Martin Messier
The place
Delta
Language
All
Hours and dates
- From 10am to 6pm daily
For more than 15 years, the artist Martin Messier has created artworks in which sound art meets light, robotic and video. In the form of performances and installations, these works place the body front and center.
After studying composition at l’Université de Montréal, Martin began an experimental sound practice that integrated video images. He quickly developed performative audiovisual apparatuses that brought everyday objects and the sound potential of their various materials to the stage.
A number of collaborative projects were carried out over the years, notably with artists Nicolas Bernier, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Anne Thériault, and Jacques Poulin-Denis.
Martin Messier’s latest works include Innervision (2019), a monumental outdoor project performed by 60 dancers, the audiovisual performance Echo Chamber, the choreographic performance Con Sordina, and the light and sound performance Elusive Matter.
Presented in some 50 countries, Martin Messier’s productions have received several prizes and nominations : a special mention at Prix Ars Electronica in 2010 ; listed for a Prix Opus in 2012 ; Best Experimental Short Film at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival in 2013 ; the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award in 2014 ; a special mention by the jury at the 2015 Japan Media Awards ; the World OMOSIROI Award in Japan in 2018 ; and in 2021, the 2nd Prize at Athens Digital Arts Festival.
In 2010, he established 14 lieux, a company dedicated to producing performative and installative artworks, and has been its general and artistic director since then.
He lives and works in Montreal.
Cycles
Cycles is an installation where everyone is invited to become aware of the relationships linking cyclical and unpredictable phenomena. Harmony and chaos call out to each other in this space where the eight strings of light dance and unfold.
Despite the vivacity of its propulsion, the wire leaves an impression of floating. By marking the nuance between the purity of this suspended movement and the violence of the mechanism that fecundates it, the work proposes an experience where infinity cohabits with the restarts that are part of it.
These dialogues are also found in the sound space : the tuned engines envelop the music diffused with their elusive timbres and draw this landscape in which the harmony is built as much by its power as by its vulnerability.
Concept, audiovisual composition, programming : Martin Messier
Design, hardware : David Gardener
First phase of research : Maxime Damecour, Robocut
Technicians
Lilian Guiran, Francis Vaillancourt-Martin
Production : 14 lieux
