The career of Vincent Morisset, one of Canada’s leading artists, is a reflection of his character: generous and inventive. With more than 20 years of awards (Emmy Award, SXSW Interactive Award, Cannes Lion, Japan Media Art Award…) and artistic collaborations (Arcade Fire and Louise Lecavalier), Morisset is almost a sage in the digital ecosystem. The artist, who has made interactivity his trademark, is a master in the use of mischief, and talks to us about his relationship with technology.
The interview takes place in a reconstructed chalet on the SAT premises in Montreal. This is the latest work by the artist and his partner Caroline Robert, Bell Orchestre Sound House (2024), in which visitors are invited to take objects – a vase, a book or a vintage camera – and place them on trays. Sounds and images are then triggered, leaving the audience to compose their own score. “Bell Orchestre musicians used to get together in a chalet to create their album. It made me want to recreate this space, and to take an interest in collective rituals and the memory that objects carry,” explains Vincent Morisset.
After an enthusiastic demonstration of the device by the artist himself, he sits down around a large wooden table, the same ones found in old family homes. First confession: “I have an ambiguous relationship with technology, I avoid having my works talk about technology. The most important thing for me is not the device, but the emotion we’re trying to evoke.” If, at first glance, his works don’t appear to be a Tech concentrate, Vincent Morisset’s high level of expertise in creative coding and his knowledge of the evolution of the tools that have appeared in recent years should be highlighted. “Without predicting it, my career has been linked to technological transformations and changes in people’s habits,” he says.
The Arcade Fire turning point
First mini-earthquake: the arrival of the Internet and the music industry’s tipping point in the 2000s. “Arcade Fire invited me to do their website and work with them on their tour. It was around the time of their Funeral album. It was a time when specialty TV channels like MTV were starting to struggle. CD sales were slowing, iPods were everywhere. At the same time, Youtube was not yet in an optimal phase.” A window of opportunity that gave the Montreal artist some ideas: “I started thinking about different ways of extending the visual universe online. Among other things, I created an interactive videoclip for Neon Bible in 2007, in which fans had a role to play.” This was followed by the videos for Sprawl II and Reflektor, where interaction was based on gestures. In these projects, a search for bridges between the vocabulary of cinema and video games.”
New cycle with AATOAA
This turning point will have other effects. “Before, when I got on a plane, if the customs agents asked me what I did for a living, I’d say I was a programmer. After that, I assumed the posture of a director.” This led to the creation, a little later, of the studio AATOAA (“to you”), a project with a clearly formulated intention: to create interactive works in which the audience plays a predominant role (AATOAA… to play, that is).
BLA BLA (2011), a “film for computer” created with Caroline Robert, Édouard Lanctot and Philippe Lambert, will see the light of day on the Internet. The user is at the helm of a six-chapter narrative populated by hand-drawn characters. The imperfections of the drawings reveal a certain fragility. “BLA BLA was accessible to as many people as possible. My 3-4 year-old nephew, my mother and inveterate geeks alike. Here too, I took advantage of a golden period on the web. Back then, you’d launch something on the net and see where it landed. We were amazed to find BLA BLA links on geek forums or gardening forums for the elderly. It was crazy“. A project that quickly broke the fourth wall, as BLA BLA was to be declined in an installative version in 2012 at the Gaîté Lyrique for the Capitaine Futur event. “It was the first time we saw our audience, with their reactions to us.“
Exploring the friction between physical and virtual space
Several other projects are part of this exploration of new physical and virtual dimensions. Motto (2020), a work imagined with novelist Sean Michaels, is an interactive novel that uses thousands of short videos imagined by viewers themselves to tell the story of a benevolent spirit named Septembre. Part fiction, part documentary, part treasure hunt, Motto is designed for mobile devices. In other words, users can take it anywhere, discovering each episode at their own pace and embarking on the story as protagonists. “What is real and what is not? What terms should be used to describe each project? I love working in these gray areas,” comments Vincent Morisset.
Vast Body (2020) is another example of a collaborative experience at the frontier of real and virtual worlds. This time, the theme is bodies in motion. It takes the form of a kind of primer on human postures, recorded from the dances of professional dancers such as Louise Lecavalier. The audience, facing a mirror, is invited to move, dance and let themselves go. Then, thanks to a Machine Learning system, a reflection appears. The latter draws its images directly from the aforementioned alphabet book. The installation links the physical body to a digital incarnation, offering the possibility for a few minutes of inhabiting another body through movement. “Vast Body is a joyful project that addresses current issues of identity and empathy…” describes Vincent Morisset. Quite a symbol, given that the project was presented at the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City at the height of the pandemic.
The essence of interaction
In this exploration, the question of the use of virtual reality easily arises. The artist is a trailblazer, since in 2015 he presented Way to Go. “It was interactive webVR, mixing 360 video, 2D drawing and “shaders”. A forest walk that blends classic contemporary video game mechanics with naturalistic documentary.” Despite the potential of VR, Vincent Morisset has since gone in another direction. In fact, he shares his observation around the use of the term immersive. “Personally, I try to short-circuit this type of vocabulary. For me, immersion isn’t a genre, it’s a quality. Every time, the starting point is a sensation. Then comes the technological possibilities available, more recent or old school…”
So don’t be surprised to discover Vincent Morisset’s next work: “At the moment, I’m working with Caroline Robert on what we call ‘Dessins troués’… Remember those wooden panels with a decoration where you put your head to take a photo? We started a project with schools. The children created drawings, which we integrated into a platform. In concrete terms, it was like a zoom lens, but the youngsters had their faces integrated into their creations. There’s an emotional power in this premise. We’re going to continue to develop a collection of projects of various kinds around this principle.” A simple (not simplistic) idea that resonates with its universal character. Someone once said “in every child there is an artist”. Perhaps Vincent Morisset’s genius lies in reminding us that there’s always a child in every one of us.
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