Dissolutions
fieldtrips
2016
curatorial project, research project + exhibition
Dissolutions began with a research field-trip to Rouyn-Noranda and surroundings in the Abitibi-Témiscangue region of Northern Québec. This phase of the project was carried out in collaboration with L'Écart (local artist-run centre). During field visits to abandoned sites of extraction and mining, our research group gathered raw materials (rocks from tailing piles, contaminated soil, acid water samples), conducted field experiments in (al)chemical processes, to be used later in the exhibition.
participants: Stephanie Castonguay, Diane Morin, Martin Howse, Peter Flemming
from the exhibition text:
Dissolutions examines the connection between Earth and computation. This artistic research residency and experimental exhibition project intervenes within cycles of earth-extraction-earth-return in which the minerals which form the material basis of digital technology are pulled from the ground using large-scale industrial processes, eventually to be re-absorbed in the form of e-waste and pollution.
Dissolutions aims to construct a series of playfully experimental situations (open labs, workshops, talks, collective field trips) exploring the material-basis of contemporary and future cultures, focusing on the transition from large-scale industrial technologies, particularly those of extraction and mining, to the seemingly invisible realm of the digital.
related
