Join the flock and play with our fuzzy balls at InterAccess . . .

Curated by Caroline Seck Langill

InterAccess is pleased to present FLOCK [in], an exhibition of two new works that employ interactive immersive technologies created by the collaborative PLAN B, (new media artists Marc Fournel and Thomas Oulette Fredericks). Curated by Caroline Seck Langill, this exhibition invites the viewer to pick up, hold, and position a trio of colorful fur-covered spherical interfaces within the gallery. Oddly reminiscent of techno-color Star Trek tribbles, these interfaces trigger a barrage of imagery and sounds that migrate throughout the space in an open-ended pattern, much akin to the movement of a flock of birds.

Using a generic simulated flocking creature developed for animated film called "boids," the artists are exploiting abstract algorithms as a distribution system for imagery and sound that is controlled by the unpredictable actions of the viewer. About the piece, artistic collaborative PLAN B states, "We are not making an artificial system, we are just exploiting algorithms and the research that came from the field of wanting to reproduce life."

Please join us for a special opening reception on Friday November 24, 7:30 pm at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, 9 Ossington Avenue. Artists Marc Fournel and Thomas Ouelette Fredericks will be present. FLOCK [in] is programmed as part of InterAccess' Year Without Wires, a year of new media and audio installations that bring focus to site-specific audio.

More information about the artists, curator, and works in the exhibition:

Marc Fournel is an "undisciplinary creator," a jack of all trades and an independent coffee drinker active in media art since 1995. Fournel's artistic practice includes video and sound single-channel works and interactive audio and video installations. His present art research focuses on social dynamic, sound algorithms, biological structure digital images, innovative interactive systems and immersive environments. He curated and organized many media art events (in production and presentation) and was deeply involved in the Canadian independent media art scene. A founding member of the collective Vitamin Beziehungen (an artists' and researchers' collective focusing on cybernetic and art practice) and associate researcher of the LMI (Interactive Media Lab, Department of Communication at the Université du Québec à Montréal), Fournel lives, loves, eats and works in Montréal. More information about Fournel can be found at http://ciam.dyndns.org/~mfco.

Thomas Ouellet Fredericks is an independent artist, a part-time university teacher and a consultant. After completing a Master's degree in communications at Université du Québec à Montréal in 2003, he specialized in the creation of interactive installations, whose user interfaces are modeled on behavioural and psychological contemporary research. Fredericks' work often uses biological elements, or their simulation, and poses a definite emphasis on the sense of touch. For the last year he has been investigating the emergence of complex reactions from densities of simple agents propagated in the physical space, resulting in the latest collaborative piece, Flock. He is a proud member and active participant of the open source and Creative Commons movements. Fredericks' work has been shown nationally and internationally. He lives and works in Montreal. More information about Fredericks can be found at http://ciam.dyndns.org/~vitamin/danslchamp/mrtof.

Caroline Seck Langill is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and independent curator living in Peterborough, Ontario. She is a doctoral candidate in Canadian Studies at Trent University, where she is looking at the contestation of the exhibitionary complex by artists working with technology, and the exclusion of early electronic media from the Canadian art historical canon. Langill is also a 2006 researcher in residence at the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal. Her videos, films and installation works have been exhibited nationally and in the U.K.

FLOCK uses the boid's Pure Data external (developed by Eric Singer, Jasch & Andr Sier, Simon Fraser and Craig Reynolds). Andy Farnell's Pure Data patches provided inspiration for parts of the audio engine created for FLOCK. All other programming in FLOCK and [in] is original work from Plan B. The artists want to thank the Pure Data community and the Daniel Langlois Foundation.

InterAccess is proud to offer a Servo motor control with PD and MAX Master Class with Thomas Ouellet Fredericks (of Plan B) on Monday, November 20, 7-10 pm. Please click here for more info!

InterAccess gratefully thanks the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Media Contact: Swintak, Programming Coordinator (416) 599-7206 or email swintak@interaccess.org