Jean-Pierre Aubé. Electrosmog Venezia

The Electrosmogs exhibition by Jean-Pierre Aubé will relate the Electrosmogs series to the V.L.F. Natural Radio project realised in Finland, Scotland and Quebec and offering sound and images of low frequencies emanating from natural phenomena such as the Aurora Borealis. Two new video works will be presented: Electrosmog Venezia, realised during the Venice Biennale, and Radio Vaticana, presenting the capture of the signal from Vatican Radio, one of the world’s major sources of radio frequency emissions.

Round table

The opening of the exhibition will be preceded by a round table organized by RAM radioartemobile at 5 pm, with a varied group of researchers and thinkers on the issue of radio frequencies.

Participants:
Jean-Pierre Aubé, artist
Louise Déry, art historian and curator of the exhibition
Giuseppe Di Giugno, physicist focusing, since the 1970’s, on the audio digital, founder of IRIS
Michelangelo Lupone, composer, researcher, designer of soundscapes
Cristian Stanescu, astrophysicist
Luca Zevi, architect and urbanist

Artist Statement

A graduate of the MFA program at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Jean-Pierre Aubé is well known for his sound and visual representations of very low frequencies and radio frequencies using ingenious methods and technologies, which enable him to sound the magnetosphere and space. Over the years, he has become a sort of explorer-artist who, equipped with curious antennas, radio receivers, software of his own making and an array of computer hardware, captures various frequencies and then models this data into singular landscapes, which are displayed via charts, photographs and audio and video recordings.

For the curator Louise Déry, Jean-Pierre Aubé is a landscape artist of a novel genre. A sound and wave magician, he makes us aware of an invisible part of our surrounding world, its poetry, its ecology and the dangers threatening it. She recalls that “artists have always turned their eyes to the sky. I view Jean-Pierre as following in the grand romantic tradition, his head raised towards outer space, both listening and observing it, he evokes its boundlessness while at the same time revealing the congestion which our inexorable technological footprint has brought to this immensity. In a world where the sky is being sold by the piece to meet the demands of the communication industry and in which formidable powers are busy hiding information or spying on the transmitted contents, Jean-Pierre’s work focuses our attention on the vast issues regarding the respect and damage of the planet and its surroundings, and the effect of these practices on each human being.”

Jean-Pierre Aubé

Born in 1969 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, lives and works in Montreal.
Education: MFA, Université du Québec à Montréal
Exhibitions: Expression (St-Hyacinthe, 2015), Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing, 2013), Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal, 2012), Clark (Montreal, 2012), Séquence (Saguenay, 2011), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2011), AXENÉO7 (Gatineau, 2010), Galerie de l’UQAM (Montreal, 2008 and 2010), Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Quebec City, 2008), Palais du Tau (Reims, 2008), Ludwig Museum (Budapest, 2007), ZKM (Karlsruhe, 2005)
Performances: Elektra (2012 and 2011, Montreal), MUTEK (2010, Montreal), Mois Multi (Quebec City, 2005), @rt Outsiders (2005, Paris)
Award: Prix Giverny Capital 2013
www.kloud.org

Louise Déry

Louise Déry holds a PhD in Art History and has been the director of the Galerie de l’UQAM since 1997. Previously, she was curator of contemporary art at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She has curated numerous exhibitions accompanied by catalogues (Rober Racine, Dominique Blain, Raphaëlle de Groot, Nancy Spero, David Altmejd, Michael Snow, Giuseppe Penone, Shary Boyle, Sarkis…) of which over thirty were shown abroad (Europe, Turkey, the US and Asia). She was the curator of the Canada pavilion at the Venice Biennial with an exhibition by David Altmejd (2007) and in 2013 she returned there to present a performance by Raphaëlle de Groot.

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