Guillaume Vallée - Artist-run centre dedicated to audio art and electronics

Champs Vagues

Joël Lavoie, Guillaume Vallée

Artists Joël Lavoie and Guillaume Vallée have been selected for the 2023 edition of the Avatar-MUTEK residency. The duo is hosted in the Avatar studios from July 31 to August 25, for the creation of a performance – Champs Vagues, unveiled as a world premiere on Sunday, August 27, 2023 during the MUTEK Édition 24 festival.

Champs vagues is a collaborative audiovisual performance by sound artist Joël Lavoie and experimental filmmaker Guillaume Vallée. It is a work in which sound and visual landscapes are manipulated in real time, exploring new hybridizations between digital and analog technologies.

“Our audiovisual proposal is rooted in the desire to establish a new performative language. We use the mediums of film, analog video, magnetic tape and field recording, and articulate these materials through plastic hybridity and digital/analog intermediality. Our creative processes are nourished by this dialogue, allowing us to use technologies described as “obsolete” and digital tools to create a singular, contemporary audiovisual language.

Through multiple variations of 16mm, 35mm and VHS analog images and ethereal industrial sound compositions, the work reflects our own reappropriation of the industrial landscapes that surround us. This new audiovisual reality is a demonstration of the possible, where imagery is transformed by audio interactivity and destroyed by analog and digital glitch. Austerity gradually becomes organic beauty, cosmic landscapes and musical oneirism.”

AGENDA

Creation residency at Avatar (Quebec City): July 31 to August 25, 2023

End-of-residency event: Friday, August 18, 2023, 8pm at Le Pantoum (Quebec City)

Performance at the 24th edition of MUTEK Montreal: Sunday, August 27, 2023

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_12

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_15

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_13

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_14

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_31

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_19

MUTEK24_20230827_Champs Vagues_©VivienGaumand_25

MUTEK24_20230827_Champ Vague_©VivienGaumand_17

@Pantoum – end-of-residency event’s documentation :

Credit: MUTEK | Vivien Gaumand – Credit: Avatar (end-of-residency event) | Charline Clavier

Joël Lavoie

Joël Lavoie is a composer, sound artist, and sound engineer based in Tiohtá:ke/Montréal. His sonic explorations investigate the troubled waters of the individual and collective subconscious. Evoking the themes of memory, escapism, and introspection, he encourages us to reassess our environment through speculative soundscapes to question our codes of perception and apprehension. He is part of the A/V trio mesocosm with Philippe Vandal and Emma Forgues. He released music on various labels, among which Mikroclimat (CA), and Phinery (DK).
Besides his work as a composer and sound designer for theater and dance, he pursues his career as a sound engineer; a practice that has enabled him to apply his sonic approach to the world of performing arts. His works and collaborations have been heard both in Canada and internationally.

Guillaume Vallée

Experimental filmmaker and video artist, Guillaume Vallée graduated from Concordia University with a Major in Film Animation and a MFA in Studio Arts, Film Production. He works mainly with film (Super8, 16mm, 35mm), analog video (VHS, Hi8), and video stereoscopic video (anaglyph red/cyan). Mostly inspired by experimental animation and structural film, his practice draws upon a process-based approach and formal exploration, leading to new creative possibilities. Intrigued by the various stages of dematerialization of the media he works with and the inevitable hazards of their manipulation, Vallée multiplies his interventions to create hybrid works with expanded potentialities.

His audiovisual performances as well as his experimental films and videos have been presented in a multitude of festivals across the world. He has been an artist-in-residence in several structures, both in Canada and abroad.

In 2020, Avatar and MUTEK initiated a partnership to offer audio and electronic artists a four-week creation residency in Avatar’s studios, in Quebec City, and dissemination at MUTEK Montreal.