Martin Messier^CA/QC

Martin Messier has been creating works merging sounds, objects and images for over fifteen years. His performances and installations, with clear choreographic undertones, place the body at the forefront of the experience. Having studied composition at Université de Montréal, he shifts toward an experimental sound practice that integrates image and video, and quickly starts developing performative audiovisual devices featuring everyday objects and the sound potential of materials. Messier produced several collaborative projects over the years, namely alongside Nicolas Bernier, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Anne Thériault, Jacques Poulin-Denis and Yro (Élie Blanchard). Presented in over 50 countries, his work has been widely praised and received several awards. A member of Perte de signal, a self-managed artistic hub located in Montréal’s Mile End, he also founded 14 lieux in 2010, a sound production company geared at the performing arts, where he acts as general and artistic director.

With Elusive Matter, a minimalist light and sound performance, Martin Messier transforms simple wisps of smoke into a veritable projection screen. In a room submerged in darkness, armed with a projector as his sole source of light, Messier draws a myriad of ghostly spaces, architectural shapes and dreamlike images from the intangible haze, juxtaposing light and sound in order to conjure atmospheres both ethereal and soothing.