Dawn (Aube, in French) is a natural and universal phenomenon of transition, it designates the beginning of the process leading from one state to another, from night to day. This concept is aesthetically inspiring and structuring; at dawn, the light is revealed little by little, abstract shapes and silhouettes stand out, color gradually comes back to life, meaning emerges from the night. Moving lighting changes the appearance of the surroundings, nature gradually awakens, light reflects and refracts. Dawn is both mysterious and a bearer of hope, a potential that is revealed and actualized daily.

This new 25 minutes performance seeks to offer viewers a unique sensory experience. It transcends the tools of the genre, in order to sculpt the audiovisual material and to create a personal, sensitive, nuanced and non-stereotypical perspective, in the aesthetic continuity and hatched rhythm of artists who have engraved directly on analog film, such as than Stan Brakhage and Norman McLaren, but with a sensitivity and color palette similar to the work of the pioneer of minimalist art Agnes Martin. The performance uses a 4k projection on screen, and it can be enhanced with a lighting system provided by the artists, adapting to the venue.

The audio of the performance is performed live on modular synthesizers and computers. The composition consists of exuberant, dynamic and varied sound synthesis, while the visual is created using only evolving and unpredictable noise generators. The result is colorful, rich and dense audiovisual content, in perpetual evolution and renewal.

Aubes presents an original and striking experience, playing with the effects of retinal persistence and the critical threshold of perception. This is one of Alexis Langevin-Tétrault and Guillaume Côté's most unique audiovisual creations, both dazzling and accessible. It is an open door to their imagination, from which emerges a certain exalted euphoria.

This project is supported by Canada Council for the Arts and Quebec Council for the Arts, artist-run centres Avatar and Daïmôn in Canada, and Elektron Musik Studion (EMS) in Sweden.

ALEXIS LANGEVIN-TÉTRAULT

Alexis Langevin-Tétrault is an interdisciplinary artist based in Montreal. He has contributed to a variety of projects such as the collectives Falaises, DATANOISE and QUADr, in addition to solo audiovisual performances such as Hypercube (one) and Interférences (String Network). He performed on the best stages of digital art at such as Ars Electronica, ISEA and Mutek. His current work explores the concept of corporality and is characterized by the design of audiovisual devices, conceptual and social thinking, scenographic and dramaturgic work, and physical performance.

GUILLAUME CÔTÉ

Influenced by his surroundings, sound artist Guillaume Côté explores, through a mixture of concrete, synthetic and vocal materials, the territorial, linguistic and social dynamics specific to Quebec. Eclectic, his artistic research is based not only on the encounter with the Other through a musical discourse with narrative or informative aims, but also on the abstraction induced by modular systems. Avid for collaborations, he is co-founder of the digital audio creation company Trames (2016), of the Falaises collective (2017), and of the duo Aubes (2022), in addition to occupying the position of technical director at Avatar, an artist-run center based in Quebec, Canada.