MUTEK BCN – 2024 Québec delegation

MUTEK
BARCELONA 2024
MUTEK, in collaboration with l’Effet Québec – The Export expertise cluster, and the Québec office in Barcelona, has put together a Québec delegation of digital-content creators, producers, broadcasters, distributors, and cultural venues to take part in the MUTEK.ES anniversary edition. Come and be inspired, extend your professional network, and take advantage of this opportunity to showcase your projects and expertise.
The festival will also feature two days of meetings and exchanges designed to forge links with the creative ecosystem in Barcelona and with the professionals from around the world who will be in attendance.
This mission is being undertaken in collaboration with MUTEK Montréal, thanks to the support of Québec’s Ministère de la Culture et des Communications (MCC), Xn Québec, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Québec office in Barcelona, Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals, Instituto de Cultura de Barcelona, and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) through its program (known as PICE in Spanish) for promoting Spanish culture on the world stage.




A MUTEK.ES anniversary edition!
For the past 15 years, MUTEK, the international festival of digital creativity, has been cultivating links between Montréal and Barcelona and between Québec and Catalonia, thanks to the creation of the MUTEK.ES festival in 2009. This special anniversary edition of this singular MUTEK network satellite in Europe will take place from April 9 to 13, 2024.
Year after tear, MUTEK.ES has renewed its commitment to developing avant-garde and daring programming, helping to position Barcelona as a platform for discussion of new trends in digital creativity and technology, both locally and globally. For Québec creators, the event provides a privileged gateway to the European continent while connecting them to artistic trends from around the world.
MUTEK.ES Symposium
Three days of professional activities devoted to “Nurturing Networks in Digital Creativity”!
After announcing its full line-up a few weeks ago, the festival is now unveiling the first details of the MUTEK Symposium, a program of professional activities (in English) developed in collaboration with MUTEK Montréal, which will take place from April 10 to 12 at the Roca Barcelona gallery, at Antigua Fábrica Estrella Damm, and at BAU Centro Universitario de Artes y Diseño.
In addition, on the opening day of the festival, to be held on the afternoon of April 10 at the Roca Barcelona gallery, Québec artists Martin Messier (QC/CA) and DATUM CUT (QC/CA) will be featured in the Sculpté avec la lumière et le son (Sculpted with light and sound) cycle, in which artists and contributors explore the relationship between space, light, and sound. The cycle celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. This collaboration involves a three-pronged artistic offering that includes an artistic installation, a live audiovisual performance, and a networking opportunity bringing together institutions, artists, collectives, and partners in conjunction with MUTEK Match.
The fourth edition of the MUTEK Barcelona Symposium, dedicated to Nurturing Networks in Digital Creativity, will take place on Friday, April 12 at Antigua Fábrica Estrella Damm and include discussions and analysis of the impact of networks in promoting a favourable digital creativity ecosystem. It will also explore the key role of cultural diplomacy in the dynamic landscape of digital creativity and celebrate the collaboration between Catalonia and Québec, which is creating spaces where knowledge, concepts, and values converge to enhance the fabric of collective creative endeavours.
The MUTEK Symposium will also engage in essential dialogue, highlighting avant-garde projects from Catalonia, Québec, and elsewhere. Over the course of three days, panels, conferences, performances, and networks will provide opportunities to engage in discussion and analysis of what can be achieved, setting new standards for promoting parity, diversity, and sustainability in the field of digital innovation and creativity in general.
Selection of Québec studios and creators to take part in this mission
Alexandre Castonguay
Professor, digital arts at UQAM and artist.
Alexandre Castonguay is a quiet activist and darkness designer whose works and performances explore how technology can be used to assert human ties. Formerly a professor of electronic arts at the University of Ottawa, where he co-founded the Artengine centre for art and technology, he has been teaching at École des arts visuels et médiatiques at Université du Québec à Montréal since 2009. His work can be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and Musée du Québec. Abroad, his work has been shown in Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Cali, Casablanca, Madrid, Mexico City, and New York, among other locations.
Expertises: programming, electronic art, participatory art, and installations.
Featured project: Technologies de la fête
International digital arts alliance (IDAA)
Isabella Salas (Co-founder of IDAA | Interdisciplinary artist and producer) and Alexandre Émond-Turcotte (Co-founder of IDAA | Creative director and content writer).
IDAA was created to bring together and cultivate a borderless network of professional digital artists, technology researchers, and cultural and creative institutions to collaborate on documenting their work.
Our mission is to catalyze connections, educate, and promote sustainable practices for the long-term growth and viability of the digital arts.
Featured project: smART : LA MÉMOIRE COLLECTIVE DES ARTS NUMÉRIQUES.
smART is a collaborative, public platform for documenting and listing digital works, making it easier for artists to document, publicize, and promote their work.
Best described at the future IMDB of the digital arts, the platform aims to become the largest database of digital art to which both artists and institutions can contribute simultaneously, creating a one-stop shop for the arts sector and the cultural and creative industries.
COLLABORATE. EDUCATE. REPRESENT.
Amanda Gutiérrez
Multimedia artist
Amanda Gutiérrez (born in 1978 in Mexico City) explores the experience of political attentiveness and gender studies, focusing on sonic practices implemented through augmented reality. At present, she is honing her work’s academic attributes as a doctoral candidate at Concordia University’s Arts and Humanities program.
Featured project: Soundwalks
The artist will focus on her soundwalks in augmented reality, which have highlighted the voices and experimental musical productions of communities identified as female and LGBTQIA2+ in South America.
FEZIHAUS ™
Samito Matsinhe (Founder).
FEZIHAUS™ is a Montréal-based company that Samito founded in 2020. Occasionally described as a workshop inspired by the “label” concept or by public outreach, it aims to use music as a means of uniting creators from diverse backgrounds at the nexus of exploration, fair ownership, and well-being.
Featured project: CONVERSAS : Qui manque dans cette pièce.
This series of conversations aims to address deep-rooted resource imbalances arising from historical disparities, including impediments to access to new technologies and new monetization models.
HINTER LIVE
Steven Dagenais (Sound designer, producer, and creative director).
hinter live is a Montreal based organization working at the intersection of arts and climate action. The project started in 2021 as an initiative to support live music and its relation with the climate emergency. The project recorded over 14 episodes of live music performances by filmed outdoors in the great Canadian and Quebecois national parks. These sessions feature breathtaking locations including remote islands, the great north american forests, mountain tops, frozen lakes and sub-zero conditions that contribute to the reforestation of 500 trees per live session and have planted over 8.000 trees in the British Columbia’s affected forests with the support of the NGO One Tree Planted and FACTOR Canada.
hinter live was recognized by the Music Cities Awards as one of the Best Initiatives Using Music to Support Environmental Sustainability of 2023 and it’s announcing an artist residency and the second edition of Earth Night Montréal.
HUB Montréal
Rachel Parent (Executive director).
HUB Montréal, Canada’s first business accelerator for the digital creative industry, has quickly become a must-attend event on the global calendar in just a few short years.
HUB Montréal provides an outstanding market for the expansion and business development of digital creative companies working primarily in the cultural, entertainment, and experiential marketing sectors, and in all areas at the crossroads of art, technology, and their commercial applications. Every year, it brings together 750 local and international creative industry leaders to take part in a jam-packed program of events that foster business opportunities, explore the latest innovations, and unite creative minds for the future.
Isotone Studio
Bar Rubinstein (Co-founder and digital artist) and Félix Bonjour (Co-founder and digital artist).
Using intention as direction and moving from point to form and from technology to emotion, Isotone explores digital frontiers in search of new creative horizons.
Founded in Montreal in 2018, Isotone is made up of Bar Rubinstein, Lilian Guiran, Hugo Fournier, and Félix Bonjour. Their creations are shaped by experimentation and wandering freely through multiple digital-arts skill sets. Through their diverse artistic backgrounds, they seek to weave a unique practice linked by the manifold interactions that make up their experiences. From visual creation to musical composition, from programming to painting, they always harness technology to showcase feeling. This is digital art in a quest for poetry. Like an extension of the ties that bind them, their projects bear the hallmarks of attentiveness, respect, and consideration.
Featured project: NUANCES
NUANCES is a real-time immersive audiovisual installation created in May 2023.
Normal Studio
Sébastien Grenier-Cartier (Partner and Executive director) and Philippe Belhumeur (Partner and Creative director).
Normal is a multidisciplinary creative studio based in Montréal, Canada. From captivating narratives to evocative set designs brimming with fascinating images, light, and sound, each project is an adventure that begins with an opportunity for envisioning new paths between what is and what can be. Our true destination is to make amazing things happen along the way.
We create legendary journeys, one project at a time.
Featured project: Au bord du lac tranquille
Musée de la civilisation
Isa Mailloux (Digital and technological project manager).
As one of the leading national and international museums, Musée de la civilisation stands out for its societal and multidisciplinary approach, which places people at the heart of its activities.
Featured project: Sur paroles
The “Sur paroles” exhibition is an augmented-sound reality tour. The sound of rap queb combines music, testimonials, and archives in a moving composition that gives voice to a marginalized community.
Quartier des spectacles international (QDSi)
Guillaume Aniorté (Executive director).
QDSinternational is an organization affiliated with Quartier des spectacles de Montréal that produces and distributes participatory installations for public spaces, in collaboration with creative partners, co-producers, and broadcasters around the world.
Present in over 70 cities across 12 countries, our installations benefit from know-how acquired over many years and the many works that have brightened North America’s largest cultural district and captured the imagination of millions of visitors. This track record translates into cutting-edge expertise in the design and development of robust and safe products designed both for people of all ages and year-round travel all over the world.
Featured projects: Loop and Impulse
Society for Arts and Technology [SAT]
Jenny Thibault (Executive director), Alexandra Marin (Manager, R&D services), Marek Blottière (Project manager, R&D) and Alexandre Auché (Programmer).
Founded in 1996, Society for Arts and Technology [SAT] is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing and supporting digital culture. SAT is internationally renowned for its active and pioneering role in developing technologies for immersive creation, telepresence, and mixed reality. Its cross-disciplinary approach and hybrid mission make it unique not only in Montréal, but worldwide.