#intersections: Spotlight on the DigiLabs

This year Printemps numérique launched the first edition^of DigiLabs, a pilot project allowing digital artists and creators to carry out applied research laboratories within different Montréal communities and industries. Thinking big, Printemps numérique sponsored no fewer than five DigiLabs, bringing together eight artists and ten companies and organizations. Some work in video games or virtual reality, while others do not operate in creative sectors yet identify strongly with digital works and technologies. They also helped make the laboratories possible. Artists were invited to appropriate and redirect, for creative purposes, the innovative technologies developed by these companies while being paid for their work. Some of the projects were presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture on the evening of November 29. DigiLab Video Laser. Olameter and Quartier

de l’innovation, organizations respectively

active in services for public companies and in developing the metropolis’s creative and innovation potential, called on artist Samy Lamouti to create a video using mapping data, in other words a map on which various statistics are represented, such as population density in Griffintown. These data, captured with a laser system, LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, form point clouds in different shapes, and those shapes inspired the artist’s videowork. Hétérotopie is thus an imagined Montréal, a virtual metropolis made of molecularized pixels. DigiLab Virtual Game. For the video-game DigiLab, the Fantazem collective collaborated with independent studio Artifact5, the Espace Ludique /

GamePlay Space, a collaborative

community dedicated to the Montréal game industry, and the Centre de développement et derecherche enimagerie numérique, orCDRIN. Artists Myriam Boucher, Pierre-Luc Lecours, Philippe Quinn and Maximilien Simard-Poirier created a virtual-reality work integrating immersive sound designand abstract video art intoa highly poeticthree-part experience. DigiLab Imaginary City. More technical, this DigiLab was carried out in partnershipwith Centre Turbine, the Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys and École secondaire Pierre-Laporte. Visual artist

Jonathan Villeneuve accompanied a

class of visual-arts students as they manipulated sophisticated equipment. Villeneuve isknown for his work withmachines and installations, sometimes sound-basedand often architectural. Here, he helped with laser cutting, 3D printing and other processes needed for the students of FabLab Pierre-Laporte to create a model of an imaginary city. A group of students was present that evening to show their futuristic train or 3D casino. DigiLab Interactive Installation. Who said agriculture and digital technology have nothing in common? Fred Trétout set out to challenge the sceptics. Artistic director at

Space & Dream and

motion designer, he worked with the Système alimentaire montréalais, SAM, to create Semer, an interactive installation that highlights healthy eating and agriculture in a playful way. Througha touch screen, visitors can learn about vegetables that grow in Montréal: the ThreeSisters, beans, squash and corn; muskmelon; and tomato. Art then becomes a means of learning. For more details about this DigiLab, click here. Web page presenting the DigiLabs. For full details, consult the related page, event page, exhibition page and partner links provided here. Full details are available through this link.Full details are available through this link.

Full details are available through this link.