Proposed by la lumière collective, IN SITU is a series that focuses on unique audiovisual works and live sound performances by local artists passionate about cinematic material, experimental moving images and sound art. This third IN SITU season is curated by Emma Roufs.

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PROGRAM

• L’arbre, Chantal Partamian, 2021, 2 min 28 s
• Sandjak, Chantal Partamian, 2021, 9 min
• Solace, Chantal Partamian, 2021, 1 min
• grand-maman Piano, Guillaume Vallée, 2019, 5 min
• are you haunted, daddy? (about anxiety), Guillaume Vallée, 2020, 2 mins 07 s
• Binge, Chantal Partamian, 2016, 40 s
• elles s’élèvent, ces forteresses éponges, Guillaume Vallée, 2022, 7 mins 12 s
• Traces, Chantal Partamian, 2022, 8 min 45 s
• One Day I’m Gone, Chantal Partamian, 2020, 2 min 40 s
• Monsieur Jean-Claude, Guillaume Vallée, 2021, 7 min 51 s

SYNOPSIS

L’arbre, Chantal Partamian, 2021, 2 min 28 s

Super 8mm and 16mm footage and expired cartridges found and shot in Quebec reflect on words written in Beirut to create a melancholic postcard between both worlds.

Sandjak, Chantal Partamian, 2021, 9 min
In 1939, following an agreement signed by France, the Alexandretta Sandjak in Syria was annexed to Turkey. Thousands of Armenians, including my grandmother, flee Alexandretta for Aleppo or Beirut. In the fall of 1939, a small number moved inland to an already established « quarantine » zone near Burj Hammoud, which at the time was farmland.
The camp takes the name of their homeland, Sandjak.
Navigating three types of images, shot in three different periods, the film explores the poetics of haunting through compositions of images that attempt to create an entanglement between the past and the present. An intimate but detached voice, a little stoic even, speaking of countless losses. The repeated affirmation of belonging to a place that is no longer.
It is an exercise in the dismantlement of the Sandjak camp space.
The haunting of the present by absences.
The fragmentation of history and memory.
The experience in the margins and the historical anachronism of a people evolving in temporal landscapes.

Solace, Chantal Partamian, 2021, 1 min
When the Beirut explosion occurred, my first thought was that of relief that my grandmother had passed a year and some before. The best hours to sit outside among her plants and flowers were those of sunsets. How does one mourn when they are grateful for the occurrence of some deaths as salvation? How does one mourn when in separation, we spare the ones we love the end of their world?

grand-maman Piano, Guillaume Vallée, 2019, 5 min
This experimental autobiographical film, in which features the filmmaker’s family, questions the emotion of the faded moment through audiovisual memory. The artist reappropriates on Super8 film the last moments of Hélène Lamoureux, his recently deceased grandmother. The memory image crystallizes a chaos frozen around the inanimate body.

are you haunted, daddy? (about anxiety), Guillaume Vallée, 2020, 2 mins 07 s
A depiction of various anxious states of mind during isolation. Fragmented anxiety and existential thinking. Hand-processed Super8 reversal and black & white film. Based on an interesting discussion with my son about the possibility of being haunted.

Binge, Chantal Partamian, 2016, 40 s
Bipolar disorder is characterized by its sudden manic surge. It is now 3 a.m. A collage of found footage and stop motion.

elles s’élèvent, ces forteresses éponges, Guillaume Vallée, 2022, 7 mins 12 s
The cameraless animated short « they rise, these sponge fortresses » is made from a 35 mm trailer of the feature film »Water Lilies » (2007) by Céline Sciamma. Experimental filmmaker Guillaume Vallée explores and questions his sensory memory as a teenager, partially lost. This process of resuscitating buried experiences and forgotten memories is carried by the materiality of 35 mm film, the nature of the images filmed and the interventions of the filmmaker painting and scratching the film emulsion directly. In this reverse journey, the memory-images, the affects reveal their plasticity, their imperfections, their chaos, their sensuality and their significance. The soundtrack is by Stephanie Castonguay and the texts by author Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay.

Traces, Chantal Partamian, 2022, 8 min 45 s
This experimental essay is based on the discovery of a reel of pornographic film amid the rubble of Beirut during the 1980s, at the height of the Lebanese civil war. The ecstatic faces of two women having sex emerge from the debris, in contrast with the masked faces of soldiers. These men with phallic weapons glitch and fade through various visual effects. Toxic masculinity becomes white nothingness, while the actresses emerge from the dust and take on more and more colour. This found footage film, with its cyclical soundtrack, invites us to question how we look at film and at history, which is still passed on today through the intermediary of « important events » and « great men ». (SCV)

One Day I’m Gone, Chantal Partamian, 2020, 2 min 40 s
What started as experimentation using the « One day I’m gone » track by Kid Fourteen ended up being its official video. Super 8 of 80s porn reedited scratched bleached and queered

Monsieur Jean-Claude, Guillaume Vallée, 2021, 7 min 51 s
Jean-Claude Van Damme is back, and this time it’s personal. Seventy-two photograms constructed from a 35mm trailer of JCVD’s opus The Quest (1996). Re-examining conceptions of masculinity by deconstructing some of the images I watched repeatedly as a child

► Live sound performance by thisquietarmy (Eric Quach) – 20 to 30 mins

BIOGRAPHIES

Chantal Partamian is a filmmaker and archivist. Her films, mainly made in super 8 mm and from found footage, have been screened and awarded at numerous festivals, and are distributed by Vidéographe, Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV) and CFMDC. As an archivist, she is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of reels from the Mediterranean region (Katsakh: Mediterranean Archives), while conducting research into archival practices in conflict zones. Her written work is mainly published in Hors champ.

Thisquietarmy is the project of Montreal-based artist and musician Eric Quach. Evolving in the sphere of improvised music, he sculpts dreamlike soundscapes through his electronic experiments with electric guitar. Active for almost 20 years, he has created over 60 works published on many labels including Consouling Sounds, Midira Records, Aurora Borealis, Denovali Records, Shelter Press & P572. He’s closing on 1000 performances in 40 countries, including at festivals such as Mutek, FIMAV, Suoni Per Il Popolo, Red Bull Music Academy, Biennale Némo, Amplifest, Dunk! Festival & Le Guess Who. Key collaborators include members of Voivod, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Amenra, as well as artists Aidan Baker, Dirk Serries and Noveller, and he also founded bands such as Hypnodrone Ensemble, Pangea De Futura, Some Became Hollow Tubes, Houses of Worship & Destroyalldreamers.

Experimental filmmaker, video artist and independent curator, Guillaume Vallée graduated from Concordia University with a Major in Film Animation and MFA in Studio Arts – Film Production option. He’s interested in alternative forms of moving images in analogue forms as a way of considering the direct interaction between different mediums. His work is an exploration of materiality within the creative process. In attempts of creating a more complex relationship with his subject matter, Vallée makes use of cross-medium forms that range from camera-less techniques to optical effects, glitch, video feedback, resulting in expended & hybrid pieces. He works mainly on Super8, 16mm and VHS.