Last Step Before Flicker Fusion Threshold: Robin Dupuis "Commutative" at Oboro

“One of the aspects of form that I have been very interested in is stasis - the concept of form which is not so directional in time, not so much climactic form, but rather form which allows time, to stand still.”

La Monte Young



Robin Dupuis is a guy I studied with, and who's been interested since years
in micro-tensions, wrether they occur in the visual domain, the sound domain (audio syntheticism), or am I supposing, the electric domain.


His new installation at Oboro is spatially ambitious yet it is almost deceptively too
simple, sort of a minimal encounter between Bruce Nauman and Granular Synthesis.

He uses the unique segmentation of the tiniest (in lenght, aka shortest) videoclip imaginable of a hand, and have it repeated incessantly, what provokes a slight
almost imperceptible shaking in the image. This image is then projected
in negative and opposing another version on both sides of a thin plexiglass panel (I linksteal from Oboro because I guess it is less illegal than taking pictures myself and publishing them, given two options). It is made very clear in another projection at the end of a tiny corridor (created specifically for the occasion) that these hands are meant to touch each others, yet I am not sure if in the smaller video piece the hands were filmed together or resulted from the use of reflect-montage (what I think it is judging from the artist's past interest in the phenomenon of feedback). But nonetheless,
all these images are accompanied by a series of speakers casted into the walls
(the ones in the corridor are in fact installed in a zig-zag pattern across each others emulating thus the physical process of sound waves) that seems to amplificate the sound incoming from the recorded images (they are drones made of very rapid loops), but they could as well be unrelated expression of pure white or pink noises, or more incidentally, static noises.


And this is where I get the most confused in that, this work is supposed to reflect a "physiology of aesthetic perception", yet I do not receive enough technological details to fulfill such a clear interpretation.


Because on one hand, I got this notion that the technology recreates vibrations
at a level that is the least perceptible for a human being (tiny loops creating drones or a montage sequences), which offer a visual enunciation of the timely fluctuations between the conscious and the cognitive, but on the other hand (scuse the pun of using the hand motif), I'm proposed all sorts of deeper (I find) meanings about static fields, unified fields (of quantum-mantric proportion), and the fact that energy traverse into everything and make everything stick together, and...
you know where I'm going there, don't you? There's a buddhist temple at Oboro !! That's where I'm going.


So as aesthetically crisp as Dupuis wishes to be with "Commutative" (see how the title itself can create a confusion), his proposition seems to dwell on the vague side, especially since the press release refuse to move much further a superficial description (read it here).


But before you move on to meditate, please follow me as I'm describing a MUCH BETTER
piece by Dupuis which in itself was worth the whole visit (have you looked here carefully? There is a QTVR shot of that second work...hmm...QTVR...sweet...how retro, how so 95).


"Conciliabule" (made in joined hands (decidedly...) with Myriam Bessette) really much suffers from being placed in the almost hidden second room at Oboro. A lot of visitors will miss out on a piece that I find considerably more appealing.

It is, again, quite a simple piece, made with tiny speakers descending from the ceilings (they have long wires, in case you can't see the picture) in perfect rows. This piece is actually the encounter between a piece by Montreal's Artifice (who used a similar room installation, but using lamp bulbs (that was at Montreal's Mac)) and a sculpture by Stephen Vitiello (a great sound artist who installed a few hanging speakers who were bumping at the pression of imperceptible frequencies (this I saw at Sculpture Centre in Queens, NYC)).


But the event itself deemed to be choregraphied the way Dupuis did it:
the work is simply the demonstration of a low crescendo between low frequencies yet only visually perceptible (through the increase of the vibrations on the speakers skins), until they become acoustically perceptible, and proceed like this through a humming drone until the speakers pop out a few minutes later (before it all restarts again).


What I like about this work is that, even though there are certainly nice
explanations and trivia details about the process and the exact frequencies used,
the piece still funtions visually for anyone not knowing any of them (including me).
It is a sound sculpture and..it is a sound sculpture. Period. That's IT.
Sound. Shown. Visually. Half a dopler effect.


But before I start tackling myself about my recent dislike of conceptual art,
I must remind that this work is first and foremost fully experiential, entirely immersive, and much more emotionally and physically engaging than a mere didactic demonstration (on the proprieties of sound, for example). This is perhaps the lunatic effect of drone, but being that I was recently attracted to transcendentalism myself, I am not the one that you will hear attempting
to devalue, diminush or demystify the affects of the most simplistic perceptusl phenomenons. Nor intellectualize them, not when I value emotions and experiences above the far and few temporal sights of complete comprehension.



Cheerlididdoo,


Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com



Robin Dupuis: "Commutative"
4 mach - april 1, 2006
Oboro
4001, rue Berri, local 301
Montréal
Tue-Sat 12h-5h pm



(Ooopsy....err...it's ending today I'm afraid.
You better read me REAL fast)


PS: Apparently Robin Dupuis will have a site soon, hopefully
presenting all the nice texts that were in the exhibit portfolio
but didnt have time to read. it will be at
www.robin-dupuis.com



PS2: Speaking of fast shaking images, I have stuff (of a totally different
vein) that uses a similar montage aesthetic that I want to put up here at some point. They were made for a kino 4 or 5 years ago. It's totally goofy.