Isabelle Hayeur lives and works in Montreal. She obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1996. si / jamais is her interactive premiere. Her work invites us to think about the states of the landscape and the numerous mutations (real or simulated) it can undergo through technology. She has shown her digital photomontages in Quebec and Canada in the context of various group and solo exhibitions and her video works have been presented at numerous festivals. She is also a member of Perte de Signal, a media art collective which is present on the Web since 1997. (http://www.elfe.com/signal)

We are projected as spectators/tourists into the paradoxical world of si / jamais which takes us on a disconcerting voyage through a series of images that slip away as we approach. As our gaze hesitates between the mirages and illusions it slips into territories on the verge of likelihood.

 This work was constructed from photographs taken in waste grounds and on the seaside. These have been re-touched and manipulated to create new landscapes. The resulting hybrid spaces - between the slum and the post-card - propose a reflection on the ever more malleable nature of our universe. These intriguing vague landscapes surprise and confront us by their strange and unexpected nature. Not only do they bring forward our taste for the grandiose but also remind us of the spectacular landscape universe to which the media accustom us.

Thursday, February 3, 7:30pm, Salle Fernand-Séguin, Cinémathèthque québécoise
In French.

 My digital work is based on issues of development and landscape. I photograph wastelands, urban landscapes, abandoned industrial sites and modified "natural" environments. I then transform these photographs by adding something unexpected or unusual to them. The resulting landscapes exhibit a singular relationship with the real: proposing a world on the verge of likelihood.

 Our highly mediated environment tends to eliminate the physical and temporal boundaries that circumscribe reality. Our perceptions are shaped by the means of technical culture that transforms, condenses and directs them towards a universe where reality and fiction merge ever more inextricably. A new world thus slowly emerges creating a landscape beyond time and space. In our cultural context this new category of images appears just like the ones we are familiar with. Its "realism" is disturbing because it shows us how easily we can create convincing illusions. The recomposition of landscapes through image processing techniques evidences our capacity to influence the world and its order. These landscapes, like endless possibilities, from no-where, every-where and else-where, question the responsibility of our developments and imaginaries.