Performance Elusive Matter by Martin Messier

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About

With Elusive Matter, a minimalist light and sound performance, Martin Messier transforms simple wisps of smoke into a veritable projection screen. In a room submerged in darkness, armed with a projector as his sole source of light, Messier draws a myriad of ghostly spaces, architectural shapes and dreamlike images from the intangible haze, juxtaposing light and sound in order to conjure atmospheres both ethereal and soothing.

For more than 15 years, the artist Martin Messier has created artworks in which sound art meets light, robotic and video. In the form of performances and installations, these works place the body front and center.

Presented in some 50 countries, Martin Messier’s productions have received several prizes and nominations: a special mention at Prix Ars Electronica in 2010 listed for a Prix Opus in 2012 Best Experimental Short Film at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival in 2013 the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award in 2014; a special mention by the jury at the 2015 Japan Media Awards; the World OMOSIROI Award in Japan in 2018; and in 2021, the 2nd Prize at Athens Digital Arts Festival.

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• Website martinmessier.art

Organizer

14 lieux

Exploring the relation between sound and matter, the company "14 lieux" harbours the peculiar creations of multidisciplinary artist Martin Messier and of his collaborators coming from many horizons. Shrugging off the frontiers between disciplines, the company challenged itself in 2010 to put sound first on the scene and to develop scenic works of art where electroacoustic music, numeric art, performance, installation and dance dialogue with each other.

Each production, declined either in performance or musical installation; dance or sound object, feeds into the desire itself to push back the boundaries of the daily realm of imagination by reinventing objects’ functions or day to day movements.

From Sewing Machine Orchestra (2010), a sewing machine installation/concert, to Corps morts (2017), a soundly reflection and a choreography on gravity, by way of Field (2015), a performance of electromagnetic sounds, or even Ashes (2017), finding a way around our perceptions of the living through a scenic device composed of cameras and microscopes, 14 lieux’s creations explore the meanders of the numeric and of the organic and offer the spectator a way to live art differently.

14 lieux’s creations have been presented across the world in more than twenty countries and in many prestigious international festivals such as the Festival TransAmériques (Montréal), Mutek (Montréal), Transmediale (Berlin), Sonar (Barcelone), Mapping Festival (Genève), Nemo (Paris) and the Festival Europa (Rome).

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