In this light, the everyday, decidedly \u201clow-tech\u201d elements used in the four displays by Perte de Signal (Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s representation at Kinetica) were a welcome contrast from the glitzy gadgetry of most of the booths. A lacy paper airplane in Pavitra Wickramasinghe\u2019s Take Hold Lightly, Let Go Lightly<\/em>; eggs and dried peas in Samuel St-Aubin\u2019s De choses et d\u2019autres<\/em>; plastic mesh in Maxime Damecour\u2019s Temporeal<\/em>; the familiar texture of string looping around string in Patrick Harrop\u2019s Vortical Filament<\/em>: these elements opened so-called \u201cnew media\u201d onto many other sculptural, conceptual and social histories, and addressed some of the physical, philosophical and political stakes that constitute the point of encounter between the material and the mechanical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n St-Aubin\u2019s display contained two dinner plates raised up from a dotted surface, spinning around on an angle; their movements made a single dried pea on each plate travel around in circles. Nearby were two horizontal spoons, side by side, rigged up to motors that led the spoons through a sometimes synchronized, sometimes disjointed circular dance. A single egg held by one of the spoons would intermittently leap onto the next spoon as the motors brought them close together. With delightful simplicity, these works point to the many forms of disjuncture that arise when the perfectly smooth, regular, mechanical motion of motors encounters the far more complex, singular contours of everyday objects. The peas\u2019 not-quite-spherical surfaces \u201cinterpret\u201d the motor\u2019s movements differently, tracing idiosyncratic lines around the plates. (Sometimes, they even fly off.) The egg wobbles awkwardly at one point in its mechanical dance, as if its internal fluid, permeated with its own momentum, were struggling to slow down to its mover\u2019s newly reduced speed, to reconcile itself to the new timescale of the spoons. The minute perception of motion is, arguably, becoming an increasingly politicized terrain, given, for instance, recent research into gait recognition, which would enable users to identify criminals whose faces are obscured from surveillance footage, or to secure buildings without ID cards, by scrutinizing each person\u2019s walk as they come in. In an era which pervasively \u2013 and increasingly \u2013 links particularity of motion to identity, St-Aubin\u2019s piece argues against this link, inviting viewers instead to closely perceive movement as a relational property, inhabiting the space between objects and mechanics rather than belonging to any one element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Temporeal<\/em>, Maxime Damecour creates a strikingly effective approximation of the effect of viewing a jump cut in real space, using plastic mesh and speakers. A looping ribbon of mesh, resting on metal rods attached to hidden speakers and lit with LED light strips, suddenly shudders, tenses, changes its position slightly. The flickering lights break the scene into simulated \u201cframes,\u201d and make the movement feel as if it happened by montage rather than by physical motion. This subtle, but extremely effective technique raises questions about the effect of filmic forms of perception on the material imaginary. The work engages with the filmic cut as an anticipation of other, instantaneous forms of transporting material. Yet at the same time, it also entertains an illusion that the looping plastic mesh is tensile, muscular, stuttering, self-moving. Hidden in the shadows of the strobe, the material both sinks into filmic history, and assumes the semblance of a new autonomy of movement.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/9-TEMPOREAL_Maxime_Damecour_02.jpg\")
Temporeal<\/em>, 2014.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n