Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is proud to offer the public the opportunity to discover a work emblematic of the interactive work of Luc Courchesne, winner of the 2019 Paul-Émile-Borduas Prize in Visual Arts, Crafts and Digital Arts: "Naked in Paradise". As part of the exhibition, the artist will also unveil a limited-edition artist's book.
“Naked in Paradise” is a VR installation exposing the life and works of artist Luc Courchesne as an archive constructed more or less arbitrarily by the computer. The explorable space of the archive, featuring fully functional versions of his early interactive works such as PORTRAIT ONE (1990), stretches between two polarities: the Future, a dark space where light has not penetrated yet, and the Past bathing in the lights of our souvenirs and known facts. At the periphery, the explorable space is a featureless white cloud (in the distant past) and dark cloud (in the distant Future stretching beyond what can be imagined. In between, the cosy familiarity of a Present exposing the artist lifetime from birth till today. An important aspect of the space is that it can be organized and reorganized by computer algorithms in real-time on demand. Some of these algorithms have been programmed to create familiar architectures (objects organized along a timeline, by categories, etc), others are generated by the computer itself (random constructions, by keyword, etc) to reveal, from the same assets, different geographies of one’s own times. The title NAKED IN PARADISE expresses the pleasure of fully exposing vast amounts of information and of allowing to embrace the whole as well a to dive and explore any of the discrete elements. In its current form, the VR database is downloadable as a Unity3D build for the current generation of head mounted displays.
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Luc Courchesne is a pioneer in the digital arts. From interactive portraits to immersive experience systems, he has created innovative and engaging works that have earned him prestigious awards such as the Grand Prize of the ICC Biennale in Tokyo in 1997, several mentions and the Award of Distinction of Ars
