Come and meet performance artist Constanza Camelo
as she presents her project: Dilater ou contracter l’univers (Expanding or Contracting the Universe)
+ Launch of the web magazine .dpi 12
Wednesday, June 25th 5:30 – 7:30 PM
at the Studio XX: 4001 rue Berri, suite 201 (Sherbrooke metro)
Entrance Fee: Free – info : 514-845-7934
On May 7, Constanza Camelo performed the project Dilater ou contracter l’univers, une performance (Expanding or Contracting the Universe, a performance). A group of 13 immigrants were blindfolded with a passport and escorted by MIRA dogs, they walked through the hallways of the Berri-UQAM metro station to the sound of national anthems playing back on portable speakers. The group then moved to another section of the station for a staged live portrait. The artist will discuss the project in the presence of the immigrants who participated in the event.
In 2005, Constanza Camelo took the standard training course for the visually handicapped offered by the MIRA Foundation. This instruction enabled her to discover the primary reflex mechanisms for getting around with a guide dog. She conceived the project “Expand or Contract the Universe” as a result of this experience. The aim of this project is to explore how the process of perception as well as visual and motor representation, express the various levels of adaptation to the new host area. This approach will show the territorial occupations communicated by the symbolically “handicapped” migrant. This interactive sound project was produced during a residency held at Studio XX.
Biography:
Constanza Camelo’s work is essentially based on territorial occupations through the body in performance art, video performance and installAction. The body — object and subject — explores interactions between different transdisciplinary postures during different ephemeral cohabitations of public and private spaces. In addition, C. Camelo is a cofounder of the artist collective We are not Speedy Gonzales, collective who creates situations around the dynamics of the transcultural identity. She is also a board member of the artist’s run center DARE DARE. She lectures at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
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.dpi 12, the season’s last issue
.dpi closes its series on the theme of mobility with a sixth issue exploring works and actions that use and misuse technologies, at times with activist intentions. In this issue: An article on the West Coast activist collective from the Calit2 Lab at the University of California, San Diego, who created the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a device that helps immigrants finding their way in the desert; An interview with Constanza Camelo about her performance Dilater ou contracter l’univers (Expanding and Contracting the Universe), produced during a residency at Studio XX, where she questions the notion of territory and immigrants; And a piece about Mobile Digital Commons Networks’ The Haunting, a ghost-chasing game that invests the Mont-Royal and rethinks the production of locative media.
And to take along those evening summer strolls, .dpi offers two Ipod-downloadable flipbooks by artist Natacha Clitandre.