Projet EVA, formed of Étienne Grenier and Simon Laroche, both of whom are artists, interactive media designers, and teachers, is a collective that has been creating digital art installations and performances internationally since 2003. Projet EVA’s works touch on the themes of loss and restriction and pay particular attention to issues involving relations between individuals and computer systems and their physical extensions. Among the collective’s works are Nous sommes les fils et les filles de l’électricité (2016), presented in La Villette, France, and Cinétose (2012), presented at Mois Multi and the Elektra festival.
Artwork description
Cortège is a participatory and somatic work for smartphones – that is, it is experienced physically the length of the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne. Wearing earphones and guided by geolocation cues from their phones, participants are invited to have an immersive sound experience. The walk begins with individual occasional instructions and then becomes more complex with encouragement to interact with other users. The actions to accomplish are diversified: hold up one’s phone to passersby who can read a message on it, distribute leaflets to passersby, or follow and watch other people. Through this participatory aspect, Cortège stands out from passive guided tours and encourages users to break away from their primal relationship with the screen. (Source: Nathalie Bachand)
“Rather than undertake a reading of Promenade Fleuve-Montagne limited to the physicality of the constructed environment and natural territory, we were inspired by the socio-historical tensions that it accommodates in order to explore the behaviour of the masses in a poetic register.”
– Étienne Grenier and Simon Laroche
Cortège is the first digital work for mobile devices to become part of the municipal public art collection.