13.05.2021 | Residence presentation – Anne-Sophie Blanchet Alain Wergifosse – La Chambre Blanche (Zoom – Qc)

For the second part of the digital arts and research residency between LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE (artist-run centre in visual and digital arts) and Transcultures (Center for digital and sound cultures – Wallonia-Brussels Federation), we invite the public to the presentation of Belgian artist Alain Wergifosse and Quebec researcher Anne-Sophie Blanchet which will take place on May 13, 2021 at 2 pm (Quebec) / 8 pm (Belgium) on ZOOM (in french).

An immersive installation by Alain Wergifosse combining two corpus of video works (Erosions and Flux & Densities) was exhibited in our gallery from March 26 to April 17, 2021. The exhibition will be reopened to the public from May 12 to May 29, 2021. As part of this exhibition, Alain Wergifosse presents past and current works in order to create a context of experimentation, contemplation and reflection that is both sensitive and critical. This exhibition is an opportunity to symbolically echo the work of collaboration and research with art historian and curator Anne-Sophie Blanchet.

Since the 1980s, artist Alain Wergifosse has developed a hybrid practice in sound and digital arts through which he frequently forges links with science. Most often in an intuitive and empirical way, he explores different sound, physical, biological and chemical phenomena that he then revisits in order to make works bordering on the tangible. In doing so, the artist poetically brings to light a host of phenomena – spectacular or banal – that occur on a daily basis and which fascinate, obsess or amaze him.

For her part, Anne-Sophie Blanchet has been pursuing research combining art history, museology, sociology and philosophy for nearly fifteen years. Fundamentally multidisciplinary, her practice – like that of Alain Wergifosse – therefore revolves around the creation of links between the arts and the rest of the world. To do this, she focuses her interest on the way the works are disseminated and received in the public space. As part of this residency, she is a witness and accomplice of the creative process, taking a theoretical and sensitive look at the project and its context of realization at a distance, in “connected mode”.

Continuing on from the Flux & Densities project, Alain Wergifosse and Anne-Sophie Blanchet are currently leading a series of meetings with scientists from different disciplines in order to discuss freely and find new avenues for theoretical and aesthetic reflection. These discussions allow their small research group to be further expanded and set the stage for future formal laboratory explorations.

At the end of this cross-residency, Alain Wergifosse will launch a new album entitled Flux & Densités on the Transonic label coordinated by Transcultures and an essay written by Anne-Sophie Blanchet will be available to the public.

Anne-Sophie Blanchet

Anne-Sophie Blanchet is an art historian and curator. Collaborating regularly with cultural organizations and academia, she has worked in the visual arts community for over ten years.

She is the author of several essays and critical texts focusing in particular on contemporary art as well as on the challenges of conservation and exhibition of certain current artistic productions in the museum context.

His recent research is particularly interested in performance and sound art as well as their mediation in public space.

Alain Wergifosse

Insatiable explorer of sound, image and the media since the 1980s, Alain Wergifosse amplifies all kinds of resonant objects and specializes in the electronic processing of feedback to achieve his organic compositions and improvisations. He has traveled the world solo and with various groups and collective projects (Obmuz, Macromassa, SpecOp, Colectivo Anatomic among others).

From his base in Barcelona, ​​he composed, during ten years, the music and sound interactions of the shows Marcel lí Antúnez (ex La Fura dels Baus) and he collaborated with many artists of the experimental musical scene ( Zbigniew Karkowski, Cluster, Jaki Liebezeit, Francisco Lopez, Nad Spiro, Eli Gras,…) and actively participated in various adventurous initiatives in Spain and internationally.

In recent years, returning to Belgium, he has developed his visual work and produced immersive and interactive installations, self-generative videos, microscopies and other materialist compositions presented in several festivals and international events (City Sonic, MEM, Kikk, Semaine sound, Simultan, Transnumeriques…).