Pascale Leblanc-Lavigne
Biography
Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne lives and works in Quebec City (Canada). She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts from Université Laval. In recent years, her work has been notably supported by the artist-run centers Avatar, La Bande Vidéo and LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE. Recently, her work has been presented at the Technomancie festival in France, at LAB30 in Germany, at the TSONAMI sound art festival in Chile, as well as in several solo and group exhibitions in Quebec, including Mois Multi (2019), Espace F (2019) and Perte de Signal (2019).
Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne creates kinetic and sound works that are imprecise and thus test their own structure. Despite the precariousness of their assemblage, her works are conceived with the intention of generating forms with poetic echoes, in a transitory state between creation and destruction.
About the artwork
La Vitrine (2016), Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne
Robotic and kinetic installation.
La Vitrine (The Window) is an in-situ, kinetic and audio installation composed mainly of soap bottles with sprayers and rags that vainly try to clean a display window. At irregular intervals, about fifteen motors wiggle rags against the display case, alternating between vigour and softness; then about ten mechanized sprayers join in the task by spraying cleaning product on the glass surface. Over time, the motors driving the sprayers and rags become tired and some components of the installation break down. Soon, the display window will be blurred and marked with streaks – it will literally be soiled by the cleaning product. Gradually and steadily, the work moves from order to chaos, with no possibility of turning back, through an implacable temporal chronology.
The work immediately confronts us with a situation and the failure of this undertaking, with the nonsense of this machine which, rather than cleaning the window, makes it dirtier. By its absurdity, The Window evokes the excessiveness and relentlessness that characterize our daily gestures and our actions in general. This unproductive persistence is the driving force – figuratively and literally – that allows the central purpose of the installation to unfold. As technology has evolved, we have become accustomed to saving time: the principle of acceleration is even inherent in it, considering the exponential rhythm of its own development. While making its procedural dimension and its relationship to time the very condition of its existence, The Window reminds us that everything is just balance and measure.
Artworks by the artist
