Watch: Empty Spaces – Myriam Boucher

Myriam Boucher’s Empty Space is a video and sound installation that acts as a companion to her audiovisual composition premiering in this year’s Visible Bits, Audible Bytes

Image: Still from Myriam Boucher’s Empty Spaces

Opening times: Fri: 5 – 9pm, Sat: 11am – 7pm
Location: Phoenix Art Centre

Myriam Boucher’s Empty Spaces is a video and sound-based installation that acts as a companion or ‘prelude’ to her audiovisual composition by the same name, which will be premiering in this year’s Visible Bits, Audible Bytes. The installation explores the genesis of her project: the village where she grew up – concerning the source of the desire to run away, to escape from reality.

Structured from several short and overlapped video segments, the installation presents a duality between the other world – presented by imaginary and dreamlike places, which are overlooked as the crow flies – and the real world, presented by empty and ‘tough’ places.  This duality is also reflected in the sound and music: a harsh and very ‘cold’ sound from modular synthesizers and recordings of a dog barking, a snowstorm and a snow removal truck, all cohabit with sounds from a violin, cello and tubas.

In addition to this installation and the screening in Visible Bits, Audible Bytes, Boucher will also be presenting a VJ Workshop on Sat 1 Jun.

Montréal-based Myriam Boucher is an award-winning video and sound artist. Her work has won prizes in the 2015 and 2016 (first prize) JTTP awards, the LUFF 2017 (best experimental short-movie award), the 2015 JIM Electroacoustic Compositions Competition and the Bourse Euterke 2015, and has been presented at many international events and places, including Kontakte (DE), Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (CA), Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (FR), and Akousma (CA).

This event is part of Interfaces, a Creative Europe project which aims to inspire more people of all ages and demographics to experience contemporary music and sound art and learn to incorporate the European musical legacy in newly found idioms and contexts. De Montfort University’s Institute of Sonic Creativity is a partner, along with nine other European institutions.

Image: Still from Myriam Boucher’s Empty Spaces