Les Errances de l’écho / Jean Dubois

Vernissage February 13th at 20h / Hall de Méduse
13th to 24th of February

Standing before the mirror that forms the installation of The Wanderings of Echo one is both Alice and Narcissus.  Amidst unintelligible whispering, strange and dreamlike, fascination compels us to touch our own reflection… The moment the hand caresses the mirror it comes to life and voices from a distant world send back thoughts that could very well be our own.

With this interactive audio installation, Jean Dubois delves into the human interior exposed in the intimacy of one’s awareness of self. As the spectator modifies the electromagnetic field controlled by sensors placed under the mirror’s surface, an intermingling of superposed and criss-crossing voices emanates in an intimate conversation from the inmost depths of an invisible double. Are the self-doubts, the knowing allusions, the flattering or reproaching comments that take shape a reflection of one’s own thoughts or a kind of common consciousness?

Taking the public back to the shifts of its own reflection and at the same time to the meaning of secret thoughts, The Wanderings of Echo raises the question about Same and Other and the possibility of a community of minds woven from parallel inner monologues. 

About Jean Dubois
(Montreal, Canada)

Jean Dubois is a multidisciplinary artist who mainly produces media installations. His work explores the poetic potential of the interactive image, in particular, while staging situations that deal with otherness and inter-subjectivity. He mainly uses touch-screens as corporal interface, bringing the spectator into contact with fictional characters and proposing intimate encounters with the body and with other's memory. The situations he offers are as suggestive of seduction as they are of disillusionment.

His productions have been presented in Brazil, Japan, Luxembourg, the United States, and at various other museums and artists'centers in Quebec and Canada. He teaches at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques at UQÀM, and co-directs the creative research group Interstices. He is also a member of the research organization Hexagram, Institute for Research in the Arts and Media Technologies; the Interuniversity Media Arts Center (CIAM); and Media Arts Research Group (GRAM).

Realised with the support of the Fonds québecois pour la recherche sur la société et la culture, the Institut de recherche-création en arts et technologies médiatiques Hexagram and the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Jean Dubois would like to thank :