Works
Nathalie Bujold

On May 30, 2024
Book launch at 6 pm followed by a screening at 7 pm
— Facebook

To celebrate the publication of Nathalie Bujold's monograph Work, Dazibao and Vidéographe present a special event. This occasion not only marks the launch of the publication but also showcases a curated selection of her artistic journey.

Publication Ouvrage [Work]

This monograph, the result of a long period of study delving into Nathalie Bujold’s body of work over more than thirty years, brings together her most emblematic works. The authors whose essays appear here have closely followed her explorations or consider her artistic approach in a spirit of discovery and adventure. Their gaze, both probing and playful, is reflected in their relevant, enthusiastic writings about Bujold’s multidisciplinary and multimedia practice, now focused particularly on video production. The questions they raise cut across disciplines, prompting us to re-examine certain specific aspects of the foundations of her œuvre. In turn, Dominique Sirois-Rouleau, Nathalie Bachand, Sylvain Campeau, and Édouard Monnet write about works with content related to the concepts of the object, the motif, the image, time, and movement intrinsic to the making of Bujold’s “books.” Taking us through time and including the artist’s incorporation of new technological tools, this nonlinear, often light-hearted overview encourages us to browse and constantly piques our curiosity about the forms of a vision constantly renewed by movement and the fragmentation of the object. (Excerpt from the preface by Sonia Pelletier)

Video program Ouvrages [Works] — 62 minutes

Spanning over two decades of experimental exploration, the film program features thirteen videos distributed by Vidéographe, ranging from Emporium to Le chant des cerises. Each video serves as a milestone in Bujold's evolution as an artist, capturing her playful exploration of image, sound, and movement.

Emporium (1999) — 10 min. 55 sec.
In this household goods store, ideas are sold. A series of improbable moments, of playing in the kitchen with one’s feet, one’s hands, one’s mouth and the radio.

Comptes à rebours (2002) — 3 min. 25 sec.
Eight entropic adventures which attempt to transcend domesticity but end up clinging to it with affection. A game which vacillates between the banal sublimated and the sublime banalized.

La montagne Sainte-Victoire (2005) — 5 min. 27 sec.
“The author takes an iconoclastic look at a mythical landscape in the history of twentieth-century art. She shows us an electronic interpretation of the mountain Paul Cézanne gazed upon, along with many other painters and lovers of light in his wake.” — Nicole Gingras

Les trains où vont les choses (2006) — 8 min. 30 sec.

Thirty-five continuous sequences, pixel-like, recur in a time-lag, forming an undulatory horizontal movement. The result is a retinal tapestry.

All the good things (we could have done) (2008) — 5 min. 13 sec.
Permanent smile (2008) — 4 min. 20 sec.
A series of short anti-MTV videoclips that can make you see things in your mind while nothing is happening, except a pattern or two.

O.K. Gerard (2009) — 4 min. 11 sec.
Sounds were filmed in units and then assembled to create a score. Each section of the sound was scripted so that the visuals reflect what emerges from the musical form. A few supplementary motifs are invited along to create a kind of video clip.

Cabaret (2009) — 11 min. 10 sec.
The washed-up, forgotten and fallen-on-hard-times who perform their routines one by one in the cathode-ray puppet theater.

Merci (2013) — 1 min. 15 sec.
These steps greet the paths traveled to the pixels. The stairs are a kind of common denominator of outstanding works from several mediums that have marked the hybrid genre.

Textile de cordes (2013) — 1 min. 20 sec.
The same instrument plays the same note using various techniques. This is repeated and multiplied in an exponential manner (from 4 to 16 up until 67 108 864), simultaneously adding or subtracting 20% of the duration to change the note pitch. Isabelle Bozzini plays the cello.

Le meilleur de HIT (2009-2020) — 4 min. 45 sec.
A sample of the nine sequences created for an installation offers the best of HIT. In the first of the five tableaux, an animation plays with movement in the manner of a musician, respecting the phrasing so as to prolong the gesture. In the next, superposition creates the effect of a six-armed musician. Next, fifteen drummers perform a solo  on three instruments. In the last two tableaux, a single musician plays with a single tom that has lost its gravity, then with the whole instrument that has become monumental.

Métronomies (2022) — 48 sec.
From samples of moving images of a metronome (in a pyramidal shape), various visual and rhythmic patterns are explored in order to stage the sound. In tribute to the composer György Ligeti, this video is inspired by his piece Poème symphonique, celebrating its 60th anniversary, created for one hundred metronomes, a conductor and ten performers.

Le chant des cerises (2023) — 1 min. 07 sec.
The song of the cherries resonates under the combined action of the rebound hitting the bottom of the hen and its echo. Created with Patrice Fortier and the ground cherries of La société des plantes, this short piece was produced during a residency at the Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay in the fall of 2021. This work is part of a more global project with this Kamouraska society, started a year earlier, where the plants and the plans meet despite an apparent distance between the fields and the songs.

Nathalie Bujold is a multidisciplinary artist, living and working in Montréal. In 1985, she was one of the founders of the artist-run centre l’Œil de Poisson in Québec City. She obtained an undergraduate degree from Université Laval in 1992, where she won the René-Richard Award. In 2008, she was awarded the Artistic Creation Award from the Conseils des arts et des lettres du Québec. In 2016, she received her master’s degree in Studio and Media Arts from UQAM. Her one-channel videos are distributed by Vidéographe and she is represented by ELLEPHANT gallery.