Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain

Alexandre Castonguay

Recent activities / News

2/25/10 - "Expansion" (group show) at the Galerie de l'UQAM (Montreal), curated by Louise Déry and Audrey Genois, vernissage 25 February at 5:30pm

9/28/09 - "Rétro-ingénierie" as part of the VIème jeux de la Francophonie, Pièce unique gallery(Beirut) until October 6

7/1/09 - "ALEXANDRE CASTONGUAY & Mathieu Bouchard: Reverse Engineered" published by Carleton University Art Gallery 2009, with an essay by Nicole Gingras available from Art Books Canada

5/1/09 - "Read + Write" as part of the Biennale de Montréal until May 31 2009

03/21/09 - "Inventions" solo exhibition at PFOAC click here until 9 May 2009

Through his use of new technologies and digital art, Alexandre Castonguay explores both the applications and the limits of these media. He creates, for instance, technological environments in which the observer is acutely aware of his own relationship to the work of art. Referencing design, technological production and art history serves the twofold purpose of anchoring his art to these traditions and of questioning the expectations and beliefs that are associated with them. Not only does Castonguay work with digital photography and interactive installations, he also contributes to the development of Open Source software.

For the past 10 years or so, Alexandre Castonguay has produced a multidisciplinary body of work centred around digital photography, video, computerized installation and the Internet. A native of the Outaouais region, where he lives and works, Castonguay is a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. He is also a founding member and the artistic director of Artengine, a website run by and for visual and media artists. A politically committed artist, he contributes to developing the field of free software. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Québec, across Canada and abroad, notably in New York, Los Angeles, Santiago and Mexico City. In 2004, he won the Graff Award instituted in memory of Pierre Ayot. In 2005 the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal presented a solo exhibitionen entitled Elements and in 2006 his work Digitale was featured in the inaugural exhibition of New Media Beijing. For more information on Alexandre Castonguay's work and on open source codes please consult: artengine.ca

Until 27 October, 2007
Alexandre Castonguay + Mathieu Bouchard + Ken Campbell
Drawing by numbers

In Drawing by Numbers , a wall-mounted plotter lightly engraves participant's images. The drawings are based on the image analysis of visitor's movements, retaining their outlines. They are registered when people make gestures that are close enough to the coded gestures that are often characteristic of interactive art installations and of the usage of portable electronic devices.
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October 29 - December 3, 2005
Carte blanche à Alexandre Castonguay + Ross Birdwise

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is proud to present two exhibitions of Alexandre Castonguay and Ross Birdwise. Alexandre Castonguay will present Portapak. In Portapak, a touchscreen is inset within the cover of a road case. The images consists in hi-8 video footage of the train journey from Ottawa to Montréal, which is about 2hrs or the length of a video tape set to 'ep'. The camera was pointed outside the passenger cart window, effectively creating a 2 hour linear traveling sequence. Surface effects occur that abstracts the images through the recurrence of objects close to the camera while open areas in the camera field read as a slowing down relative to the observer's position. The screen is placed in a context that hints at the portability of the apparatus. Indeed, the case originally contained a portapak-like camera, batteries and tape recorder unit. Touching the screen affects the speed and direction of the playback, revisiting the A to B of linear editing systems. Our very perception of the landscape between cities is transformed into that of an extended palindrome. Accompanying Portapak, is a new digitally-edited photograph from his "Constructions" series. These digitally-edited images consist of more than 250 photographs that create a 360 degree view on a two dimensional surface of urban landscapes.

For the past 10 years or so, Alexandre Castonguay has produced a multidisciplinary body of work centred around digital photography, video, computerized installation and the Internet. A native of the Outaouais region, where he lives and works, Castonguay teaches in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. He is also a founding member and the artistic director of Artengine, a website run by and for visual and media artists. A politically committed artist, he contributes to developing the field of free software. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Québec, across Canada and abroad, notably in New York, Los Angeles, Santiago and Mexico City. In 2004, he won the Graff Award instituted in memory of Pierre Ayot. Currently his work can be seen at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in his first solo exhibition titled Elements. More >>

June 17 - September 11, 2004
Alexandre Castonguay: Digitale

The gallery Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present the solo exhibition entitled Digitale by Alexandre Castonguay (in collaboration with Matthieu Bouchard) from June 17 to September 11. The exhibition will feature his latest interactive work integrating tactile screen technology. During the course of the Summer, we will also unveil two new large digitally-edited photographs from his Constructions series. In Digitale , the digital and analog modes of representation are put into play. Expectations of spectacle, responsiveness and quick gratification of the former are thwarted by the slow, deliberate development of the latter. The viewer's touch embodies the image while pressing a shutter initiates a distantiation from our representation. The design, reminiscent of modernist utopias of access and equality, determines the behavior and experience of the viewer. Alexandre Castonguay's is also exhibiting Generique (2001) at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and Le Dessin des passions (1998) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.

May 17- July 5, 2003
Alexandre Castonguay: Chutes

This video installation has for subject the Chaudières falls on the Ottawa River. The beauty of the site drew people to the falls as they were the subject of much comment and paintings in the days before the establishment of E.B. Eddy (a lumber company). Through a modernist, grid-like representation of the subject, the installation attempts to convey 18th and 19th century notions of the picturesque and the sublime commonly associated with landscape painting. The work attempts to put into play industrialization and its associated mode of representation.

November 24 - December 22, 2001
Alexandre Castonguay (in collaboration with Mathieu Bouchard): Générique

Pierre François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present Générique, an interactive video installation. Shown recently at the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, the presentation in Montreal will feature a new sound component. Générique is a computer based installation making use of motion detection and footage from image banks. The user is invited to participate by transposing his/her image onto the stream of images. The movement of the user affects the flow of images by changing its source and colours. The footage is taken from commercial image banks that sell ready-made material for consumption by artists. The work attempts to question the generic packaging of nature images and nature inspired digital effects by introducing anomalies into what is intended to be perceived as a seamless experience. Mathieu Bouchard, programmer, has collaborated with the artist on this work. In general terms, nature is often associated with a perfect, pure state of being. Paradoxically, as the technological means of representation becomes more advanced, our choices of images tends to borrow increasingly from an ideal state of nature, as if seeking a lost paradise. Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain will also be presenting photographs by the artist including Construction (2001) and works from the series Le dessin des passions (1998).