A half-open interiority, half revealed. Between presence and absence. Body as matter. Body as light. Body as sound. The inside and the outside merge into each other.

Ariane Plante

CREDITS

A creation by Line Nault
Audrey Bergeron, Tony Chong, Jessica Serli and Peter Trosztmer – performance
Alexandre St-Onge – distant space performance
Alexandre Burton – digital instrument and audio-visual media device
Simon Guilbault – lighting and scenography
Elen Ewing – costumes
Ariane Plante – companion and artistic advisor
Philémon Crête – director of photography Les Refuges and Les Fleurs
Brigitte Breault – flower creation and production
Victor Burton Dallaire – additional music
Guillaume Arseneault – systems configuration
Jimmy Lakatos – technical support
Fanny A. Villeneuve – technical management Les Fleurs
David Lamarche – technical assistance Les Fleurs
Jannicke Morissette – graphics

Thanks to the entire Non de nom team who went out of their way to make this project possible in such a complex context. Special thanks to Brigitte Breault and the many little hands of the group for their generous involvement in the making of flowers. Thanks to Sandra Bégin for the rabbit. Thanks to the creation, production and distribution partners for their commitment.

Non de nom has received financial support from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.

The image and sound processing software were produced as part of a residency at Artificiel studio and digital lutherie laboratory.

A co-production by Artificiel studio and Agora de la danse.

Residencies: Agora de la danse and Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce

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[2020, performance-installation]

Based on the concept of anonymity and on the notions of identity and otherness between the seen and the perceived in the digital age, Non de nom (No name) is a living laboratory that combines installation, performance, movement and digital arts. Questioning the construction and dissolution of individual identities from a perspective of memory and media proliferation, this work displays a strange household where non-characters evolve in search of their true self.

This experimentation is supported by the development of technological tools and broadcasting devices integrated into the exhibition space. The area is divided into four main stations in which the spectator can walk freely. The four performers roam this same space and settle temporarily in one place to explore their unfixed identities through different actions. Small places near the exhibition space are also inhabited by performers; these shelters are made accessible to the public thanks to a media system. A distant space is also embodied by the ghostly presence of a fifth protagonist performing from another city.

When the performers are physically absent, the visual and sound traces of their passages intermingle and enliven the exhibition where a multitude of screens proliferate. This delayed transmission allows the viewer to glimpse many layers of time simultaneously, and it is when the performer emerges that the concordance between real time and space is restored. The interactive technology here poetically reveals the constructed aspect of the relationship between reality and perception.

There is something elusive about Non de nom and it contains densely assembled layers of meaning and interpretation. Open, figurative and abstract at the same time, this work draws on the unconscious to construct and deconstruct.

View the workbook about the creative process of this project.