“POWEr” by Julien Roy

Title:

POWEr

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Creation Year:

2009

Medium:

Audiovisual performance with Tesla coil

Artist Statement:

Utilizing a bespoke Tesla coil, POWEr is a performance based on the sonics and striking imagery that offshoots from the machine’s high voltage emissions. Used as source materials, electrical ingredients are generated, captured, transformed and diffused live on stage through digital processing and manipulation of sound and video. Building on a context that sets it halfway between a musical presentation and a media arts installation, POWEr demarks the continuation of artificiel’s development. Having charted a singular path investigating composition and electrical impulses with previous projects such as bulbes (2003) and beyond6281 (2004), as well as cultivating a performative dimension with such later works as cubing (2006) and artificiel.process (2008), POWEr takes its place among this oeuvre by raising the stakes of spontaneity and working with evermore complex musical structures and visual dramaturgy. Originally commissioned by MUTEK for its 10th edition, this project was made possible by funding from the Media Arts section of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et Lettres du Québec and has continued to tour the world since.