Content

Installation

Wind Instrument - Étienne Paquette

Wind Instrument - Étienne Paquette

Information on the activity

August 16, 2018 to October 8, 2018

Wind Instrument

Du 16 août au 8 octobre 2018

  • Monday to Wednesday : 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
  • Thursday to Sunday : 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Métro Saint-Laurent

An invitation for citizens to lend an ear and have a role in creating the soundscapes we live in !

An interactive installation that borrows from sculpture and generative art, Wind Instrument creates soothing musical sounds from the ambient noise surrounding it. Made up of six steel ventilation tubes positioned vertically, like fanciful organ pipes, this 28-foot-high work produces compelling melodies by reacting to variations in ambient sound and the contributions of passersby. Lighting effects emphasize the device’s musical output. Wind Instrument also keeps a record of the sound levels it picks up, creating an archive that can serve to inform our thinking on noise in our cities.

Wind Instrument began with a reflection on the absurdity of seeking silence in spaces where noise is ubiquitous. But if we can’t silence the world, we can at least play with the sounds it generates. Here, the hum of the city becomes the driving force behind an installation that allows the public to harmoniously blend in with the sonic landscape.

Une oeuvre d'Etienne Paquette

Étienne Paquette takes audiences on fantastic journeys with large-scale, immersive installations that borrow elements from other art forms, such as sculpture. He is also a designer, director, screenwriter and artistic director in multimedia and museum exhibition. He has increasingly taken a transdisciplinary approach to his work, experimenting with narrative to create different ways for audiences to participate in stories, all the while guided by the principle that every work has its own space, materials, technologies, concerns and experiential qualities.

Over the years, Paquette has worked independently with organizations like the NFB, the McCord Stewart Museum, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Space for Life and the Quartier des Spectacles. Notably, he is one of the creators of Beyond Ice (NFB/Canadian Museum of Nature, 2017), Light Bearers (Montreal Insectarium, 2015) and Megaphone (Moment Factory/NFB and QDS, Montreal, 2013). His work has been discussed in international magazines and scientific literature published by institutions such as the MIT Press, among others.

Paquette holds a Ph.D. in Communication from UQAM.

As part of the POSSiBLES project

POSSiBLES is a major artistic project that aims to enrich our vision and actions in the city through two avenues: art and civic engagement. POSSIBLES proposes to bring together a whole community of artists, thinkers and citizens in order to imagine inspiring utopias that could offer solutions to the challenges of our time. POSSIBLES positions art as a factor of change to face the new paradigms of our ever-changing world

For more information : possibles.ca

Credits

  • Creator and artistic director - Etienne Paquette
  • Set designer - Mélanie Crespin
  • Sound designer and interactivity programmer - Philippe Hughes
  • Technical director - Vincent Paquette
  • Music consultant and researcher - Javier Asencio
  • Multimedia consultant - Vincent Pasquier

A co-production National Film Board of Canada, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership and LA SERRE – arts vivants