présente

Poetry, photography, multimedia

www.AgenceTOPO.qc.ca/astres


Agence TOPO’s latest multimedia creation, an e-poetry project, is based on a poetic body of work of the Canadian-Welsh author Childe Roland and the images of the Canadian photographer Susan Coolen.

Launched in February 2006 within the Festival Voix d’Amériques, in Montréal, the Web site extends as an installation at the gallery Espace (Montréal) and at the Harbourfront Center (Toronto).

The site has also been presented at E-Poetry 2007 (Paris) (see a QuickTime video).

Childe Roland’s poetical body of work
Astres / Stars / Goleuadau stands as a metaphorical representation of the black holes in astronomy and the death of supernovas. The series is composed of sound poems in which all verses first syllables start as an aspirated syllable which slowly dries up the throat. The spoken words only stand when read loud, "like a string of curses launched to pitiless stars" (Childe Roland). Written in three languages, French, English and Welsh, the texts are organized in sets of themes and approach various contemporary issues:  environment, epidemics, computerization, globalization, etc. This work follows an exploratory process carried out for several years by this Canadian artist established in North Wales, which works in sound and concrete poetry and deals with the physical characteristics of the text through also artists’ books and sculptural objects. Childe Roland is the artist’s name of Peter Noël Meilleur.


Harbourfront Center (Toronto)
 


Casa des Popolo (Montréal)           Galerie Espace (Montréal)
 

 

Susan Coolen’s photographic body of work
The photographic work of the artist originary from Nova-Scotia also evolves around the cosmos’ theme. In the ongoing project Astral Projections, Coolen stages objects and links her collecting of specimens to space imagery. Her found objects and specimens become new ‘evidence’ in her constantly evolving stories about ‘who’ is ‘out there’ and ‘what’ is ‘out there’. Often playful, and linking to fictional accounts of travel to the Moon and beyond, Astral Projections [and related works Celestial Travelers, Primordia, Galileo’s Observation] opens up the imaginative possibilities of multiple entities and possibilities inhabiting our vast cosmos.

  

Agence TOPO’s multimedia creation
Agence TOPO pursues its research on the convergence of literature and visual arts with new media by approaching here the text as a material for experimentation. The poems and the images have stimulated the creation of multimedia tableaux which are randomly displayed. In order to put forward the texts’ sound aspect, Agence TOPO invited the author Childe Roland and the poets Kim Doré, Tony Tremblay and Victoria Stanton to read the poems.

Eva Quintas, artistic director of Agence TOPO, is the project’s curator.  The site’s design is signed by Guy Asselin assisted by Vincent Archambault. Sound effects are created by Mike Di Sclafani.

 

 

Information : Agence TOPO - Michel Lefebvre • T (514) 279-8676 • michel@agencetopo.qc.ca

Agence TOPO thanks the Festival Voix d’Amériques as well as the Canada Arts Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Emploi-Québec and the Société des arts technologiques. Childe Roland thanks Wales Art International.