About the artist…
Maxime Boisvert has a background in both visual arts and photography. He is currently applying for a Master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM. His work has been presented at the Parameter (2015/2016) and Short Exposure exhibitions, among others. Boisvert is the recipient of many awards and scholarships, including those of excellence Mc Abbie, Omer DeSerres, Thomas Corriveau and Mario Côté. Its production is supported by the UQAM FARE recruitment excellence scholarship. In his practice, Boisvert amalgamates Quebec history, culture and literature. Her approach is driven by a desire to discover and question her heritage in order to register and continue by participating. Photography and text are the main tools of his research. However, he tries to vary the approaches in which they are used and thus to exploit in a different way their power of evocation. His projects are related elements, whose purpose is to put them in dialogue and see what emerges from it. In his practice, he uses as raw material the existing elements of Quebec culture, on the one hand as a source of inspiration and on the other hand to pay tribute to them, question them and update them.
About the work…
A typist, connected to a computer, autonomously and continuously taps poetry generated live by an algorithm inspired by Markov chains. The source text, used by the JavaScript code to create poetry, is composed of the works of two French-Canadian poets, Saint-Denys Garneau and Alain Grandbois. Although they are poles apart from each other on many levels, they have both been of paramount importance in the genesis of Quebec literature. The poetry generated from Regards et jeux dans l’espace of Saint-Denys Garneau on the one hand and collections The islands of the Night and Shores of the man of Alain Grandbois is typed in the “infinite” by the typist on a sheet of continuous paper. Reconciling them through this project is a way of questioning their heritage, their impact on our culture and what they say about it, and therefore, what they say about us. As Pierre Nepveu says in his book on the genesis of Quebec literature, Garneau and Grandbois are among those poets who are “now perceived as both symptoms and lighthouses, used to trace or develop the history of Quebec. as myth and destiny, as a psychic adventure or as an existential project (an unfortunate project, aborted, to be rephrased, and to be totally taken up again). “This project has thus become a pretext for a re-reading of these poets, perhaps to their actualization and their reappropriation.
• Inkjet print. Archive quality paper acid free – Fuji Premium Matte 230g. Format: 20×16 po. / 50×40 cm. Not framed.
• Flat rate of 150 $ CAN. Available at TOPO’s office without any other fee. If shipped, shipping and packaging costs will apply.