News / Events Events
Brown Bag Series: Darsha Hewitt and “Re-imagining Living Room Particle accelerators”
Wednesday April 10th, 2013
12:00 – 1:00 pm
EV 11.705, Hexagram Resource Centre
Photo credit: Johnson Ngo
Description: My artwork evolves out of experiments I conduct in my studio where I explore the physics of electricity and look for ways I can use it as a raw material. This includes harvesting electrostatic transmissions, tapping into electromagnetic emissions, and manipulating live flowing current. In my recent work I have been repurposing trailing-edge communication technology and transforming it into electro-mechanical sound installations and experimental instruments for audio performances. This presentation focuses on my current research that involves repurposing obsolete Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TVs and using them as static electricity generators. The static charges they produce are used as a kinetic force that drives the movement in my works Electrostatic Bell Choir and Electrostatic Birds. Documentation of the works can be viewed here: www.darsha.org
Bio: Darsha Hewitt is a Canadian artist based in Montreal. She was recently awarded an International Stipend for Young Artists in Sound Art from the Federal State of Lower Saxony and Braunschweig HBK (DE) (2013). In 2011 Darsha received an International Work Stipend from The Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst (DE). She has exhibited her artwork across Canada, in Mexico, Scandinavia and Europe – including presentations at: Make Art Festival (FR), Piksel Festival (NO), La Periferia (MX), MUTEK (CA), Studio XX (CA) and Interacess (CA).
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To view the complete Winter 2013 calendar, go here.
Brown Bag Series: “Sneaking up on Time” by Dana Samuel
Wednesday April 3rd, 2013
12:00 – 1:00 pm
EV 11.705, Hexagram Resource Centre
Description: My research-creation project entitled “Sneaking Up on Time” constructs performative scenarios for imagining history anew. Working across studio practices and anthropological methods in tandem with contemporary global and media art histories, I explore a “migratory aesthetics” of exile. In this talk, I present my studio process and past artworks, as well as my thesis project’s starting point and methodology.
Bio: In her artwork, Dana Samuel raises questions of history, politics and cultural identity through exploring narrative and storytelling, futility and failure and relationships between digital technologies and obsolete media. Dana holds an Associate Degree from the Ontario College of Art & Design and a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario. She has shown her work at galleries and festivals across Canada and in Europe. She is presently an artist-researcher in Concordia’s PhD Humanities program.
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To view the complete Winter 2013 calendar, go here.
Brown Bag Series: Megan Turnbull and “Memory Process: Examining the impact of Contemporary Media on Memory”
Wednesday March 27, 2013
12:00 – 1:00 pm
EV 11.705, Hexagram Resource Centre
How do we remember? As technology advances we are provided with new formats for recording moments. Does this recorded media, transform how we remember? How can we know that our memories are accurate? Memory Process is an exploration of the ways we remember and forget. It is a collection of qualitative research recorded in various formats such as; photography, video, found footage archive, audio, and animation. During this Hexagram talk I will explore these epistemological questions, illustrate my methodological approach, and share my work.
Bio: A. Megan Turnbull is a Winnipeg-bred Montreal-based artist and director, currently pursuing her MFA in Film Production at Concordia. She has created paper worlds for her films ‘Evolucity,’ ‘Frolic,’ and the National Film Board stereoscopic 3D film ‘Unlaced Délacé.’ Her work has been screened across Canada and internationally. Megan’s work explores the evolving relationship between memories, time and place.
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To view the complete Winter 2013 calendar, go here.
Brown Bag Series: Claire Brunet and “Paradox in Sculpture Practices: Perspectives on a 3D Digital Medium.”
Wednesday March 20th, 2013
12:00 – 1:00 pm
EV 11.705, Hexagram Resource Centre
Image: Claire Brunet, Salmon triangle
Artistic creation has mutated from its introvert nature to become a collaborative act merging the scientific and artistic domains into an extrovert process of creation. This talk addresses the Impact of 3D digital technology on artistic creation. Referencing research creation, we explore sensory knowledge inspired by environmental concerns from ecological to technological perspectives. The sculpture installation project proposes opposing temporal forces—a 3D digital and technological approach as a mode of production, in opposition to an ecological statement on the vulnerability of the living environment—which stress the opposing values of an hypermodern society, reflecting on a culture of paradox.
Bio: Claire Brunet is a sculptor, associate professor at OCAD University, and PhD Candidate in the Individualized Program (INDI) at Concordia University. Brunet’s research investigates the impact of a 3D digital and technological environment on sculpture and installation art practices. Currently Brunet is working on ecological concepts addressing the vulnerability of the living environment through 3D digital and technological modes of production.
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To view the complete Winter 2013 calendar, go here.
Brown Bag Series: Matthew Palmer and “Research is an Intellectual Chore: Using Powerpoint to Blast Through Art History”
Wednesday march 13th, 2013
12:00 – 1:00 pm
EV 11.705, Hexagram Resource Centre
Description: A colleague once told me that Duchamp once quipped, “art is pretty easy.” In the contemporary landscape, art isn’t as easy, probably. We have now entered the age of the interdisciplinary. You can no longer only exist as an “artist.” You must now be a curator, writer, philosopher, theorist, critic, government-subsidized body, scientist, factory worker, foreman, psychologist and political economist. We now call the ability to create artwork and pair it with theory, “research-creation.” This is a wonderful turn in contemporary thought, because it legitimizes everything. This talk will explore explorations in contemporary research as an inherent quality and by-product of labour and the ways in which artists currently utilize sub-systems and structures of thought as a medium of expression, whilst expanding the field of relationships between critical interrogation and making. The medium of this creative talk is standard Powerpoint presentation.
Bio: Matthew Palmer is a transdisciplinary (blasting through disciplines) artist who addresses themes of making and why we think it necessary to question why. His work has been shown across a very limited portion of Canada. He holds almost no accolades with the exception of one friend calling him a, “pretty good guy.”
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To view the complete Winter 2013 calendar, go here.
Brown Bag Series: Tatiana Koroleva and “Collective Body: Ascetic Ritual in Performance Art”
Wednesday March 6th, 2013 12:00 – 1:00 pm EV 11.705, Hexagram Resource Centre
Collective Body: Ascetic Ritual in Performance Art investigates different modalities of alternative temporal communities that emerge in the process of aesthetic and ritualistic experience in particular in the mode of ritualistic performance art by examination of the work of three contemporary performance artists: Marina Abramovic, Linda Montano, and Ron Athey, as well as my own work. I see the works of these performance artists as different models of what I will argue constitute a model of the collective body, a concept that encompasses the multiplicity of approaches to non-structural immediate communities based on the collective affect and desire produced in performative context. The concept of the collective body, as I will employ throughout this research, derives from a number of theoretical concepts involved with the studies of ritual by Victor Turner, Richard Schechner, George Bataille and Antonin Artaud and my critique of them. A crossover between experimental anthropology and avant-garde theater studies provides an essential background for the analysis of alternative communities that emerge on the margins of the dominant social paradigm in religious ritualistic practices and in a particular strain of Western avant-garde theater associated with ritualistic performance. Bio: Tatiana Koroleva is a performance artist and researcher born in Western Siberia. Her works explore various ways of resistance against dominating standards for individual body in post-capitalist culture. Tatiana has graduated from the Visual Arts Department of SUNY, Buffalo, USA as the Fulbright Program scholarship holder. Currently she is working on her PhD research at the Department of Humanities at Concordia University.
For more information contact us at To view the complete Winter 2013 calendar, go here.
Brown Bag Series: Positioning Research-Creation – A mid-term, roundtable discussion on practices of making and thinking.
Positioning Research-Creation:
A mid-term roundtable discussion on practices of making and thinking
Wednesday, 27 February from 12 noon – 1:15pm
Hexagram Resource Centre, EV 11.705
Invited respondents: Joanna Donehower, Natalie Doonan, Jaclyn Meloche, Matthew Palmer, Harry Smoak, Oli Sorensen and Rickie Lee Owens.
This event is an opportunity to pause half-way through the term and consider some of the questions brought forward so far. Everyone from the Concordia community is welcome to join us for this opportunity to engage in important debates surrounding the nature of research-creation, its definitions, methods and more. We’re concerned with ways of sustaining exchange between disciplines and departments. Regulars and newcomers are all encouraged to attend and participate from any program: HUMA, INDI, MFA, faculty, more. Light snacks will be provided.
We’ve invited a few past-presenters to kick-off discussion, respond to a small constellation of themes, and hope that you’ll bring your ideas and questions, too, and join in. Some food for thought to get us started:
- Collaboration and research-creation: how does collaboration change the nature of academic research?
- Curating/creating: how can a curatorial practice inform research-creation methodologies? Must the “creation” aspect of research-creation imply making something new?
- Accessibility/dissemination: how can researchers from diverse disciplines understand each other? Is a common vocabulary useful? How do we make our research public? Why are other terms, like “practice-based” used elsewhere?
- “Artistic research” and “institutional critique”: how do studio artists reconcile their practices with the structure of the institution? Or is “institutional critique” an outmoded problematic? Does “studio practice” necessarily mean “artistic research”?
- Problematizing language: phrases like “research-creation” and “knowledge production” have clear links to economic questions of the “creative city” and immaterial labour. No one likes to talk about money, but are all these topics are embroiled in questions of economics and public funds?
Come to the Brown Bag and join in the discussion. And have some snacks!
Distinguished Speakers Series: Lisa Moren
Hexagram-Concordia Centre for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies
Distinguished Speakers Series presents:
Lisa Moren
public lecture + reception:
Phenomena, Ecology and Technology
Friday, February 8, 2013
4:00 – 6:00 pm
seminar:
Ecology and Economy:
The Outback Stock Exchange
Thursday, February 7, 2013
4:00 – 5:30 pm
location for both:
Hexagram Resource Centre
EV Building, 11.705
Concordia University
1515 St. Catherine St. W.
Montreal QC
everyone welcome
no rsvp required
for more info: or 514-848-2424 ext 5939
See below for talk and seminar descriptions and Lisa Moren’s bio: