Collective Actions: The Interactive Installation Work of Marc Fournel

Since media began to engage interactively with its audience the art ­community has witnessed an attendant diversification of sources for both production of interactive art and its conceptual ­scaffolding. The inter-disciplinary nature of the work, with its genesis in the ­military-industrial complex draws from science, art and technological practices and histories. Interactive media art pays homage to much of the early research into cybernetic systems relying on feedback loops that ­perpetuate unpredictable events creating surprising outcomes for the audience/inter-actor. The tendency to mimic real-life systems, to re-create our relationship to organic forms has led to work that often parallels our experience of our everyday environment. Norman White, David Rokeby, Diana Burgoyne, Catherine Richards, Marc Fournel, and Luc Courchesne are just a few of the artists engaged in these practices in this country.