Dé[faroucher] (or Un[wilding] in English) is a research-creation project employing digital art techniques. The project comes from the conceptualization of a three-dimensional, subjective map of places of “belonging” in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. It is an exploratory exercise of connecting of the Self – the foreigner, the immigrant – with the Other – the city of adoption, its places, its landscapes, its architecture. Literary sources relating to the notions of identity, contact and relation, proposed by Édouard Glissant, Amin Maalouf and Mary Louise Pratt are consulted and analyzed in the conception of the project. Other important sources for the project are from the Brazilian Anthropophagy Movement, including texts from, among others, Oswald de Andrade and Tarsila do Amaral. Notions of digital art, with the writings of Edmond Couchot as the main inspiration, are also considered. These notions inform the production of the subjective maps which are composed of 3D models, the result of a process of digital image capture – photogrammetry – of certain places in the city that I consider as being personal to me, as being “belonging zones”. Once digitized, these places are re-populated by allegorical images of my digitized self. The final work is a walk-through animation video where the visitors are able to situate themselves in “my” Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. In the exhibition printed screenshots of different belonging zones are also presented, as well as 3D prints of some of the “allegories”.
@ ludmila steckelberg, 2022