December 9, 2015 – Montrealers and visitors are invited, from December 10 to January 31, to explore Impulse, a winter installation comprising 30 giant seesaws that will transform the Place des Festivals into a vast illuminated playground, accompanied by a set of all-new video projections. The creation is the work of Toronto-based firm Lateral Office and Montreal-basedCS Design, in collaboration with EGP Group of Montreal.

The consortium, chosen through an open competition for the sixth annual Luminothérapie event, has created a playful interactive space that will warm hearts of all ages during the cold season.

“Every year, we are eager to give Montrealers a new creative winter experience in the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles. Luminothérapie’s public installations transform our relationship with the city, beautify it, and give it a wonderful friendly touch. Luminothérapie also keeps Montreal shining bright around the world as a hub of interactive art,” said Chantal Rossi, Ville de Montréal Associate Councillor Culture, Heritage and Design.

IMPULSE

The interactive work on the Place des Festivals presents a series of giant illuminated and sound-producing seesaws. To activate them, visitors straddle them like any other seesaw. Once in motion, the built-in lights and speakers produce a harmonious sequence of sounds and lights, resulting in a constantly evolving ephemeral composition.

Through the use of architectural lines, a hypnotic soundtrack and an entertaining illusion of depth, the nine architectural video projections echo the seesaws of the Place des Festivals. Playing with the notions of balance and unbalance, symmetry and asymmetry, tension and harmony, the video projections are visual experiments illustrating the original soundtrack created for each video.

Impulse is an urban installation that renews itself for every different audience. Each person becomes, while on the seesaws, the player of a novel instrument.

30 SEESAWS WITH LIGHT AND SOUND

Place des Festivals

Sunday to Wednesday: noon to 10 p.m.
Thursday to Saturday: noon to 11 p.m.

9 ARCHITECTURAL VIDEO PROJECTIONS

Sunday to Thursday: 5 to 11 p.m.
Friday and Saturday: 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Seesaw design: Lateral Office and CS Design, in collaboration with EGP Group
Sound design: Mitchell Akiyama
Mechanical design and production: Générique Design
Electronic and interactive production: Robocut Studio 

Video projections: Maotik and Iregular

The Bureau du design of the Ville de Montréal collaborates with the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership to plan and produce Luminothérapie.

Further information about Luminothérapie and the creators behind the 2015 edition: quartierdesspectacles.com/lumino

LUMINOTHÉRAPIE 2016 COMPETITION: NOW OPEN!

CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR WORKS TO ANIMATE PUBLIC SPACES IN THE QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES

The call for proposals is officially open for Luminothérapie 2016-2017, Quebec’s largest competition for temporary public art installations. The goal of the multidisciplinary competition is to produce an original winter-themed interactive experience in the Quartier des Spectacles and to stimulate creativity in the disciplines of urban installations and digital art.

A REFRESHED CONCEPT

For this seventh edition, the Quartier des Spectacles is bringing something new to the competition by providing a theme: participants must work within the theme “tale”. Chosen for its narrative power, the tale – which can take many different forms (fantastical or urban, classic or newly created) – must provide a captivating experience.

“We are very proud to give creators a unique opportunity to express their talent and original vision, particularly for this seventh edition with its special theme. We want to inspire artists to further their exploration of narrative in their work, while keeping sound and light at the heart of the Luminothérapie experience,” said Jacques Primeau, chair of the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership.

From December 8, 2016 to January 29, 2017, the winning designers will present an installation on the Place des Festivals that creates a sense of wonder both day and night, while encouraging the participation of a broad audience, including families. Architectural video projections for two adjacent building façades will complete a unified concept through integration with the narrative structure of the primary work.

The registration deadline for the competition is February 5, 2016. Competitors’ proposals must be submitted by noon Eastern Standard Time on February 16. The free competition is Canada-wide and open to teams whose lead designer is based in Canada.

The competition has two phases: in the first, proposals are reviewed anonymously (to ensure impartiality and openness to new talent); in the second, the finalists selected in the first round will give a presentation to the jury.

The jury will favour projects that combine a variety of perspectives by bringing together multiple disciplines: design, the performing arts, visual and media arts, etc. The total production budget is $300,000.

The registration form, rules and evaluation criteria are available at quartierdesspectacles.com/en/request-for-proposals/

THE JURY

The jury for this seventh edition of Luminothérapie has nine members:

• Anne-Claude Bacon, curator, Collection Hydro-Québec
• Rami Bebawi, architect, Kanva Architecture
• Pascale Daigle, director of programming, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Pierre Fortin, executive director, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Sophie Labelle, programming consultant, programming department, Place des Arts
• Anick La Bissonnière, architect and scenographer, Atelier Labi
• Jean-François Larouche, director, interactive department, User Experience, Moment Factory
• Simon B. Robert, associate director, technology and multimedia infrastructure, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Pierre Sasseville, sculptor and installation artist, Cooke-Sasseville

A COMPETITION THAT HELPS OUR CREATORS MAKE A NAME FOR THEMSELVES

In recent years, several designers and artists have won awards after creating works for Luminothérapie, namely Lüz studio, Champagne Club Sandwich, KANVA and Lucion Média. Luminothérapie also generates considerable interest outside Quebec. In addition to substantial media coverage, some works have been well-received abroad, including Trouve Bob in Moscow and Iceberg (2012-13) by ATOMIC3 and Appareil Architecture in Brussels.

ABOUT THE QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES

The Quartier des Spectacles is Montreal’s cultural heart, boasting North America’s most concentrated and diverse group of cultural venues. The district is the year-round host to countless festivals and events, many of which include free outdoor shows and activities. The Quartier also hosts innovative urban installations involving cutting-edge lighting design, immersive environments or interactive digital spaces. Thanks to the Place des Festivals and the world’s most extensive set of architectural video projection facilities used exclusively for presenting artistic content, the Quartier des Spectacles is an extraordinary creative space for designers. The Quartier des Spectacles is an international showcase for new multimedia technology, making Montreal a global leader in the urban exhibition of digital content.