Bent Signals / Signaux Tordus, video program with works by Yace Sula, Rob Feulner, and Emily Sirota, Maison de la Culture Janine-Sutto, Montreal QC, October 5th 2023, curated by Mick Sand.

Curatorial Statement:

In the spring of 2023 I was approached by Isabelle Mae-Yen Bredt to curate a video program in conjunction with an exhibition that she was co-curating alongside OK Pedersen at the Maison de la Culture Janine-Sutto. The proposed theme was the future of the image; a concern that was and still is at the forefront of many image-makers’ minds in light of the rapid evolution of A.I. technology, specifically “generative media.”* This novel technology, which can source unimaginable quantities of images over the internet and instantly mold it into new forms, ostensibly turns all of the imagery available online into raw, malleable material. How are image-makers responding to this new technology? What are the parallels between machine-generated imagery and imagery that is create by a human? Bent Signals / Signaux Tordus contains works by the artists Yace Sula, Rob Feulner, and Emily Sirota, each of whom capture, or otherwise source, video and treat video signals as a material that can be bent, shaped, and reformed. In Yace Sula’s Ele of the Dark we can see how this treatment of the medium is used to confront and unpack both race and our relationship to “the dark,” as well as the artificial structures of gender. With Rob Feulner’s Cable Box we are confronted with an overwhelming quantity of TV-imagery and are reminded of the incredible influence of television on public opinion. And in Emily Sirota’s The Future of Colour we find ourselves in a fugue state amongst other video signals trying to consolidate our past and our current states. 

* This term was coined in: Lev Manovich, “AI Image and Generative Media” in Artificial Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI in Art, Media and Design, co-authored by Lev Manovich and Emanuele Arielle (self-pub. manovich.net, 2023), http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/artificial-aesthetics-book

Bent Signals / Signaux Tordus was presented in the theatre of the Maison de la Culture Janine-Sutto and was followed by a round table discussion and Q&A with the artists Rob Feulner, Antoine Lussier, Edson Niebla Rogil, and Emily Sirota moderated by Mick Sand. The program was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Au soleil excessif which was co-curated by Isabelle Mae-Yen Bredt and OK Pedersen with direction by Chih-Chien Wang.