Once again, MUTEK gets ready to dazzle the arts and music world with boundary-pushing digital creations, avant-garde electronic music and immersive artistic treasures. While the full-fledged Montreal edition will take place August 22-26, MUTEK_IMG acts as a satellite festival celebrating digital arts projects and allowing for the deeper development of problematics around the themes of modern visual arts, their role in society, virtual reality storytelling, and contemporary technological implications reflected through media. Check out the schedule here.

 

MUTEK_IMG will be running from today, April 11th, to this Friday at this Phi Centre, offering panels, VR salons, screenings and projection mappings, culminating in a Daniel Avery performance. All day events are free. We can expect thoughtful and creative content lining up the week, including Brigitte Poupart‘s Ma Reserve – a compelling work of immersive existentialism, submerging the viewer into the protagonist’s sensitivities and musings as he wakes up in a confined space – and Philippe Lambert’s Rêve, a focused examination of collective dream psyches, using colorful compositions to explore the link between our memory and dreams, punctuated by transient musical cues.

Since their first run in 2000, MUTEK has been pioneering new ways to bring original digital arts to light, giving artists a platform to innovate and exchange amongst one another. To our delight, they’ve been rapidly expanding across the globe, recently holding first editions in Dubai and Tokyo and announcing San Francisco. Their model skillfully surfs the intersection between electronic arts and music, encourages established and up and coming artists, and takes in account relevant contemporary issues weaved into media.

Husa Sounds caught up with founder Alain Mongeau to talk about the recent expansions and the festival’s future. We wondered about the difficulties encountered when applying the MUTEK model onto such different cities that all hold their own particularities, cultures and implications. We were happy to learn that initiatives come from cities themselves, who reach out hosting proposals. With this structure, MUTEK can successfully adapt and transpose its spirit to different locations, their needs and issues; for instance, the Tokyo edition boosted the city’s opening onto the international electronic arts community. It’s a heartening prospect that cities are pursuing this global reach and we can only excitingly look towards an increasingly connected electronic arts network in the future.

Ideally, MUTEK will continue to grow within cities’ art infrastructures, linking local and international scenes, boosting artwork circulation within these networks, executing programming without compromise and supporting local perspectives.

With their ever-present combination of free and paying events, MUTEK democratizes access to digital arts and performances. The days are filled with panels and fascinating symposiums gathering music and arts industry members to provide a much-appreciated discursive component. Last year’s panels brought musical cities (Barcelona, Mexico City, Montreal) to the front of the stage, with enlightening comparisons of how each setting worked with local structures and regulations to support events and original creations. Circulation of this type of information is what brings like-minded people together to harness progress, as artists are invited to stay for the full length of the festival in order to fully engage with the represented topics and works.

Stay tuned for a recap of MUTEK_IMG and for information about the upcoming Montreal edition, « five days and nights of audiovisual performances, live electronic music and a full theatre of experiences that will push the boundaries of digital art and engage you in the playground that is our city ». See you there!

Rêve will be available for viewing until Friday from 11am to 8pm on the 4th floor of the Phi Centre.

Ma Réserve will be available until Friday from 5pm to 8pm on the 4th floor of the Phi Centre.

Semifinalists of the Interactive Architectural Mapping Competition: projected on the building facade next to the Saint-Laurent station, April 11 and 12 at 8 :30 p.m.

Xn Lecture: Three case studies on immersive and experiential productions, occurring April 12 at 3pm. 

Performance: discrete figures by Rhizomatiks Research and ELEVENPLAY (below) At the Monument-National in the Quartier des spectacles, on Friday, April 13 at 8 p.m.

Featured photo: Ma Reserve

Media kindly provided by MUTEK

Article by Lola Baraldi