To mark its 25th anniversary, MUTEK, the electronic music and digital creativity festival, is bringing digital art to public spaces, offering Montrealers and tourists a unique, sensory experience through a journey of around twenty captivating installations. From August 15 to 29, 2024, the Village Numérique will be presented free of charge between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. in the Quartier des Spectacles, enabling everyone to discover this innovative, immersive art form.

An accessible, inclusive urban trail

The Village Numérique offers a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the captivating world of digital art. Divided into four distinct zones in emblematic locations in the Quartier des Spectacles - St-Laurent Boulevard, Parterre du Quartier des Spectacles, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Place des Arts - the trail allows visitors to discover all the installations on foot. The Village Numérique is designed to be accessible to all, offering an enriching experience both indoors and outdoors. The aim is to democratise access to digital art and create an inclusive space where everyone can explore and appreciate this form of artistic expression.

The first four Village Numérique installations

Among the projects that the public will be able to (re)discover, the Village Numérique is delighted to start by announcing four Québec artists and studios on the program. Sabrina Ratté’s Inflorescences, an audiovisual installation presented for the first time free of charge to the Montréal public on the Parterre du Quartier des Spectacles. "This work imagines a future in which nature has evolved to live in symbiosis with abandoned electronic objects," explains Sarah Ève Tousignant, Village Numérique Head of Programming. In the same area, Age of Union presents Black Hole Experience (BHX), an immersive experience designed by Kelly Nunes and Dax Dasilva, inviting the public to stop, look and breathe inside a truck representing a black hole. Mirari studio will present DUO, a captivating interactive work depicting an impossible encounter. Two screens face each other, recounting the dialogue between two individuals who cannot touch. The audience places itself at the heart of the scene, in the space between the two protagonists, completing the link between the screens and becoming an integral part of the work. At UQAM's Agora du Cœur des sciences, Iregular presents Voices In Your Head, an interactive and immersive experience in several chapters, revisiting works from their catalogue since 2010. The installation implicitly guides viewers towards interaction and encourages them to behave naturally.

Celebrating Québec's digital creativity

For the first edition, the programming team put the spotlight on the province's artists and studios. “Our event is an ode to Québec's digital creativity,” says Mikaël Frascadore, Executive Producer of the Village Numérique. The artists and studios we have carefully selected reflect the exceptional quality of the original and innovative circuit we are presenting. This vision is also shared with key partners in the local artistic digital ecosystem, such as Xn Québec and UBISOFT.

The full program will be revealed gradually on the Village Numérique Instagram page until August 6, promising a diversity of formats from mural projections to interactive works, immersive projects and virtual reality. Some works are created especially for the Village Numérique, while others are already critically acclaimed.

Keep up with the Village Numérique

Website

Instagram

MUTEK would like to thank its partners, who play a considerable role in maintaining and developing its activities, and who have been particularly supportive in making the Village Numérique a reality.

The Gouvernement du Québec, the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, le Programme d’innovation touristique du MT Lab, supported by the Ministère du Tourisme, the Ville de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Montréal, the Place des Arts, the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Partenariat du Quartier des Spectacles, the Société des arts technologiques, the Goethe-Institute Montréal, Rachel Julien, Xn Québec, UBISOFT, Hexagram, Milieux, MAPP Mtl, RECYC-QUÉBEC, La Presse, Caisse Desjardins de la Culture.