VISION(S)

VISION(S)

VISION(S)

Introduction by Maimire Mennasemay, Kenneth Milkman, Aaron Krishtalka, and Andrew Katz Edited by Frank Mulvey Exhibition: April 26 – May 11, 2016 Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery Dawson College 4001 de Maisonneuve West Montreal, Canada H3Z 1A4 space.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/exhibits/summary/vision(s)

Introduction “To see a World in a Grain of Sand,” writes the visionary Romantic poet William Blake. What worlds can be seen in a grain of sand? What universals can be glimpsed in the particulars? Can we see the ocean in a single wave, as Buddhism invites us to do? Can we look at a tree and see in it our own lungs breathing?

Every particular vision is a grain in which we can see something larger: a glimmer of the world we inhabit and of who we are as human beings. Such a vision could include anything from the colours and forms we perceive with our naked eyes, to the distant planets and infinitesimal particles we glimpse through our technology, to the maps and models we construct to understand and orient ourselves in our environment, to the works of art we create to engage what is most human and more than human in us.

Our visions bring reality—or some approximation of it, we hope—into view and into focus, making it intelligible.

Colour, for instance, is our mind’s interpretation of the neuronal signals transmitted from our retinas as our eyes take in the visible spectrum of light. Where the naked eye can’t go, medical specialists use imaging technology to perceive internal abnormalities and to perform internal operations. When information is too copious and complex to grasp, data analysts turn it into graphs and other visual aids. When we overlook the wonders in front of our eyes, poets use rhythm, rhyme and imagery to help us see again, “to recover the sensation of life,” as Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky writes.

Our visions also express our inexhaustible human drive to go beyond reality, or at least beyond our present understanding of it; in the words of a Star Trek captain, “to go where no one has gone before.” Einstein leapt beyond Newtonian physics by envisioning himself facing backward while traveling forward on a beam of light. African-American artist Kara Walker sets black-paper silhouettes against a white wall to reveal and interrogate stereotypes around race and gender. Visions of a society where women could drop their vote into a ballot box, where black children and white children could “join hands... as sisters and brothers,” where two women or two men could exchange rings in marriage, have galvanized the women’s suffrage and civil rights and LGBT movements. Visions of mass deforestation and melting glaciers are challenging our current civilization to change its relationship to the planet.

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Our visions have their limits. As the painter Rene Magritte reminds us, a painting of a pipe is not a pipe. Our visions are renderings, representations. Much of reality lies beyond them, beyond our line of sight. Cosmologists theorize that 95% of our universe is composed of “dark matter” that cannot be seen even with the help of instruments. Freud theorized a human “unconscious,” where aspects of our identity elude our awareness.

Our visions may even blind us. As much as they widen our perspective, lead to insight, they also close off possibilities and lead us astray. In literature, the sighted are often blinded by the certainty of their visions and the blind the ones who see, as in Oedipus Rex, where King Oedipus, convinced he knows himself, fails to see the truth revealed to him by his blind prophet, Tiresias: that Oedipus has murdered his father and married his mother. To some extent all ways of seeing blind us to other ways of seeing. Our own point of view guides but also limits us, so that we often struggle to appreciate other points of view—underscoring our need to envision not only boldly but also humbly, to educate our visions, to envision better.

This exhibition presents a series of takes or interpretations on the VISION(S) theme through the perspectives of Dawson students, faculty, staff and members of the broader community who work in different disciplines. Each piece in the exhibition, personal to the individual or shared by the group who created it, invites you to unleash your visions—to break the spell of established ways of knowing, feeling and acting; to initiate a new beginning, perhaps even a new logic; to expand perceptions and deepen sensibilities; to re-invent conceptual framings; to devise innovative methods of experimenting, ways of producing and interpreting data—all, ultimately, to better comprehend the here and now and to surpass it.

You are also welcome to share and discuss your visions and thoughts on the exhibition on the S.P.A.C.E. website, at space.dawsoncollege.qc.ca.

Maimire Mennasemay, Aaron Krishtalka, Ken Milkman, Andrew Katz, 2016

VISION(S)

Catherine Braun-Grenier Graduate, Illustration & Design VISION(S) theme poster for 2015-2016 Paper construction and digital 5224 x 2339 pixels

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Elissa Baltzer

1st Year, Illustration & Design The Linear Fairy Tales, 2013 Ink on paper 312 cm x 21 cm

This “vision" of mine grows from random lines on paper, carefully inscribed with my eyes closed, intentionally sensed and drawn. After the lines are captured I begin to really look for what is in the line, what it reveals to me, the visions that await in its curves and angles. On any given day I will see different things in the lines, things my imagination did not perceive the day before, new visions, until the composition is complete and the story has begun to tell itself. This work originated from hours spent posing as a life model with my gaze fixed on one point on the floor or wall of one studio after another.

The floors and sometimes walls of these magnificent creative spaces were covered in splashes and smudges of mysterious origin; here some paint, there a little charcoal, perhaps some oil pastel. These marks began to assemble themselves in my mind's eye into forms and characters. As I sat immobile, staring fixedly at one point on the floor of one studio or another, I would discern shadow shapes, beautiful compositions of light and dark. A person, an animal, a mysterious creature, landscapes emerging from the mixed media left behind. Seeing all of this but unable to capture it due to my immobility in my poses, I started thinking, if I can see these beautiful things in the floor of any studio I visit where else can I find them?

And so, from this question, the Linear Fairy Tales were born.

Brought to life from simple random lines and the fairy-tale worlds and yet untold stories that they contained.

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Two pages from The Linear Fairy Tale

VISION(S)

Kieren McNeil

1st Year, Illustration & Design Possibilities, 2015 Ink on board 27.8 cm x 42.8 cm

To live contently is what most look for in life, whether consciously or subconsciously. And there are some things that we do not have the power to change or choose, at least, not to the extent we wish we could. Relationships come and go, status is won and lost, and as many have found, gender is changeable as well. The dysphoria an individual may feel over their physical being is a torturous thing; it can take away all the light in one's life. This piece refers directly to that trapped state, the one without a future to hope for. But it also refers to the light, to the possibilities ahead, given time and much change. This vision is one of the future, or as some might see it, what could have been. It is an idealized view of another life, something that could never quite survive in the real world. All of the freedom and beauty embodied in that possibility chaining us just as much as present circumstances do, because it keeps us hoping for a future instead of making something of today. But this piece was conceived with multiple layered interpretations in mind, so I implore you to look further than this note. Find your own vision, in my vision.

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Student teams: Science, ALC, Social Science Students overseen by Joel Trudeau (Faculty, Physics) Prototype(s), 2015 Mixed media

Catalogue text and collage by Joel Trudeau with additional photographs by Nicholas Gertler, Isa Nanic, and Ursula Sommerer Gallery installation developed with Frank Mulvey (Faculty, Fine Arts, Illustration & Design)

Prototype(s) is an audio-visual matrix of projects evolving in the SPACEcorp Research & Development framework that was created in 2014-2015. These co-curricular projects, with contributions from more than 50 mentor-supported students, emerge principally from common interests and passion for an idea or subject in the sciences, technologies, engineering or mathematics. The parenthetical plural of prototype, derived from the VISION(S) theme, signifies the collection of perspectives, visions and revisions of the individual students and teams as they iterate their projects through various stages of development.

Science is under constant revision, absorbing new information and ideas to be scrutinized by experiment. A core concern for its advancement is the “well-posed problem”, which if properly formulated can be guaranteed a solution at some definite future time. In standard textbook treatments of the fundamentals, students are presented with the definiteness of well-posed problems and their outcomes. The solutions are known and immediate. Yet this is a partial view. In particular, reformulations and discarded hypotheses tend to be undervalued as important precursors to resolvable propositions. The Prototype(s) projects incorporate lessons from frontier science, engineering, design thinking and maker culture to emphasize this important aspect of creative problem solving.

Through the challenge of revision, Prototype(s) is also an exploration of ill-posed problems. Theoretical speculations, considerations of the intractable, and the freedom to propose projects that go on indefinitely or that can change commingle with the tests and refinements of ideas already on the path to completion. A continuum of progress is created within the diversity of student interests. Without fixed academic criteria to provide guidelines, the students engage with their ideas and each other in spirited collaboration intrinsically motivated to learn. The underlying narrative of the entire experience, communicated in the core video content of the VISION(S) exhibition installation, is of the production of a prototype by the SPACEcorp collective where student projects can be envisioned and realized from year to year.

The imagery on the facing page shows a representative sample of machine designs, devised experiments, and theories explored, to be experienced as part of a larger unified installation in the VISION(S) exhibition.

SPACEcorp was inspired by the space-age ideals of the 50’s and 60’s captured in iconic creative campaigns the aerospace industry commissioned to promote the promise of optimistic futures offered by breakthrough science and technology.

The R&D projects, initiated by Science students, complimented positive propaganda posters created by Illustration & Design students, mirroring this mid 20th century ethos.

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PROTOTYPES

VISION(S)

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The “Lab-stories” Prototype.

“Lab-stories” is a prototype framework for the production of video and animation narratives that emerge from the Research & Development projects of SPACEcorp. It is part of a larger vision for supporting and sharing impactful learning activities that are collaborative and student-driven. The images on the Students Lydia Ait-Haddad† Omar Al Safadi^ Maude Bédard†* Lina Belabbas†* Jon Boretsky†* George Vlad Calapod† Steven Cangul† Méliane Carrier-Favreau† Chelsea Chisholm†* Robert Fercal†* Noah Ferrarotto† Samuel Fisher† Eitan Gabbay† Nicholas Gertler§* Katerina Giannios† Sarah Jones† Shin Hyu Kang†* Sascha Kavanagh-Sommerer¶

Edris Jebran† Mitchell Keeley†* Lara Kollokian†* Matthew Liberman§* Fanny Lortie§ Emily Luu†* Katherine Martakis† Ingrid Matei† Emily McIsaac† Melina Medjdoub† Gio Mrakade† Chelsea Myers-Colet† Isa Nanic†* Julien Otis-Laperrière† Natalia Pavlasek† Petia Pavlova† Polina Petrova Tsvetkova†* Salima Ramdani†* Clara Scattolin† Rusaila Shakhtur-Alqawasma†*

Prototype(s) Mentors and Consultants Shoukry Aboulehaf (Faculty, Mechanical Engineering Technologies) Alexandre Albanese (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Madeleine Bazerghi (Project Lead, Dawson Entrepreneurship Initiative) Shawn Bell, (Faculty, Interactive Media Arts) Tze Chiu Chan (Technician, Mechanical Engineering Technologies) Tanya Chichekian (Advisor, Academic Advising) Robert Donga (Faculty, Chemistry) Dipti Gupta (Faculty, Cinema-Communications) Meinert Hansen (Faculty, Illustration & Design, 3D Animation & CGI) 8

PROTOTYPES

facing page are a mixture of video still portraits and work-inprogress photographs. They represent the spectrum of participants and reflect the mentorship received as the students inquire and build, sharing their stories of discovery in science.

Avigayil Sorokine† Catalin Suarasan† Jennifer Suliteanu†* Xue Wei Tan†* Leif Truesdale†* Camille Valentin†* Chaitanya Varier†* Laurel Walfish† William Ward‡ Khandideh Williams† Anna Wong† Hanyan Xue† Nicholas Zaharakis† Jon Zlotnik†* †Sciences, §CALL, ‡Social Science, ¶3D Animation & CGI, ^Conted, *Group Leaders

Nafisa Husein (Alumni, Concordia University Undergraduate in Neuroscience) Jesse Hunter (Faculty, Cinema-Communications) Brian Mader (Faculty, Biology) Professor Jeffrey Mogil (Canada Research Chair in Genetics of Pain and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies, McGill University) Annie-Hélène Samson (Faculty, Biology) Alex Simonelis (Faculty, Computer Science) Georgia Stavrakis (Alumni, McGill Undergraduate in Nursing) Manuel Toharia (Faculty, Physics) Janet Wyman (Faculty, Biology) Leen Yamani (Alumni, McGill Undergraduate in Neuroscience)

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Stefan Popescu 1st Year, ALC Balance, 2015 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

This illustration is meant to depict the way a human consciousness works. While some of our thinking is rational, mathematical, and precise (represented by the exact shapes in the composition), the other side of our thinking is creative (represented by the flowery shape). The light in the center of the frame is the unknown part of our thinking, the things we are constantly discovering and understanding and also the anchor point of the whole geometry.

The black and white chromatic of the piece depicts another aspect of human nature: duality. It is a concept that seems to define our species, as most of our theoretical notions, from math to language, seem to have an opposite form (art and math, rationality and gut feeling, good and evil) and is an important aspect of how our intelligence works.

Overall this work could represent the perfect state of mind, in which all these functions and forms of our thinking get balanced, throwing us towards the unknown. It could also be just a pretty illustration that gets hypnotizing when you stare at it for too long.

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VISION(S)

Jules Prud’homme

Faculty, Illustration & Design Visions From a Window in Movement, 2016 Selection from a photographic series 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

From a window in movement, the vision and framing, subjects and composition, coloured or distorted by the elements (rain, snow, wind and light), any scene will leave an impression of tension.

This series illustrates the street as viewed from a subjective and static angle. Seen and recorded from a bus rear side window, filtered by either a sun-deflecting screen, the dirt covering the window, stormy weather, rain or snow, the vision reveals itself as subjects are exposed from an unusual perspective. A still camera in a moving seat (a classic tourist perspective), life on the street, light and shapes. Some clear, some painted by motion blur.

VISION(S)

For decades, the photographic work of Josef Sudek has been a clear and humbling reminder for me of how beauty and poetry can emerge from limited spaces and situations. He was confined to his studio and its window, in Prague, during the WW II German occupation. Simple subjects, seen as they are from a particular angle, here triggered from inside while looking outside, in reaction to the constantly moving scene, as every frame evolves and disappears.

The window screen acts as a filter. A distance between in and out. A blurred vision of a transformed reality.

The fog, water, snow, elements and dirt paint with the light (artificial, reflected or natural), offering a vision from a moving standpoint, and ultimately captured by a decision.

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Daniel Petersen Escobedo

1st Year, Illustration & Design Alleyway of the Lost and Unfounded at the End of the Universe, 2015 Ink on board 41 cm x 51 cm

The initial goal of this piece was to think of visions as omens and of omens as visual compositions that, through the use of symbolism, convey a given message. The main issue during the planning stages of the project was reflecting on whether or not such a composition could be read in broadly the same way by a set of different individuals in an age when vast amounts of information and misinformation are readily available at the click of a mouse. Another factor to consider was the level of symbolic illiteracy, of which I am as well guilty, in today’s modern society. Ironically, we are flooded today with more visual symbols than ever before on a daily basis. Can a symbol still be said to have a specific and universal meaning in today’s society? Is it the intended, interpreted or objective meaning of a symbol that is more relevant in such a context? This piece presupposes that the symbol’s interpreted meaning supersedes the two others, in order that an answer to the initial question may be determined.

The meaning or lack thereof of the individual symbols in relation to the meaning or lack thereof of the work as a whole is therefore left to the observer.

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VISION(S)

Morgane Bernard 3rd Year, Visual Arts Somnium, 2016 Silkscreen 51 cm x 66 cm

Dans le monde du rêve, nos pensées voguent tels des bateaux aux mille et une facettes. Ces schémas parcourant nos esprits enfantins créent l'imaginaire dans lequel se reflètent les mirages d'une réalité non vécue. Lorsque nous dormons, notre corps apparaît mort, tandis que notre esprit se nourrit de cette doctrine que sont les rêves. Sur les lits sont couchées des formes sans vie, alors que leurs cerveaux savent voir plus loin que lorsqu'elles sont éveillées. Ces muscles aux pouvoirs chimiques, qui ébauchent des paroles non dites, sont la raison d'une vision mésopique. Ce sont ces évasions, ces désirs, ces espérances, qui savent construire l'architecture du Somnium.

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Imane Dakkach 2nd Year, Visual Arts Pink and Blue, 2015 Fabric 39 cm x 52 cm

So no one really knows What is what, who is who, or what next to do But they're messing with our minds telling us “You are pink and you are blue�

And that can't be 'Cause in my mind there are all these colors And they keep adding and changing And there's nothing else I'd rather do than Be all that I can be And explore infinity

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Kathleen Binette 1st Year, Illustration & Design I'm a Little Lost, 2015 Digital 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm

I have my own little world. Alright, maybe not that little, because there are no limitations on the imagination. My imagination is important for me as an artist, and it’s also an escape from a life that’s messy. A life that goes up and down, right and left and never seems interested in giving a break. One day, things are great, I know where I’m going and I know I can get there.

Then, sadly, it crashes into pieces. I suddenly get knocked down, I get sick, I’m failing at everything I do and can’t seem to find the path that used to be in front of me. I am not sure of who I am anymore and I am left with a big empty space in my head. It’s a confusing time where the present meets the past and the past meets the future. I’m a little lost.

It is the time for me to visualize a new path.

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Meghan Dove 2nd Year, Graphic Design Vision of Connection, 2015 Vector Image 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

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VISION(S)

In his book “How to Practice the Way to a Meaningful Life� the Dalai Lama tells the story of a scholar from a monastery in Tibet who, before being taken away to be executed in 1950, took the time to say a prayer.

May all the ill deeds, obstructions, and sufferings of beings be transferred to me, without exception, at this moment, and my happiness and merit be sent to others.

May all creatures be imbued with happiness!

This prayer is not religious, it is humanitarian. It expresses love and hope and a vision of the earth as a living organism that each individual is a part of. It takes a special vision of your place in the world to embrace the suffering of others while offering them your happiness. It takes a special kind of compassion to see every man as your father and brother, and every woman as your mother or sister. The Dalai Lama's way of viewing the world from a loving perspective is what the artist reflected on while creating this digital rendering, based on a photograph taken by Swiss photographer Stephan Bollinger.

When you focus on why people are the way they are and what challenges they are living through as opposed to seeing them as a challenge for you to overcome, you stop wanting to fight them and start wanting to help them. When you remember to be kind, because most people are fighting a hard battle that you know nothing about, it is easier to take small conflicts in stride. When you face suffering with love and compassion for others, as opposed to with fear of how it might affect you, you learn that often the best way to help yourself is by helping others.

Though this work of art is the image of a man, it is also the image of a vision and of a sustained commitment to compassion and functioning from a place of love. It is a vision of how many small parts make up the whole. Matter magnified is composed of atoms which combine into molecules and so every part of this planet is interconnected. We are all human, we are all parts of a larger organism and this image was made to remind the artist of a different way of viewing the world.

Vision of Connection is modified from an original image by Stephen Bollinger.

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Isabel Moscoso 1st Year, Illustration & Design What is your perspective?, 2015 Ink on board 37 cm x 51 cm

There are a great number of persons living around the globe.

Each day, we have the opportunity to open our hearts and minds to other people but we frequently find excuses for not doing it. All too often, we judge by appearances and we are not eager to know more, thinking that we have it all figured out. But when one opens oneself to others, one learns to see the world differently because each person has a different vision of things. Cultural perspectives, beliefs, geography, and other factors define what we are and how we see. Through the use of conflicting perspectives, this drawing represents the disjunction of how two different people might be looking in the same direction, but experiencing two completely different visions.

At the same time this illustration tries to make us wonder about each individual around us, and to dare getting to know their perspectives on life.

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VISION(S)

Aja Palmer

1st Year, ALC Visions of Reality, 2015 Digital 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm

Multiple realities can be presented to us throughout our life but our own perspective is always the one we grasp in its entirety. What would happen if we were suddenly able to fully comprehend another person's point of view, if we were able to enter another one's mind, just for a moment? Reality would certainly change in many ways, it would allow us to understand one another in a deeper sense, most probably. On the other hand, maybe having so many different perspectives would at some point become overwhelming and too much to understand. Our reality and those of others would be too difficult to separate and reality would become blurred. We wouldn't be able to discern reality from ideas and concepts.

But are ideas and concepts really that distinct from reality?

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Marie Thérèse Blanc Faculty, English Porto Santo, 2014 Digital photograph 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm

I practiced zazen—or sitting Zen Buddhist meditation—rigorously every day for years and never reached enlightenment, and then I gave up and just went on with the business of living. On a paradoxically dismal day in February, I had a flash of understanding as to our fundamental oneness. I understood intuitively that there is no ‘it,’ ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘them,’ and ‘us,’ but rather that we insist on separating ourselves from others or the world because not doing so would point toward a closeness with creation that is perhaps too intense and that completely erases ego, and we have simply not been trained to handle such experiences. In my photographic work I often use reflective surfaces and reflections as a way of recreating that sense, or vision, of oneness. In a reflection, two or more worlds are collapsed into a third image of what life and our world might look and feel like if we said yes to the fusion with an all-embracing consciousness.

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VISION(S)

Étienne Boucher-Lemay 2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Divinorum Dream, 2015 Poetry

Look up Those chiseled tender leaves Yes And swift your glance downstream See the threads Parallels And abstract still-life “Forest and chute, silent” Because yes, you are now staring at the liquid Crashing and sighing Its ripples Like people Running from The Great Fall Of some chiseled, tangerine leaves

There is something about seasons that is especially evocative. When talking of a damp April morning, we instantly feel a mood essentially different from that of a snowy January afternoon. Time eludes us, especially in our modern era of productivity, but there is an undeniable palpability to the seasons' coming and going. The earth's rotation, its tilted axis, its revolution around the sun; all of those cosmic mechanisms can be seen through those cycles of days and nights, summers and winters. Contrasting with our usual linear representation of time, this cyclic pattern tells us about a unity we often overlook; we cling to past memories and long for future events, we divide and classify time, merely feeling it slipping in our clenched fists, and thus we never take the time to appreciate the present’s all-encompassing dimension.

In the Japanese Haiku tradition, each poem contains a seasonal term, the kigo; each season is symbolised by some natural elements, clouds, for instance, representing summer, and mist, spring. They also contain a hidden dualism: near and far, then and now, or past and present, to name a few. Similarly, “The Gateless Barrier”, a classic collection of Zen teachings from the 13th century C.E., consists in 48 stories, dialogues or statements, called “koans”, which are used to epitomize dualistic polarity. The point of those exercises is to transcend the oppositions exemplified in the koans in order to see the world as one - to attain “satori”, a vision of one's true nature. What the Haikus convey through the kigo, rhythms, rhymes, and dualism is this same kind of enlightened visions of the world, when our awareness of reality as it is expands, and leaves us with so little words that they all fit in 10 syllables.

Divinorum Dream draws from this wide range of symbols, imagery, and visions.

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Cindy Calypso Cals-Geoffrion 2nd Year, Professional Photography Sacrifice, 2016 Digital photograph 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

Every year, soldiers are sacrificed in conflicts around the world. The woman in this image has lost her lover to war and is remembering how he used to embrace her. She is having a vision of the ghost of her lover wrapping his arms around her, although this man is gone and will never be back. The loss of lives in wars has impacted on large numbers of families. It is important to stop and think of soldiers as individuals with lives and families, not just another gun to protect the country.

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Kayleigh Valentine 2nd Year, Visual Arts Deliquesce, 2015 Markers on paper 24.5 cm x 22.6 cm

Children’s innocence is a form of purity that is envious for adults. The purity of the children comes from the lack of knowledge of the cruel world that everyone experiences together. Purity as a word is often linked with harmony and happiness which is what most adults don’t often experience. The children’s innocence is very much like a dream or a vision that grown-ups wish to experience again. This makes sense because children don’t have to deal with major stressors like adults do on a daily basis. These stressors can be so intense that some adults and adolescents develop mental illnesses. Children are unaware of these stressors because they don’t have the same responsibility that adults do. This allows their innocence to be as precious as it is. Children are oblivious to reality and that’s what “Deliquesce” is about. Their innocence drips away as they become more aware of reality. Their purity is a form of happiness that adults and adolescents envy and which makes children so fortunate.

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Denisa Marginean

1st Year, Visual Arts Still life to my life, 2016 Diptych: charcoal, graphite and ink on paper 50.8 cm x 127 cm

One side of this diptych reveals a skeleton, while the other side continues with a pair of human legs. This piece explores the difference between life and death with a vision of bones and flesh. Death has become so mundane and so normal in our environments that we forget how dramatic and awful it can be. The skeleton was once a person, an actual human being. I represented the person who used to be there before mortality took this individual away. Yet, life and death go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. My vision mixes life and death into one.

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VISION(S)

Raha Jahromizadeh 1st Year, Illustration & Design Freedom, 2015 Ink on board 38.1 cm x 50.8 cm

Some of us are in prisons of our own making while others are free, depending on our individual outlooks. If we trap ourselves in our own thoughts, it is very difficult to see other possible realities. Life is created through the way we envision it, as a set of limitations or possibilities. We can limit ourselves through personal rules, beliefs and ways of thinking, or we can free ourselves by choosing new ways of doing things or seeing the world.

If we choose to view life with as few worries as possible and not over think things; life will be easier and more effortless for us. It is said that karma is a rule of the world and we must choose to live as we would wish things to be.

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Bob Kavanagh

Conseiller cadre IceVisions: A Physical Allegory, 2016 Snow/Ice sculpture 2.5 m x 6 m x 9 m

IceVisions: A Physical Allegory An allegory is like a metaphor, saying something is something else to communicate a meaning which is somewhat hidden from plain view. IceVisions did not tell a story or provide a literary context. It was not “saying” something—rather, it “was” something, it was a thing. This Eye was fixed in position so that it could only look up to the heavens and could only be seen head-on by the gods of the sky. So, what is its hidden meaning?

This now-past sculpture and this now-gone work give us a cipher in our efforts to understand, to see into, to grasp and comprehend: light as energy, and light as vision, appearance and reality, material existence and fleeting ephemerality of life, truth and illusion, consciousness and fact, states of matter and the limits of matter—of “phusis” “nomos” and “nous” (πησις, νομος, νους). It is as difficult to keep these ideas constantly before the human mind as it was to keep the Eye from melting in the presence of a minor change of temperature.

IceVisions: The Sculpture The structure was about 8-9 meters long (29-30 feet) long and 2 plus meters (7-8 feet) high and 6 meters (20 feet) wide.

It consisted of four hand-built, ice-snow/ice-block walls. It resembled a labyrinth shaped like an eye as seen on a human face.

The 2015-16 theme of S.P.A.C.E. is VISION(S) and the ice-eye sculpture uses this theme to probe, to query, to wonder—not only the question, what vision is, but equally, what is human knowing and what is reality? What can and what do we see? What visionary functions are served by the inner eye, the ephemeral eye of imagination or memory, and the elusive eye of dreams? What about the astounding vision of contemporary telescopes and cosmological probes—cosmic eyes?

It was a terrific physical-emotional challenge and a significant amount of frustrating fun to build. Many people, several hundreds of snow/ice blocks, focus on detail, some real muscle and physical effort, persistence of vision and steadfastness of will, cooperation, coordination and frayed collaboration were all essential elements of this undertaking. The weather was a disaster.

IceVisions can remind us that what we see—with the naked eye as the saying goes—is not precisely what is there. What is this ‘there’ anyway? It can remind us that human perception and what we call knowledge, have within them an undercurrent of superficiality and of appearance—of “passing away”. It reminds us that what we experience of the world is as fleeting as snow and ice in the sun’s heat and the rain’s washing things away. Is this fleeting passage our knowledge—an approximation, a getting closer and closer, and if so, to what/of what?

We do see, we do touch—the more we probe and the more we analyze, the less obvious it is what we see and touch.

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The IceVisions Eye was as ephemeral as it was massive: 750 blocks of icy snow, each at least 11-12 kilos (35-40 pounds).

Each little flicker of change in the weather threatened to eliminate it, and of course a few days of warm weather removed the physical thing from the face of the earth. So where are we, humans, as individuals, collectives and in totality? So big, so powerful, so dominant on this whirling world—so fleeting, so frail, so insubstantial in the larger scheme of things—but still…

VISION(S)

December 28, 2015

March 10, 2016 VISION(S)

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Image and Word

Image and Word is a sub-theme within VISION(S) exploring the interplay between illustration and text. Image and Word involves three separate projects: ReViewed, Broken Tele/vision, and Picturing a Book.

Images and words both offer visions, representations and interpretations of the world. In our educational system, we tend to value and emphasize verbal literacy over visual literacy; a person’s ability to write over their ability to draw/paint. But what might a writer learn by a greater engagement with the world of the visual artist, and vice versa? What might verbal and visual intelligences have to teach each other about the ways we envision?

Image and Word aims to foster this engagement through a series of discussions and collaborations between writers and visual artists which, by turns, reverse a traditional dynamic in the creation of image and word, re-envision a familiar game, and go behind-the-scenes in the process of “picturing” text.

Image and Word invites a consideration of the complex interconnections between visions and texts, and of the rich space for creativity and dialogue that exists between them.

Frank Mulvey | Andrew Katz

Faculty, Illustration & Design, Fine Arts | Faculty, English ReViewed, 2015-2016 Texts, artwork and dialogue by students across the disciplines

In ReViewed, the traditional approach to magazine illustration is reversed. Instead of the artwork illustrating a selected text, it becomes the inspiration for the text. Participants were invited to react to stimulating artwork created by students from Illustration & Design, Professional Photography, C.A.L.L./ALC or Visual Arts. Written responses included creative texts and dialogue with the artists about their work.

Featured here is an example of a creative response as well as an example of the kind of dialogue these visions provoked.

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Etia Van Hell

3rd Year, Illustration & Design Love, Julienne, 2015 Digital 960 x762 pixels

This piece is a marriage between the representation of physical and emotional pain. At first it appears as though this piece was cut out of a graphic novel, a simple scene where a man meticulously sliced a woman in two halves with a very sharp blade and then walks away into the distance. Typical. The spotlight being interpreted as a streetlight makes this scene more serene, although if we interpret it as a spotlight we immediately feel a sense of urgency in the image. I‘d like each viewer of this piece to interpret it the way that they want, without narrowing down their options. Personally, I see this woman as a victim of heartbreak, or even rape. But the fact that she was so meticulously murdered makes me think of a manipulator’s work. A manipulative man slowly and metaphorically cutting a woman in half and leaving her for dead.

On to the next.

Candice Pye 2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Slaughterhouse, 2015 Poem

I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.

Our teenaged daughters plucked from their childhoods, corralled into the steel hands of men in suits who claim “free-range,” but the open space for our girls to roam is caged behind g-strings and push-up bras, the farthest thing from organic: chicks raised for meat.

I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.

Factory-farm conditions coughing out bits and pieces of what was once a woman; with no signs of freedom or power, these images are of animals, slaved then served onto the impressionable plate of my younger sister who gulps them down hungrily, licking the plate clean because she’s a “good little girl.”

I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.

Telling our sons that hunting is humane because it’s “just a game,” and any doe who doesn’t run away fast enough was “asking for it anyway.”

They butcher with their bare hands, dissecting their girl friends’ bodies because the only way to learn a woman’s anatomy is to tear her open.

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Christopher Forsyth 2nd Year, Professional Photography Montreal Metro Project, 2014 Digital photographs Various sizes

Rosamond Atkin 2nd Year, CALL On The Metro, 2015 Poem

Creative Response to the Montreal Metro Project Rushing to the light streams Gurgling out through the doors Taking the stairs You are your own fetus

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Dialogue response to Montreal Metro Project

Emily McIsaac (1st Year, Science)

First, this brought to mind the experiment in the DC subway where Joshua Bell, a famous violinist, was asked to play a famous song at the metro's entrance during rush hour, and a ridiculously low amount of people even slowed down or looked his way, much less stopped to give a bit of change.

The other day at home, my mom pointed out a picture we've had on our walls since I was born, and I was actually shocked to see it there; I had become almost numb to its presence after walking by it so many times. I think it's interesting how our brain can tune certain things out, like it's labeling some things as background noise so it can focus on what's "important".

Hanna Allan (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.)

This photograph reminded me of a simpler time. A time when I loved taking the metro, when it held an underground mystery and overwhelming grandeur. The pedestrian walking past the great orange dot resonates with me, because we are all pedestrians walking past the bold and beautiful things in life, as if they were specks of dust.

Barbara Kontos (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.)

This lady walking by—I assume—doesn't even spare a glance at the beautiful orange window or mural or painting behind her. Perhaps she walks by it every day and doesn't care for it anymore, but it may also be because she is in a rush to get somewhere and doesn't have time to look. I'm often rushing to get to class and don't notice my surroundings either; it's all a routine and I know exactly where I'm going without even looking.

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Gaby Novoa (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.)

This is image is so inviting, and feels as if the curving wall is a lure to follow its direction. The black and white tiling feels playful, reminding me of piano keys waiting to be played and enjoyed. I feel as if an invitation to travel to some quirky, eccentric world has been captured in this photo, and it’s an offer that’s hard to resist.

Sofia Vedechkina (2nd Year C.A.L.L.)

Although I love the three images you have posted, I like this one in particular, as there is something about the way all the colours interact that is very appealing. I like how the colours in this picture—the purple, blue, yellow, white, red, brown, and gray—are very distinct and leave nothing to the imagination. They are in-your-face vivid hues, very satisfying to look at. I also really love how saturated and intense you made these three pictures out to be, as it gives off a bit of a psychedelic vibe, since the lights seem almost neon and the train does not look like it comes from this world (as if it were being stretched out in a wormhole). The whole picture seems like it emerged out of a weird dream, movie, or trip, and I enjoy the destabilizing feeling of it. Overall, I really enjoyed these pictures! They do make the viewer see the Montreal Metro in a different light.

Cheyenne Schaub (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.)

I think you definitely realized your objective with your photos, Chris.

In this photo particularly, I like that the metro doors are lost in the blur of its movement. It seems like such a small detail, but I find we put such a huge focus on the doors; during rush hour, waiting right on the edge of the arrow stickers, we're ready to push our way through, to get in as soon as possible with no regard for anything else. Now that the doors are gone, I can focus on the rest of the station, its vivid colours and their contrast, the details of the tiles on the floor and the shape of the lights above. It makes us stay in this moment rather than thinking of our destination. I really enjoyed it.

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Amanda Beattie | Frank Mulvey Faculty, Fine Arts (Art History | Studio) Broken Tele/vision, 2016 Artwork and texts by students across the disciplines

The game of “Broken Telephone”—in which a chain of people whisper a word or a phrase from one to another, often ending with a vast discrepancy between the first utterance and the last—is re-envisioned here as a game called Broken Tele/vision (conception Amanda Beattie), in which the “message” being passed along takes the alternating forms of image and word.

That is, an artist creates a sketch; the sketch is passed to a writer who describes in words what the sketch portrays; the text is passed to a new artist who visually captures the meaning of that text and then the new sketch is passed along to a new writer. In this way the original “content” is textualized, from image into word, and visualized, from word to image, back and forth through a long chain of participants, with each participant only seeing the previous stage of the chain. As in the original game, the results, as you can see here, are surprising, and illuminate the creativity and interpretation involved in the translation of image into word and word into image.

Andrew Katz, 2016

There are endless ways in which one can read a drawing, and endless ways in which one can illustrate a text. But what happens when thirty people are set to the task? Broken Tele/ vision is the result of such an experiment.

What mesmerized me with the outcome of this project is the natural pathway that the illustrators and writers seem to meander down together. This communal trail veers off seamlessly on to five main tangents. The voyage begins with an industrial touch, falling into a theme of isolation. These feelings of seclusion gradually shift to follow a beacon of hope, only to be plummeted back into darkness. And finally, with the last few works, there is a sense of rebirth…a clearing where the light shows the way for the path to continue.

I was struck by the ease with which text followed image followed text…and how gradually and naturally the project unfolded. It was as if there had been a master plan all along, or a map for each participant to follow. But the path was natural and serendipitous, not paved with any intention. It was made up by the individual vision of thirty people who each shoveled out their own section, not knowing in which direction the larger path had come from, nor where it was going.

Amanda Beattie, 2016 This experiment in successive visualizations was indeed a strange collaboration, with limited and linear one-way communication from one individual to the next in the form of sketches and short texts. The 30 individuals who comprise the Broken Tele/vision collective did not dialogue with each other during the production period. It could be argued that what each participant expressed was a projection of her or his own individual vision upon the material provided. Nonetheless, a narrative developed that reflected the alternating despair and hope shared by countless narratives produced by countless creators through the span of humanity’s existence. Details in the story change from one account to the next, but as for the journey, it is ours together.

Frank Mulvey, 2016

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Broken Tele/vision contributors (alternating artists and writers:) 1 anonymous contributor 2 Anaïs Charbonneau (1st Year, Science) 3 Chloé Sautter-Léger (2nd Year, Liberal Arts) 4 Chloe Wong-Mersereau (1st Year, Liberal Arts) 5 Julie Lindsay (2nd Year, Visual Arts) 6 Ross Paraskevopoulos (1st Year, ALC) 7 Susan Willcocks (2nd Year, Visual Arts) 8 Sarah Teixeira-Barbosa (1st Year, Liberal Arts) 9 Colin Meredith (2nd Year, Visual Arts) 10 Julien Otis-Laperriere (1st Year, Science) 11 Ellis Roberts (3rd Year, Illustration & Design) 12 Gabrielle Vendette (2nd Year, Liberal Arts) 13 Thi Thanh Truc Nguyen (1st Year, Illustration & Design) 14 Chloe Lalonde (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.) 15 Kathleen Binette (1st Year, Illustration & Design)

16 Andrew Katz (Faculty, English) 17 Sabira Langevin (1st Year, Illustration & Design) 18 Amanda Beattie (Faculty, Fine Arts) 19 Lucia Gargiulo (1st Year, 3D Animation & CGI) 20 Meaghan Proctor (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.) 21 Kieren Mcneil (1st Year, Illustration & Design) 22 Lee-Ann Kralik (2nd Year, Social Science) 23 Christopher Olimpo (Graduate, Illustration & Design) 24 Kayla-Marie Turriciano (1st Year, ALC) 25 Marianne Ferrer (Graduate, Illustration & Design) 26 Gwen Baddeley (Faculty, Fine Arts) 27 Esther Calixte-Bea (2nd Year, Visual Arts) 28 Schaub, Cheyenne (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.) 29 Bush, Jacqualine (Graduate, Illustration & Design) 30 Akinasi Partridge (2nd Year, C.A.L.L.)

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Pauline Fresco | Andrew Katz Faculty, Illustration & Design | Faculty, English Picturing a Book, 2016 Text and illustrations by students across the disciplines

For the past two years, the C.A.L.L. and Illustration & Design programs have been collaborating on a Picture Book project, with Creative Writing students writing the texts for these books and Illustration & Design students illustrating them. Sometimes multiple illustrators will create different books using the same text, and their visual interpretations of that text can diverge wildly. With the VISION(S) theme in mind, S.P.A.C.E. invited illustrators to open their sketchbooks and to reflect on their process of Picturing a Book. What aspects of a text inspired their imagery? What influences impacted their imagery? What steps did they go through in their process? And what similarities and/or differences might we notice in the ways various illustrators go about picturing a text?

What follows are the reflections of the three different illustrators on their process of envisioning this text, with illustrations capturing this process at different stages. Following the reflections is the opening page of a unique picture book in which the story narrator and author all become characters in the book, offering a unique challenge and opportunity to the illustrators.

Mathieu Larone Preparatory work for illustrating the picture book text Semantontica by Matthew Liberman Traditional and digital media From left: character designs, page thumbnail, final page

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Mathieu Larone

Iuliana Irimia

I found Seminautica to be a very bizarre and unique story to illustrate. From the onset, figuring out how to characterize the different voices was a major difficulty. I felt that without a clear separation the story would be hard to understand. I eventually came to three different designs for the voices. The protagonist, the author, would have an extremely large forehead that would encompass everything he said. This presented itself as humoristic blessing and the rest of the story followed suit. Erik Svetoft, a Swedish illustrator, heavily inspired the way I processed the story and the disturbing imagery found within it. The passage where black boots are being dragged across the author’s face was the first final image I came up with. The aesthetic I was gravitating towards at the time fell into place once this image was complete. Finally, I really enjoyed putting emphasis on the author’s facial expressions. I found that these grimaces ended up enhancing the wonderful and quirky writing that was presented by Matthew.

In this part of the story, the “invisible author” is portrayed as a dark figure looking over an “empty mug full of night.”

Meanwhile, the illustrators are making their way toward their boot­throne.

3rd Year, Illustration & Design

3rd Year, Illustration & Design

The whimsical style chosen for the illustrations is the result of experimentation done over the past months with materials such as ink and watercolour. The use of pattern is a style I have been recently exploring, and decided to incorporate in the book as a way to tie the illustrations together. I wished to guide the reader’s eye through the image with help from the characters marching toward the boot. Following the author's suggestion, the book “House of Leaves” was used as inspiration for the text placement, with the goal to engage the reader in manipulating the book.

Iuliana Irimia Preparatory work for illustrating the picture book text Semantontica by Matthew Liberman Traditional and digital media Clockwise from top left: thumbnail sketches, sketch for spread 1, ink wash for spread 1, colour version for spread 1

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Etia Van Hell 3rd Year, Illustration & Design

Upon hearing Semantonautica: Tense Blanks being recited to the class, I immediately knew that illustrating this story would be a wonderful opportunity for me. The edgy style and dark energy of this story is ideal for my style of artwork. The author made an impression upon reading his story aloud and I immediately knew that he had a very unique talent. Clearly, the story requires dark and intense colours. I was having trouble deciding whether I should include physical human characters in my story or metaphorical elements to represent the ideologies of my book. I wanted to depict the essence of pain that is expressed within this story. Red being the perfect colour to express this concept. I chose to include many different crimson elements in my artwork. I then decided to format this book envisioning a graphic novel theme, thus, incorporating many separate images that inhabit their own secluded boundaries. I also concluded that including physical human forms in these illustrations would be necessary to the essential understanding of this complicated scripture. I wanted to depict the concept of ‘writer’s block’ within the character of the author himself. To do this, I added a red hue to his fingertips to represent the excruciating physical pain that accompanies the emotional pain of the emptiness that engulfs his mind on the daily. On another note, I chose to conceive the character of the story herself through the image of a teenage girl to encompass the undying confusion and rebellious nature of the book.

Etia Van Hell Preparatory work for illustrating the picture book text Semantontica by Matthew Liberman Traditional and digital media From top: concept sketches, character development stage 3, character development stage 5

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Matthew Liberman 2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Semantonautica: Tense Blanks, 2016 Book Excerpt

story

narator author ...ere was a picture-book story intended for a beginning, a muddle, and an end.

It was a very coherent story and all the illustrious illustrators gathered ‘round to lustrat—”

Hold up.

Wha? I think my first page is missing.

Well, what did you do with it this time?

Ugh, why do you always assume everything is my fault?

Hey, reader, can you go find my author for me? I bet it’s his fault.

I bet he’ll know what this means.

They’re a real hero, ambiguously-aged with a unique selling point and no glaring stereotypes: likable, not saccharine. Also, no matter what that stupid story sa— Hey! What was that for?

How much sleep did your omnipotent creator get?

You don’t have to be like that.

—ys, they don’t exist.

Well, it’s true. You keep fucking up.

Creator? Hah. Well, you over there, surely this “author’”s name has got to be on the cover of this book?

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Andrew Katz

Faculty, English Emergent Visions: The World in a Grain of Sand and The Evidence of Things Unseen, 2015-2016 Texts by student groups exploring VISION(S)-related themes

This year, S.P.A.C.E. participants were encouraged to brainstorm sub-themes that VISION(S) evoked for them, and to discuss these sub-topics in groups, seeing what ideas and potential collaborations emerged. This approach put less emphasis on the outcome of these discussions and more on the process of exploring a topic wherever the interests of the participants led them, with the S.P.A.C.E. coordinators mentoring that process. This process gave rise to a number of fascinating conversations as well as creative and academic works, a selection of which are featured here.

Dialogue took shape around two sub-themes in particular, titled The World in a Grain of Sand and The Evidence of Things Unseen. The title for The World in a Grain of Sand comes from a line in the poem Auguries of Innocence by the visionary Romantic poet William Blake, in which Blake invites us “To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” Participants asked, what worlds can be seen in a grain of sand? What universals can be glimpsed in particulars? Can we bring ourselves to see the ocean in a single wave, as Buddhism invites us to do?

Can we look at a tree and see in it our own lungs breathing?

Students and coordinators together chose three objects in particular to give focus to the project: a word, a grain, and a clock. Participants were also welcomed to “envision” any other objects of their choice, from any point of view––scientific, artistic, technological, historical, philosophical, among others––and to explore the world of associations and interconnections that all objects may reveal.

undertook to build a replica of a clock, sparking the idea among other students to write about the object of a clock, while other students in physics investigated the nature of time. Other areas of convergence appeared, with students in the sciences exploring the “grains” of atoms and particles, as well as the exciting new scientific evidence of previously unseen gravitational waves, among other examples.

We hope the discussions and works featured here provoke a more profound viewing of the objects of our world for what they might reveal, along with a greater attention to the evidence of things unseen in our lives, inspiring continued dialogue and creative/academic exploration across the disciplines.

The title for The Evidence of Things Unseen was offered by S.P.A.C.E. Coordinator Joel Trudeau, based on the observation in cosmology that large areas of the universe remain unseen, even undetectably directly, although the evidence of their influence on the cosmos abounds. This sub-theme offers a reminder that much of reality is hidden from our sight, or lies beyond it, perhaps even beyond visual comprehension, and that all we may have to guide us in such instances is the evidence of things unseen––a tip of an iceberg, a wrinkle in a pattern, an unexpected result, a strange symptom, a surprising turn of events, a bend in an electro-magnetic field, or some other indication that reality may be more than, and in some cases even completely different from, what we envision.

By design and by serendipity, the explorations by participants in the arts echoed and overlapped with the explorations of participants in the sciences. For example, a group of students

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World in a Grain of Sand

Object 1: WORLD and Other Words What’s in a word? Because we generally speak without reflecting on the materiality of our words, we can forget that our words are in fact objects, given a precise shape by our vocal chords or pens or keyboards, a shape inextricably linked to our culture and evolving over time. A consideration of a word as an object can evoke a widerange of interdisciplinary questions, from the carpentry of writing and rhetoric to the history of a word or language to the design of fonts to the philosophy of language and more. What can you “see” (or hear) when you look at/ listen to a word? What worlds of ideas, creativity, technology, experimentation, and more can a word reveal?

Because the line “To see a World in a Grain of Sand” by William Blake is the inspiration for this project, contributors reflected on the word WORLD as well as on any other word or aspect of language.

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WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND

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Chloé Sautter-Léger1, Julia Jenne2, Rachel Cobb2, Anthony Nobile2, Gaby Novoa2, and Ross Paraskevopoulos3 2nd Year, Liberal Arts, 22nd Year C.A.L.L., 31st Year, ALC Discussion on Words, 2015-2016 Exploration of Object 1: WORLD and Other Words A written conversation (excerpted) 1

Chloé

Rachel

I really like theatre of the absurd, with misunderstandings and plays on logic and language. I’m thinking especially here of Ionesco’s Cantatrice Chauve, but I’d be interested in reading more.

The word WORLD is so beautiful to me. Perhaps it’s the drummed in knowledge that the world is round that shapes my ideas of the word, but nonetheless when I close my eyes to hear the word WORLD I see it’s shape as being round. It jumps off the tongue with the “W” sound, and swirls around with “ORL” finally coming back down with the “D” sound. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes: “The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself”.

Also, I came across two words the other day that I know in German, and that don’t have an accurate equivalent in English of French: oll, and nett. I’d need to mix quite a few words, and use concrete examples, to explain to somebody what these words mean. This could maybe be linked to empiricist philosophic theories (Hume...): we can only grasp abstract concepts from repeated concrete experiences.

Julia

I am always intrigued by the way brief word combinations can paint such vivid images and evoke such strong emotion. I’m most drawn to phrases that have alternative meanings. I’m interested in which meaning a reader/listener chooses to think about. For example in Nirvana’s “Something in the Way,” Kurt Cobain is never specific enough for us to tell whether there’s something in the way (period) or whether there’s something in the way she moves/she talks/life goes/a leaf falls.

I’m always drawn to the second meaning. I appreciate the ambiguity of it.

The band Yo La Tengo has an instrumental song called “I Heard you Looking”, which I’ll use as another example. If we think about what the title means, it could refer to someone literally looking for something—rustling through papers, digging through boxes. But its dual meaning could be a bit more intangible, a bit more absurd—hearing someone looking at something. Your lover, looking at another person.

Longingly, eyes fixated. What would that sound like? A loud, unbearable buzz? Of course, it’s not something we can hear.

Writing, words, imagery allow us to hear things that don’t make sounds, see things that don’t have colour. This particular song has no lyrics, so it’s up to the listener to decide what it might mean.

Other creative word combinations can evoke similar thoughts as we try to turn an intangible quality into a tangible thing (sound, shape, etc) for emotional/visual purposes... the sound of a leaf falling, the sound of water drying. The hum of anxiety. The taste of his breath. We can’t imagine these things easily, but are still tempted to try. Words are cool.

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Anthony

The word WORLD can have so many different meanings to people. It can be a self-centered meaning or an extremely vast one. The world may be a place or or person or state of being that makes them forget the actual world even exists. I have yet to experience having a child, but I’m sure everyone has heard someone say that their child is their world. From the moment they are born, you embark on a journey around your world with them and every detail you learn about them marks another country explored. The best part, for as long as you live, is that you’ll never fully explore that world; you’ll always learn something new.

Gaby

Words are tools, instruments and weapons that help us navigate through our understandings and perceptions of the world. I think that words represent the possibility of multiple dimensions. In a word, there exists a world of so many different meanings, uses, implications, connotations, reasons and hidden messages… A word is more than just the sum of the definitions a dictionary will provide. A word is like an orange that contains within it a tangy sweetness, waiting to be peeled apart, sliced open, or squeezed for its juice. It’s up to whatever individual to decide how they want to eat the orange.

Ross

I find that words can often be deconstructed into meaningless/contradictory statements when we make phrases, as in the work of Kafka or as Chloé mentioned in Theater of The Absurd, (my favorite is Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party).

An additional piece of film/theater that involves people changing the meanings of words is the Greek film Dogtooth, where parents keep their teenage children ignorant of the world outside their country estate and educate them to be obedient and act like subservient “dogs”.

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Chloé Sautter-Léger1, with Safyia Bashir1, Samira Majedi2, and Cindy Lao1 2nd Year, Liberal Arts, 22nd Year, Professional Photography What in the World is a Word?, 2016 Exploration of Object 1: WORLD and Other Words Essay 1

What in the World is a Word?

Chloé

One answer to this question is that a word is a cultural artifact, and that an exploration of the origins of a word can give us a glimpse into the culture out of which it emerged.

Below is an exploration of the word « world », traced back along several branches in the Indo-European tree of language and one in the Sino-Tibetan: Chloé

GERMANIC. The old Western Germanic languages all had equivalents to the Old Norse Miðgarðr. Old English called it Middangeard, and old High-German, Mittilagart. In Old Norse mythology, Miðgarðr, the place we live in, was created in the midst of destruction. Creatures and gods destroyed and devoured one another and a giant, Ymir, was born. Demigods slew Ymir and made the sea out of his blood, the ground from his flesh, plants from his hair, and clouds from his brain. After creating the first two humans (Ask and Embla), they created a fence, ‘garðr’1 around them for protection.

The realm of humans, because it was in the center of the Nine Worlds, became known in English as Middangeard—> Middellærd / Mittelerde—> Middle-earth. These Germanic terms distinguish the realm of people from what surrounds it in space and in time. From the ninth century, this word, alongside with synonyms Manheimr (‘man’s home’), and compounds of wira-alđiz (literally man-age = age of man) 2, was used not only in spiritual myths, but also to refer to the mundane earth on which humans live.

Wira-alđiz eventually became verǫld in Old Nose, weorold in Old English, and weralt in Old High German. Modern equivalents are veröld in Icelandic (although the more commonly used term is heimurinn); world, of course, in English; and Welt in German.

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the word ‘garðr’ led to ‘yard’ and ‘garden’

the word wira, which meant ‘man,’ is also related to ‘werewolf’ and ‘virile.’ Alđiz led to the modern English word ‘old’ (and the modern German word ‘alt’).

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ITALIC. The origin of the word mundus is uncertain. It possibly consists of the same Proto-Indo-European root sounds as the Greek Kosmos: the morphemes muH2 and MeuH2.

These sounds, roughly pronounced … , are linked to meanings similar to ‘wash,’ ‘wet,’ ‘clean,’ ‘or-der,’ ‘elegance,’ and ‘adorn.’ The origin of this word therefore suggests an orderly space. While the Germanic words for ‘world’ distinguish the temporary realm of man within a larger space and inside a system of different worlds, the Latin word seems to imply that our world is more structured than the chaos or void which probably preceded it.

Modern equivalents are monde (French), mundo (Spanish and Portuguese), mondo (Italian), mund or muond (Romansh), and món (Catalan).

Safyia

SLAVIC. The Russian word for ‘world’ is мир (“mir”) in Russian. More than that, it is often interchanged with the word свет (“svet”), depending on the context of the sentence or the ex-pression used by a Russian speaker. Both мир and свет are of Slavic origin, but the latter resembles more closely the words for « world » in other Slavic languages, such as Bulgarian свят (svyat), and Croatian svijet (sviyet). One surprising and interesting thing about these words is that although they are synonyms for the word « world, » they can also have two diffe-rent meanings. мир can mean “peace,” and the word свет can translate as “light.”

What does it say that these two meanings can relate to the word ‘world’? In terms of peace, people wish to live happily, without any concerns, and peace is essential for this kind of ideal life to be possible. There is always a close relation between world and peace. Light, similarly, often represents the best, the highest, and the purest––i.e. perfection. This perfection is what people desire for themselves, as well as what they want their world to be like. Throughout his-tory people have always tried to bring light to the world (think of the Enlightenment, for example). It can possibly have another, less sophisticated connection, which is the fact that light is literally omnipresent in and essential to our lives.

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Nevertheless, the fact that the Russian words for “world” also mean “light” or “peace” can possibly make us wonder about the way our world should be, or at least the way we want it to be. Moreover, it can make us question ourselves as to whether we give enough attention to the importance of the « peace » and « light » in our “world. » Samira

PERSIAN. In Persian, ‘world’ and ‘universe’ are both written ‫یتیگ‬, pronounced like “giti.” The word has the same root as the verb ‘to be’ and ‘to live.’ Inflections of this verb, 'Zi,' in the present tense are ‘gi’ or ‘g.’ ‫ یتیگ‬is also used for the word ‘mercury,’ the mysterious liquid me-tal.

Cindy

CHINESE. While Indo-European languages use an alphabet to spell words, each letter repre-senting a sound, Chinese words are formed by characters which have a meaning in themselves. The Mandarin word for ‘world is 世界, pronounced “shì jiè.” It is, first of all, composed by the character 世, anciently written as 卅, which in its origin was formed by repeating three times the character 十 (“shí”). 十 means ten.

This repetition illustrates that three decades have passed, conferring the character 世 the meaning of generations. 界 is formed by 田 which rep-resents a field and by 介 which means ‘to lie between.’ Put together, they form 界: ‘border,’ ‘boundary.’ 世界 could thus be seen as the boundary of generations.

The world is after all made with borders within which generations of people grow or fall.

McCoy, Dan. “Norse Mythology for Smart People.” 2012-2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

Ayoto, John. “Word Origins: The Hidden Histories of English Words From A to Z.” London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2005. Web. EBSCOhost. 25 Jan. 2015.

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Diana Gerasimov

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Why I Write, 2015 Exploration of Object 1: WORLD and Other Words Poem

The words I speak will make you clench, the words I write make you undress, 'till your soul stands naked and bare, syllable after syllable, with each sound I make, with each breath I take, during the break from my words and the seeping of my sweat through my pores you will understand, understand why I write.

Not just for the heck of it, but for the strength I get, with each curve of each letter and every sentence made up of words and every word you spoke, that makes up my soul.

Sofia Vedechkina

2nd Year ALC Me, 2015 Exploration of Object 1: WORLD and Other Words Poem

The world of me is filled with myself and I. Me, this, here; nothing escapes this little sphere of self-absorption and self-promulgation.

There is a spot where I am situated-this spot is boundless-and I abide in it as the ruling monarch, obsequious nobility, and grovelling peasantry.

I force myself upon all of existence and think: “Why, that is me!� delighted or screaming in agony.

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The following poems were written using a “word deck,” which is a deck of 100 words written on index cards. The words were chosen by the poet, who then experimented with different word combinations by pairing random cards together, searching more for evocative pairings than for any particular sense or meaning, although sense and meaning often emerged. We often begin with what we want to say and look for the words to say it, but here we begin with the words themselves and explore the possibilities of what they can say, what unexpected worlds they can evoke.

Erin Dunlop

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. “Wanderlust”, 2015 Exploration of Object 1: WORLD and Other Words Poem

She drives down oblivion highway, watching Mirror City disappear behind her in clouds of peppermint smoke from the cigarette in her poetic hands.

Her wine lips sing reckless melodies of California to the sound of her thunderstorm heartbeat running on gasoline.

She walks through hypnotic glass forests where ginger autumn leaves float down against lavender sunsets.

And melancholy rain falls like paint on dreary canvas.

Feather flowers on her skin.

With porcelain hands of velvet and ice, she photographs whimsical constellations.

And the camera film speaks: She found love in her headphones, And home in solitude’s symphony.

Armanda Fonseca De Resendes 2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Beauty stood there listening to the world, 2015 Exploration of Object 1: WORLD and Other Words Poem

Beauty stood there listening to the world.

Biting down the sky with her sharp white teeth, The waves showing her the blue mystery.

When she spoke, she smelled of soap.

She stood like an anchor, the taste of cinnamon on her lips.

She could feel the music on her hands, The grass when her feet longed for it.

Taking a seat, she brought the pumpkin ice cream to her mouth.

The rain started to fall, hitting her skin clumsily.

These water drops rested on the adorable red apples-Her lips, a chair, a seat for the rain.

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World in a Grain of Sand

Object 2: A Grain A “grain” for the purposes of this project refers to any kind of "unit" that makes up our world. Such units could include anything from grains of sand, to cells, to atoms, to sub-atomic particles, to planets, to galaxies, to other kinds of grains, such as the individual, the family, and society, all of which can viewed as grains making up a larger whole.

Kailin Kreissl1, Hanna Allan1, and Sofia Vedechkina2 2nd Year C.A.L.L., 22nd Year, ALC Discussion on Grains: The Individual as Grain, 2015-2016 Exploration of Object 2: A Grain A written conversation (excerpted) 1

Kailin

Just as everything is made up of particles, molecules, and atoms, everyone plays some sort of role in a functioning society. Yet we are very egotistical, narcissistic creatures. We hardly stop to think about the “bigger picture” and focus more on ourselves (appearance, activities, social life, work life, grades, our future, etc...). We focus so much on ourselves and the little world we've created for ourselves instead of the more important issues around us. Perhaps it's a form of distraction from all of the destruction we are causing, but in the end, our petty concerns are not as important as we envision them to be.

Hanna

As an individual in a world where 7 billion people wake up, go to sleep, live, die and decompose, I find it hard sometimes to find myself important. If the world were a dog, I would be but one single eyelash, and not even a full one at that, maybe just the tip. It's overwhelming to think of just one grain of sand because a grain of sand alone is useless. One single person alone is useless, just as the tip of a dog's eyelash is useless. It's easier to think in terms of wholes but also sadder because sometimes people want to stand out; grains of sand want to shine brighter.

Sofia

I think it's interesting how much a single cell of a whole system, like an individual in a society, contributes to the whole system without realizing it. Often, people seem to regard society as this whole, impenetrable, kind of distant thing that cannot be touched, and forget that the individual, in a way, is society. “Society” is comprised of individuals just like us, and I believe that when we remember that, we take back the power we thought we never had. We become aware that our every action is important, and take responsibility for our actions instead of blaming it on “society”.

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Julia Jenne

Cheyenne Schaub

I wrote this prose-poem thinking of the little pieces that make up whole things we know so well. I was inspired by the physical place of “home” as well as by the concept of home.

I found it interesting to consider the many little things that make up home.

We all begin as mere particles.

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. The Molecular Structure of Home, 2015 Exploration of Object 2: A Grain Poem

Little pieces of drywall dust and maybe asbestos, who knows, fly into the air when you pull out a thumbtack to take down that poster you put up when you were fourteen and angry. Paint chips that fall will need to be cleaned up; little leftover holes that will need to be filled in at some point—your meticulous father makes a point of telling you. Dust somehow gathers on the narrow ledge of baseboards, on the top of curtain rods. Fingerprints on all the windows never seem to wash off no matter how many times your mother uses Windex. Pieces of dust and hair gathered around the bathtub, a faded outline of the smiley face drawn on the mirror when the room was filled with steam, a ring of soap scum around the drain, a rag left out with the hope that you'd use it... Dirt has trailed up the stairs this morning when somebody realized, walking out the door, that their wallet was left in yesterday's pants.

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Your Quilt, 2015 Exploration of Object 2: A Grain Prose

Two particles, to be precise. Each with different but equal potential. You begin, as a Biblical image suggests, as stitches that God has knitted inside your mother’s womb.

Before you have become conscious of what your world is, what life is, what a breeze is, what philosophy is, you are already growing; with each passing week, month, year, more stitches, more swatches are added to the vast blanket of your life. As you grow, you add to your tapestry: taste, smell, music, friendship, love, pain. There is no restriction to what life’s quilt can include. Some pieces may be silky and lavender, while others are ugly and itchy and you’d prefer to keep them hidden. It is all added to our eclectic array of pieces of fabric to culminate into something unlike anyone else’s quilt. Without the smallest pieces, the seemingly most insignificant moments, you lose all of the stitching, the element that keeps our quilt the whole which it is. Your own eyes, ears, mouths, and hands that God has knit to see, hear, speak, taste, and touch so many different things in so many different ways.

Your quilt is unique. It is special. It is yours.

Sesame seeds and breadcrumbs on the kitchen counter; a centiliter of milk in the bag because nobody wants to go get a new one in the basement fridge. Old fruit in the fruit tray, oil stains in the driveway. Smiles, in picture frames on the wall of the living room, fading as the sun creeps away from the front window. Smells. Familiar yet indescribable smells.

An atomically ingrained feeling of life, left by itself until the first person comes back to the house.

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Rosamond Atkin

Sophia Vedechkina

At the Montreal Museum of Art I saw a pope head made out of salt in France a hundred years ago.

I looked at it and thought I can look at this salty pope head forever, for a hundred years even.

It was like a bony mountain.

Could not stop. Looking at it.

The individual is a lone loose leaf in a stack of papers;

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Rodin’s Pope Head, 2015 Exploration of Object 2: A Grain

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. The Individual, 2015 Exploration of Object 2: A Grain

Like that type of anxiety when you scrunch up your forehead and look up and then down again and then up and you can never reach the correct spot lolling your head like a baby in pain.

The state that’s not within you and doesn’t look towards others. Like treading water.

And I don’t know that it was really made out of salt but it looked that way.

Like Kosher salt rocks sparkling. I kept looking at the thing and no thoughts emerged. And then what does it mean when you say to the girl “I could stare at you forever”

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a flower in a bouquet of white lilies resting in a vase on a kitchen counter cluttered with utensils––some bent, some new, some rusty; you, he, she; a single word: tree; a single letter: d in an 888 page novel about a swarm of flies.

And yet there could be no stack of papers without a sheet, no bouquet without a flower, no novel, poem, note, word, without an individual letter.

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World in a Grain of Sand

Object 3: A Clock The ways we experience, think about and measure time evoke a wide-range of interdisciplinary questions, from the craft of time-keeping devices to a history of such devices to our very notion of time, among many others. What can we see when we look at a clock? What worlds of creativity, technology, experimentation, thought and more can a clock reveal?

Méliane Carrier-Favreau1, Emily McIsaac1, Renaud Desjardins2, Ross Paraskevopoulos3, Candice Pye4, Anisa Scego4, Gabrielle Vendette5, Chris Alexopoulos6, and Kelly Perlman7 1st Year Science, 23rd Year C.A.L.L., 31st Year,ALC, 42nd Year C.A.L.L., 2nd Year Liberal Arts, 62nd Year Science, 7Graduate, Science Discussion on Clocks and Time, 2015-2016 Exploration of Object 3: A Clock A written conversation (excerpted) 1 5

Méliane

Renaud

One thing I find interesting is our perception of time, how waiting at a red light can appear longer than watching an episode of your favourite TV show; or how people of different ages feel time passes faster or slower depending on how long they have lived.

When I look at a clock I see a never-ending story. The device itself never stops working (except briefly when the batteries die) and time itself will never stop. Seconds will always pile on, even if there is no clock to count them. Time goes on and tells the story of everything. Life and death follow whatever timeline time has set out for them. Time is immortal and will be the one thing to go on even if everything else stops.

Emily

Those are very interesting points Méliane! It's also interesting how shocking/exciting experiences can slow our perception of time (a pattern seen in victims of car accidents, time slowing for them right before the hit). Also, emotions can affect our perception of time (looking at scary things versus looking at happy things) Also, the way looking at slow things can prime our minds and make us move slower, as if our internal clocks have been slowed down, is intriguing. John Bargh (I think) did an experiment that went something along the lines of making subjects unscramble different sets of words and those that had words like old and elderly walked slower when they left the room. (I'm not sure if that's related to time, but it's cool.) Anyway, even temperature, drugs, disorders, and more can affect our perception of time.

I'm also interested in radioactive clocks, as in radioactive decay of isotopes such as uranium being used to date fossils and other things. It's cool how they don't date the fossils themselves directly but date the volcanic rock around them.

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Ross

Time makes me think of how things progress and move forward without regards to civilization and human beings. Time still ticks onward even if society starts to move backwards into past ideologies and mistakes.

Candice

Ever since I was a little girl, I've never been able to have a ticking clock in the house. I can't listen to the slow, steady ticking without immediately getting a sudden, overpowering wave of nauseating anxiety. Some might say it is very "Captain Hook" of me, but it's not because I'm afraid of crocodiles. I think it stems from an awareness that everything is temporary, and that time is limited, and that even though a moment feels as if it could last forever, it doesn't. Soon it will be dinner time, or time to get up for school, or time to leave your lover’s arms, or time to submit an assignment, or time to go to sleep...

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Anisa

I think a clock represents the need that human beings have for order. I agree with some of the other responses here. We use a clock to keep ourselves accountable for the amount of things we get done. People put so much pressure on themselves to complete tasks by a deadline, which I think can be unhealthy.

Sometimes, you just need to do something in your own time, without having that incessant ticking sound in your ear.

Gabrielle

Most of us think of time as our enemy, the inevitable thing following us throughout life, the ominous reminder that every reaches an end, moments, days, life... but without a sense of time, how would we be motivated throughout life? The mere fact that we are aware we don't have all the time in the world might make us appreciate it more. If you could perpetually work on a project or an idea for as along as you pleased, without the notion of time passing, how could you know how much time you had left to achieve your goal? Because even without clocks, none of us has forever.

Chris

I feel a lot of the same things you all describe here. I look at a clock and the time ticking as all of life itself. The thousands of people being born, the hundreds of stars going supernova, the tons of greenhouse gases we're pumping into the atmosphere.

In essence, time is like the sum of all human experiences and history having led us to this very point. It's almost like a water stream with millions of directions, and with each tick of the clock representing a heart beat, an evolution, unknowing of the consequences, yet also almighty and unstoppable, always moving forward, never looking back...

Kelly

Hi! I am a Dawson S.P.A.C.E. alumnus and am excited about this thought-provoking project. I saw a relevant article about whether/how the brain processes time and thought I would share it here. I love how one of the scientists drew the parallel between time and space being represented together in the hippocampus and the concept of space-time in physics. Maybe the brain doesn't distinguish time and space and instead encodes the properties of our 4-dimensional universe.

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Ross Paraskevopoulos

Kailin Kreissl

Time is condensed into concrete form within the clock we revolve around.

Without time, so much of our lives, it seems,

Marcella Adams rushed around the dining room table, making sure the cutlery was angled perfectly and that the napkins weren’t wrinkled. Though she knew everything was in order, as it should be, she continued to do her rounds, dusting clean surfaces and washing her hands, though they were already dry and smelled of fresh lilies.

1st Year, ALC The World Inside a Clock, 2015 Exploration of Object 3: A Clock Poem

would never get off the ground.

But what do we see when we look at “the time”?

The shape and display of the clock, its hands, its numbers.

But what are we actually perceiving?

What prized information are we receiving?

Our almond-shaped eyes staring at a clock face gives us a glimpse of, an inkling of an individual and collective portrait not only of the time now but also of time past, what has been and how we got here, a summary of what we have accomplished in our allotted time, a confirmation that, yes, we have been alive, and what we chose long ago has transported us to this present.

The time also conjures what is to come and ways to prepare for a brave new world that grows ever nearer, though these glimpses are only guesses, vague approximations spliced with sincere hopes and dreams we wish to be true.

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Anticipation, 2015 Exploration of Object 3: A Clock Prose

It was mid June and the sun was high, causing a yellow glow throughout the entire dining hall. Marcella took a seat and crossed her legs. She then uncrossed them.

And crossed them again. She stood and busied herself by pulling at the loose threads on her living room throw.

She hummed a lullaby under her breath, a tune she had just learned the night before. Her eyelids growing heavy, she ambled towards the kitchen to brew a pot of tea. She kept glancing at the gravel driveway, though it was still empty. It seemed to take hours for the teapot to whistle.

Marcella poured herself a cup and gracefully sat on a kitchen stool. The grandfather clock read 3:56 PM. All she had to do was wait four more minutes. She tapped her foot in silence on the wooden floorboards and rubbed her tired eyes. She thought about all of the exhaustion she would be facing in the years to come, and she wouldn’t change a thing. Today, Marcella was going to meet her adopted baby girl for the very first time.

The clock depicts our constant aging and transforming into something or someone that only finalizes in the Future. The clock exemplifies the present moment that our conscious existence resides within.

All and more can be scavenged from a look at a clock. And as we gaze at its face, time passes.

Its movements defined by the tick… tick… tick… tock, of an everlasting, indifferent and all-encompassing clock.

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Renaud Desjardins

Erin Dunlop

The hand turns, your life turning with it starting with its tock, ending with its tick.

Minutes can’t be captured; they slip away, a perfect crime.

I try to freeze the moment, attempt to slow down time.

Endless, it watches everything, looks at life, accepts death, immune to both.

The immortal dictator.

But memories fade like photographs tucked in boxes under beds.

The film is worn and damaged in the cinema of my head.

Katia Zuppel

A pocket-watch has no mercy.

Its hands turn present into past.

No sadness makes the seconds wait, Nothing can ever last.

3rd Year, C.A.L.L. Clock, 2015 Exploration of Object 3: A Clock Poem

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Hands of a Pocket Watch Exploration of Object 3: A Clock Poem

2nd Year, C.A.L.L. Class, 2015 Exploration of Object 3: A Clock Prose

8:00 I sit in class. The clock ticks by slowly.

8:15 My teacher rambles on about some assignment I probably haven’t had the time to do.

8:30 I think of break and all the food I could eat if only I had more time.

9:00 The countdown to my escape inches forward.

Freedom is so close, yet time is not on my side.

9:05 My head hits the desk an agonizing sigh of frustration slipping from my lips, my eyes closed tight as I pray for the clock to signify the end.

9:14 The sounds hit my ears. Books slapping closed and bags zipping up.

9:15 I look up at my classmates pushing frantically through the door while the clock just above continues to tick.

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World in a Grain of Sand Other Objects In addition to the objects of a word, a grain and a clock, participants were invited to “see a world” in any other object of their choice. Below are three explorations of other objects: two of historical artifacts, which allow us to glimpse something of the beliefs, practices and motivations of an ancient time and place, and one of a literary object of sorts, a controversial Shakespearean character who has been re-envisioned as both villain and victim since his creation, here viewed through an imagined conversation among moral philosophers.

(pages made from calfskin) and decorated with intricate patterns and images surrounding the religious text.

Historians have been able to piece together some information about the book’s creators, but certain questions regarding the manuscript’s exact origins, functions and audience will likely remain a mystery.

Researchers recognize at least three major artists and four scribes for their individual work on the Book of Kells.

In fact the book was never finished, because the manner of producing such an elaborate book required decades of skilled labour, and the threat of Vikings still disrupted these communities.

Chloe Wong-Mersereau

This context of fear and violence was deeply rooted within these Celtic communities, and Christianity emerged as a means of escape and opportunity for these people to practice and implement higher ideals.

By the seventh to ninth centuries AD, the Northern Isles of Ireland were home to a large number of devout religious communities. But the spread of Christianity to such isolated regions of Northern Europe had been a slow process.

Part of the initial reasons for creating this lavish, ornamented book was to honor God and the surrounding scriptures’ divine and authoritative qualities. The further process of integrating visual representations and a bold script style known as the “insular majuscule” made it more appealing to individual contemplation of these sacred texts.

1st Year, Liberal Arts The Book of Kells and the Illumination of Words and Worlds Exploration of Other Objects Essay

The introduction of the Roman Christian into the region was met by local people with much resentment because the language surrounding the religion–namely, Latin–was not inviting to the Celtic and Germanic locals. Most of these groups were not literate in their own tongues, let alone that of the Roman Church.

As a result, a diverse group of religious monks set off on a mission to bring to these communities adapted versions of the gospel text that the Celts of Ireland, Britain, Wales and Scotland could understand.

These monks worked for decades on translating and decorating the gospels from Latin into Anglo-Saxon, a precursor to our modern English language. This monastic community was located in a scriptorium that had been established in 563 AD by St Columba in Iona, Argyll Scotland. However in 806 AD, a severe Viking raid displaced the Columban monks, who then took refuge at a new monastery in Kells, County Meath, Ireland, just outside of Dublin.

The Book of Kells is one of the most impressive illuminated manuscripts attributed to this scriptorium. The luxury book contains the four Gospels written on vellum

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During this period when virtually the only people who were literate were religious scribes and monks, the creators of the Book of Kells were essentially ‘illuminating’ the world around them. In the process, old Celtic art traditions fused with Christian society, creating a number of complex and abstract images in the Book of Kells that the set the foundations for an Anglo-Saxon civilization.

The manuscript has full pages of decorations also known as the canon tables dedicated to the evangelists.

Associated with the images each evangelist is a symbol and iconographical element. The Chi Rho page begins Matthew’s account of the nativity, and is one of the most famous examples of medieval art. The ink and colours used were imported from the Near East and the Celtic style of intertwining lines, knots and the incorporation of zoomorphic details within the letter initial is a sign of the transformation of the Irish, Celtic culture and the Hiberno-saxon art.

Today there is often an association between the enlightenment of people and revelations by the divine. However, in the case of the Book of Kells, it was humans––monks dedicated to celebrating God––who provided others with their vision of what an ideal world might look like.

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Sarah-Victoria Teixeira-Barbosa 1st Year, Liberal Arts Law as a Vision of Society: The Law Code of Hammurabi Exploration of Other Objects Essay

Artifacts are powerful tools for us to try to understand a society none of us have ever known, offering glimpses into its people and their values. Artifacts can also show us how much we have evolved or changed since a certain time, or perhaps, as the expression goes, how “not much has changed.”

One famous and ancient example of such an object is the Law Code of Hammurabi. What makes the Law Code of Hammurabi such an important artifact? And what can we glimpse through the Law Code of Hammurabi about the culture that produced it?

The beginning of this story starts roughly around 4000 years ago with King Hammurabi of Babylon (Laville 43).

My journey, however, began in a secondary 1 classroom, where I was first introduced to the Babylonians. A few minutes into the reading we were assigned, I realized that the Babylonians were one of the first societies and communities to exist. And with that discovery, I felt as if I had joined a community created 4000 years ago.

King Hammurabi created a Law Code that was permanently engraved on a stele (a standing slab of stone).

In the law code were 282 articles, which applied to the Babylonian society and its people (Claire). It is one of the first writings we have in Cuneiform and the Akkadian language (Claire). The language made it accessible and relatable to the population of Babylon, which only increased their sense of community. Before this revelation, I had assumed that anyone before the ancient Greeks had been completely barbaric, but here were the Babylonians, with a system in place to maintain order, a way of living and co-operating with one another. This had to be the moment I got hooked on this ancient culture.

The actual law code discusses many aspects of life, but an important one is family, which is known as “the basis of Babylonian society” (Claire). It is amazing to me that a value such as family, still central in our lives today, was held by people 4000 years ago. The value of family is a torch that has been passed down through time and never been abandoned, and the Babylonians were one of the first to codify it.

The stele Law Code can also provide us with another peek inside Babylonian society. A popular ideal came from this law code, which was how the men had much

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more authoritative power than women (Vincent 746).

The enshrinement of this ideal shows us that Babylonian society might have had a patriarchal view of life, possibly contributing to the power men have held over women, sometimes legally protected power, in much of the world until the recent years.

The law code first starts with what is a false accusation and how to deal with it. It moves on to sorcery and then to the rules about witnesses and judges (Vincent 740). This tells us that sorcery was considered a grave offense even 4000 years ago, long, long before the witch trials throughout Europe. The idea of crime and punishment was also heavily considered in the making of the Law Code. It suggests that there was perhaps a need for punishments, because crime was part of their society, just like it is still part of our society. A small fun fact: the principle of “an eye for an eye” derives from this Law Code (Claire). A potential conclusion that can be drawn is that maybe even then, the need for punishment was necessary, as it would continue to be needed for centuries. The idea of order triumphing over chaos is something that apparently has been passed down for 4000 years.

The Law Code of Hammurabi shows us an early example of a society codifying punishment as well as the values of family, community and welfare of those who were vulnerable, values we still believe strongly today across the world. The Law Code of Hammurabi inspired generations of leaders across the globe, and it also inspired me to discover a place or time that I had no physical way of getting to. Is that not the ultimate goal of history? We look back, take the beneficial aspects of those places or time periods and adapt them into our day and age, while also learning from the mistakes of the past. That’s history: learning, searching, understanding and adapting. In the process, you can connect with people you can never meet. You realize that whatever you’re passionate about, someone thousands of years ago was passionate about as well. And that is how you create a community. All in all, the Law Code of Hammurabi has had a long-lasting influence on society, then and now, and will continue to leave a legacy for centuries to come.

Works Cited Claire, Iselin. “Law Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon.” Louvre. Louvre, n.d. Web. 8 December 2015.

Laville, Christian. From Yesterday to Tomorrow. Montreal: Les Éditions de la Chaneliere, 2008. Print.

Vincent, George E. “The Laws of Hammurabi”. American Journal of Sociology 9.6 (1904): 737–754. Web.

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Emily Murphy, Noam Barsheshat, Klio Fotis-Zoubris, and Laurel Lennox 2nd Year, Liberal Arts Shakespeare Through a Philosophical Lens, 2016 Exploration of Other Objects Play (excerpted)

A historical object of sorts exists in the literary character of Shylock from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”. Shylock, a Jew, has been re-envisioned in countless productions, and often in very different ways. Of all of Shakespeare’s characters, he has been the subject of some of the most intense controversy and debate, over who he is, what he represents about his time, and what he means for our own. He is a character we are still figuring out how to look at.

The following is an excerpt from a dialogue that is both a literary and philosophical exploration of the moral questions that arise within Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. It begins with four friends who have just finished viewing a production of the play and are arguing about the treatment of the character Shylock by both the characters within the play and Shakespeare himself.

In search of a more authoritative position on the underlying moral question within the play, the friends decide to write to the fictional Intertemporal Board of Moral Conduct, a branch of government consisting of four influential moral philosophers: Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls and Immanuel Kant.

In order to answer the question of Shakespeare’s intentions with his portrayal of Shylock, the four philosophers use their respective principles to analyze Shylock’s behaviours within the play. The dialogue is itself a vision, played out on a stage, and also offers a new way of looking at this unique character.

NOÈME You guys are looking way too deep into this. It was a comedy; Shylock was the villain, and he got defeated. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s meant to be taken lightly.

EMILE I wouldn’t say it’s supposed to be taken lightly… Shylock definitely was mistreated. But the play was meant to end that way. You’re supposed to feel kind of uncomfortable. The play was supposed to be a kind of critique of the anti-semitism of Elizabethan society.

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HILARY No, Shakespeare wasn’t commenting on anti-semitism, he was being anti-semitic.

NOÈME But Shylock is the villain. He had absolutely no mercy throughout the play. He could have gotten more money and spared Antonio, but instead he just wanted vengeance. It clearly wasn’t just about adhering to the bond; he concealed his maleficence under the guise of justice. How could you possibly feel bad for him? …

KANT (Reads the letter) Hmm... so they’re asking us to give our opinion on whether the play’s conclusion was appropriate given the treatment of the characters in the prior scenes.

Hm. Tough problem. To do so, I suppose we must determine whether Shylock acted immorally enough to be rightfully deemed the villain of the play.

MILL If we are to consider whether or not Shylock is justified in exacting vengeance, we must take this Principle of Greatest Happiness into account. Given the way the situation ends up, in court, happiness can be maximized for everyone if Shylock simply relaxes the agreement between him and Antonio. I am not implying that he should let Antonio go, scot free, but that he should not take his flesh and just settle with getting double the amount of ducats, as was offered to him. If Antonio dies, Shylock would only be getting the temporary satisfaction of exacting vengeance by taking his flesh, and Bassanio would be losing his dear friend. The only person who would be happy in this situation is Shylock, and only temporarily, at that.

It would thus not be adhering to the Principle of Greatest Happiness. In order to maximize everyone’s happiness, Shylock should settle on letting Antonio live and collecting more ducats. Having more money would be more useful and beneficial for his business, and Antonio living would evidently make Antonio and Bassanio happy. How could you possibly argue this?

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ARISTOTLE We can’t really blame Shylock for not acting rationally. We must keep in mind that good character is developed through practice. Good values are instilled in people when they are young, and they have their whole lives to practice these values until they become second nature, in order to become virtuous people. However, Shylock was never given the chance to participate in Venetian society except as a moneylender, which already established him as a ‘bad person’ according to Venetian Christian values. As a Jew he was severely oppressed, and never given any opportunity to foster good relationships with Christian Venetians. How can we expect Shylock to be sympathetic and merciful to Antonio, when he was basically taught his entire life that regardless of what he does, he will never be seen as virtuous in the eyes of Christians simply because he is Jewish? …

NOÈME (Reading) Hmm... Okay. Well I guess things aren’t as simple as I thought. Shylock’s not just a villain and the ending does leave something to be desired.

EMILE I’m glad that we wrote to the Intertemporal Board of Moral Conduct. Even if we can’t know Shakespeare’s exact intentions, maybe what is more important is realizing how the play has actually led us to question our own ideas of morality.

Whether The Merchant of Venice is terribly anti-semitic or actually quite progressive for its time, the fact that it has engendered so much debate between all of us has to count for something, right?

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WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND

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Emily Spooner

2nd Year, Visual Arts The Impermanence of Vision, 2016 Oil painting 30.5 cm x 22.9 cm (each panel of diptych)

Our vision and perception of the world around us will never be able to truly capture the transitory reality of our surroundings. Visions are nothing more than memories; we do not live in the immediate present, but rather recently past points in time that are already fading from the mind. The instant our brain perceives a moment, it has already ceased to exist, having changed into something considerably different. This is especially true with living beings, which are in a constant state of movement and growth, both at microscopic and macroscopic levels.

Every vision of a body is so unique and impermanent. Just by looking at the person next to you, you’ll notice the minute changes that take place every moment, never to be exactly recreated again. Everything is ephemeral and our vision of the world around us, whether from sight, touch or any other sense, is nothing more than a fading reflection of a past moment.

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Susan Willcocks 2nd Year, Visual Arts White Matter, 2016 Multimedia installation Variable dimensions

The power of association is quite an amazing thing, as is memory. Our minds “see” internal images triggered by our other senses. This is what my project, White Matter, is based on. There’s a particularly loud, sometimes irritating, off-white clock in my dad’s kitchen that has been in the family for quite a while now. Once you’ve noticed the ticking, it becomes hard to ignore. Each and every one of us has a different relationship with that sound, it affects us all on a personal level. I have often found myself completely entranced by this particular timepiece. I’m not looking at time itself, not even the concept of it. I’m interested in the actual ticking of a clock, the counting of seconds and the things we see inside ourselves. We can see everything while looking at nothing.

White Matter is an invitation to reflect upon oneself and the extraordinary capacity of the human brain to recall images from the past or imagine future scenarios. The viewer finds him or herself alone, surrounded by a white cylinder of fabric approximately four feet in diameter that hangs from the ceiling right down to the floor. In the centre of the isolation ring sits a little black sketchbook and a set of headphones, laying upon a white wooden support. The viewer, who has at this point become part of the artwork, is invited to put on the headphones and simply listen, allow themselves to be entranced by the sound of that old, off-white clock. In the sketchbook, they may wish to record their thoughts, the images evoked by the ticking. Each person is encouraged to do so using the invisible ink pens provided. Much in the same way associations with sound are hidden within every individual, their thoughts and ideas will be masked by the invisibility of the ink. One can only read the other’s writing or view their drawings under the light emerging from the pen tip.

This project was inspired not only by the worn-out clock, but also by Patrick Bernatchez’s body of work, Lost in Time, shown at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in the winter of 2015-2016. Each piece was so intriguing that I found myself standing in the same place for minutes, literally lost in time.

The isolation ring of White Matter

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Jules Prud’homme Faculty, Illustration & Design Vision of a Relic, 2016 Wood, resin, acrylic, acrylic paint, plastic, aluminum, light and battery 68.6 cm x 33 cm x 8.9 cm

In all Civilization, Culture, Faith, in any form or purpose it serves, the Relic has been the physical link between the past and the present. Protected by tradition and by cult, displayed as a symbolic reference. Claimed as tangible evidence, a trace and a reminder, and in most cases, reputed authentic.

As it is exposed, often covered by a thick glass, encased and protected, the presentation of a Relic is also often staged, according to its nature, environment, context, location, importance and signification. Important or simply anecdotic, like in this piece, framed in its own remaining reference and genesis.

A Relic, found, intact, in the disintegrated cardboard case of a forgotten musical instrument, from a forgotten Era. Salvaged from weeks of water immersion, during and after the Katrina Storm that flooded most of the City of New Orleans as it broke the levee, it was dried as is, and sent to me by a friend.

As I opened the case, and got the instrument remains out, I found a plastic bird and a plastic guitar pick in the accessory compartment inside. The bird was not affected by any of this disaster, unlike the irreversible damage to the guitar. The instrument was made in 1927. The painting decorating the top illustrates a bucolic Tropical sunset.

The bird, a plastic toy, still exists, intact (apart from its broken tail), like the moments where this instrument sang and played, also existed.

The bird could be read as a reminder of the music, the life, the Soul of all this decaying material crypt where it was found, intact. The reason for its presence, in this rotting guitar case, will remain in the Realm of questions.

But it presented itself as a strong symbolic vision, as it emerged from a seemingly hopeless sight.

I created a little familiar environment for the bird to be presented. And to display, also, where it sings best.

In memories.

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Meinert Hansen

Faculty, Illustration & Design Eyes Almost Closed, 2011-2016 Digital photography, painting, and video Video 3:30 min, prints - 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm

Picture those moments when you're lying in a peaceful place, the sun warming your face through a window. You barely open your eyes, and instead of focusing what exists without, you are observing the shards of light through your eyelids, the chromatic aberrations dancing through the surface of your aqueous cornea, the loose floating cells in your eyes magnified. This microscopic world is a place so familiar, yet its elusiveness is difficult to reproduce or describe.

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Eyes Almost Closed attempts to capture this personal internal visual world using photography, Photoshop manipulation, and digital compositing using After Effects. Sunlit scenes are photographed through polarized Mylar sheets (removed from derelict laptop screens) and are bent and warped to distort the light. Additional images are shot through flawed glass spheres using a macro lens, and these images are digitally manipulated to further the effects of light through eyelids.

The video hopes to reproduce this experience, cross-dissolving slowly from image to image, with fluttering eyelids and lens effects. A warm ambient soundtrack accompanies the video to support the feeling of peaceful visual contemplation.

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Bob Kavanagh

Conseiller cadre Visions are Carnal Photons, 2016 Digital print 5.1 cm x 17.8 cm

When someone asks us, “What colour are photons?” we nowadays can reasonably say that they are confusing categories of thought. Philosophers would call this a category mistake.

In the present age, we think we know that photons do not “have” colour, but rather, that they are what we call, discrete “packets of energy”. We also think we know that colour is seen as a colour, only with the intervention of the (human) eye. Of course, it gets more confusing for the lay person today. We have come to believe that it is the human brain which organizes this for us, and that the brain represents to us the multitudinous dynamics of seeing colour as if they were objects, things and the world.

Carnal knowledge is not limited to sex even though western theistic and legal traditions would incline us to believe that it is. The carnal ground of knowledge is the existence of the human body itself in all its modes – “carnis”, “carnalis”, “caro”. We rarely think of the brain as carnal—of human flesh—or the rods and cones of the eye as carnal—of human flesh—and virtually never of photoreceptor cells or the lateral geniculate nucleus as carnal. But if not carnal, then what?

They are aspects of the human body which is the ground of what we commonly call “experience”, even though we do not experience these micro-elements directly.

So what are visions?

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Francis Boucher

Isabelle Brunette

Regardless of the discipline, all forms of creative expression are bound by one common denominator; the capacity to envision something which exists only within the self. It is this ability to materialize the intangible or, to express what words fall short of expressing, which drives the artist to pursue this never ending quest for freedom. In order to see reality with a different eye, one has to keep their mind open and receptive.

Only then will this reality unveil as something new, something fresh, and something which transcends our preconceived perception of the life surrounding us. The moment one is disposed to put themselves in this position is the moment they are granted the key to the realm of their own imagination; a place where anything is possible and where the fulfillment of one’s wildest fantasies knows no boundaries.

Life, death, both are inevitable. They are a cycle.

3rd Year, Illustration & Design The Traveler, 2015 Graphite pencil and digital 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm (see pages 66-67)

3rd Year, Illustration & Design Life & Death, 2015 Digital 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm (see pages 68-69)

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This artwork represents two dimensions of one world. There is a ravaged quality to both. One represents Living beings, technology and what remains of nature, and the other depicts bones, dark smoke, crystals of energy, flesh, hidden texture and chains. The artwork represents the vision of the world from each side’s perspective, divorced from the vision experienced by the other. The underlying story is about survival in a land with two sides. The outside part survives from darkness, feeding on fears. The inside survives from the light of hope and by avoiding the darkness.

The viewer may interpret this piece as a slice of a fantasy universe, however metaphorically it is also a part of our own.

Where are we going with technology? Is it going to rule our lives? Is there a light of hope or is it a memento mori? What is going to happen next? After all these questions, one can note that the Darkness entity can be an allusion to wars, diseases, hunger, and evil that surrounds us, always lurking as a threat to the light. So what to do next is really up to us.

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Maria Fernanda Barallobres, Malika Beckford, Alexandria Bourke, Anouk Dugas, Alyssa MacKenzie, Sarah Marie Santerre, Maverick Lawrence Umali, and You Chen Zhang ALC students overseen by Dipti Gupta, (Faculty, Cinema-Communications) AMTAEA (luggage in Arabic), 2016 Digital Various dimensions

“Tragedy cannot be the end of our lives. We cannot allow it to control and defeat us.”

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish 2016 marked a pivotal moment in Canadian history when our borders were opened to welcome refugees from Syria.

Dipti Gupta's Experimental Film and Video group were asked to interpret their impression/s of the diverse ‘visions’ that the refugees may have of their new adopted country. The class was asked to create a series of surreal images to interpret these visions. The students collectively and independently critiqued a cross section of surreal images in the class, and generally of the Syrian refugees in the Media and their own imagination as they were connecting to stories being written about the refugees. Later the students created/designed their impressions through a series of still images.

1 Maria Fernanda Barallobres Carried Away

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2 Maverick Lawrence Umali Meltdown 3 You Chen Zhang The illusion 4 Sarah Marie Santerre Refugee 5 Alyssa MacKenzie In Focus 6 Anouk Dugas Trapped 7 Alexandria Bourke Yin Yang 8 Malika Beckford Afterthought 70

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Laurence Hénault 2nd Year, Visual Arts Syria, 2016 Photo silkscreen 50.8 cm x 71.1 cm

2016 and still war, 2016 and still poverty, 2016 and still famine, 2016 and still racism, 2016 and still homophobia, 2016 and still unfairness. If you don’t realize what’s happening around you, you cannot be a visionary and you cannot understand my art. I think there are four types of vision: the vision of the person who sees, the vision of the one who thinks, the vision of the one who believes and finally the vision of the one who lives. My vision is simple, not really complicated but sometimes it can be hard and cruel. I think our society calls that: REALITY. It’s maybe not my reality or yours, but their reality. How can we have hope in the future when we see what our world looks like? We should never take for granted our privileged life, since as seen in the past, any conflict, epidemic or natural catastrophe for can change our sense of freedom.

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Dalouny Phonevilay 1st Year, Illustration & Design Where Do We Go From Here?, 2016 Ink on board 40 cm x 50 cm

Despite its broad definition, whenever I hear the word “vision�

I think of the way we perceive things. I think of the images that our mind creates to reflect our opinion on a subject. In this case, the notion of vision is depicted by this couple on the verge of parting ways.

Although, They are in the same situation, they both share a different vision of their future. The fact that They are far away from each other suggests a discord between their opinion, in addition to creating a tension. The setting is a metaphor for this collision between two worlds.

The woman represented in this drawing is closer to the old architecture, which is now in ruins. This suggests that her relationship with her partner was once great and magnificent but is now broken and part of the past. As for him, if She is the past, He is their future representing what They can or cannot be. He is part of a modern architecture: a city filled with skyscrapers. It is something new and greater but different from what They used to be.

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Daniel Petersen Escobedo 1st Year, Illustration & Design Ergot in the Rye Fields, 2016 Ink on board, acrylic on wood panel 122 cm x 91 cm x 4 cm

The idea for this piece came from a theory regarding the Salem witch trials put forth by behavioural psychologist Linnda Caporael. She makes the argument that ergot poisoning could have been the cause behind the hysteria that led up to the Salem witch trials in 1692. Ergot, a fungus that grows on rye, has been shown to affect living beings in a similar way to LSD when its spores are breathed in or the affected crops of grain are consumed.

Although the themes of ergotism and witchcraft are combined with other notions in this project, the central theme of the illustration remained that of the influence of unknown or misunderstood natural phenomena on the development of a spiritual vision of the universe by human beings.

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Eftihia Simitsakos 1st Year, Visual Arts Wizard's Dream, 2016 Charcoal on paper 66cm X 128cm

We all have a secret world when we are dreaming. A place that we can escape and be our true selves. To be the people we want to be and not what we show to others. The dream world is an involuntary escape into the imagination. It is where the unconscious mind takes over, and translates, and transforms needs, emotions, anxieties, desires and fears into a succession of images, interactions and confrontations with the inner self.

As the wizard is overcome by sleep, all his knowledge and his wisdom are exposed to the dream world. Henceforth commences a dance of real and surreal emotions, imaginary creatures slipping into reality as he would have wished them to.

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Bryony Hoare 1st Year, ALC Modern Beauty, 2016 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

In this drawing, I tried to create a representation of the violence that permeates through the current image of beauty.

Reaching this standard of beauty has been a process of which many have remained wilfully ignorant. It has been laced with violence, oppression, and even genocide. This drawing encourages the viewer to not remain blinded as the woman depicted in it, but rather to see beyond the facade and to comprehend the history behind the variations of the same face we see repeated across the media. It may still be beautiful, but we must acknowledge that it is a dangerous beauty that has

thrived off the struggles of many to attain its power. Beauty should not be restricted to one form. I have illustrated it in a way that encourages the viewer to scrutinize this concept of beauty and to underline the reality of what is considered to be a “pretty� face.

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Amelie Claire Lillethun 1st Year, Visual Arts AEilum, 2016 Wood (bass, pine, plywood) 60 cm x 40cm x 40 cm

AEilum is a vision of a ruined city drifting across stars. The Cube is its center of gravity, with the city orbiting around it. Philosophers, observing this city from afar, long argued that the Cube was the embodiment of power and people's need of it in order to function, and that AEilum was intact solely because of the Cube. Others have speculated that the Cube itself was the source of the city’s decay, theorizing that its power crushed innocence. No one knows if it provides a glimpse at another dimension, or if it is an incorporeal projection brought on by society's general chaos. The general consensus is that the Cube contains ancient knowledge about the beginning and the end of all universes and that its metaphysical state makes it inhabitable by ordinary three-dimensional beings. Nevertheless, none can argue about its greatness and its majestic, timeless beauty because now, after the disappearance of life on AEilum, it is finally in equilibrium with itself. Here you can observe a miniaturized model of AEilum, carefully crafted to illustrate the city’s current state. Either way, each of us can come up with a theory of why AEilum is what it is, but does it really matter?

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Yu Xiang Ren

3rd Year, Illustration & Design Heaven and Hell, 2016 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

This is a piece that combines my visions of heaven and hell.

The hell is the middle section which is filled with smog, decay, and everything that is familiar, while the heaven is the top and bottom section; the top represents space, our final frontier, while the bottom represents the depth of the ocean, where life on Earth first evolved around the hyper thermal vents. Thus my vision of hell is one of a desolation of our own making, and my heaven is the unknown yet to be discovered.

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Madeleine Sibthorpe 3rd Year, Illustration & Design Visions of Life, 2015 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm (each panel of diptych)

Life comes from somewhere, I envision that giants created earth. They hold our cities together for thousands of years so we forget to see them in our landscapes. These pieces speak of coming together, through the birds, the bridges as well as the holding hands. They also speak of support through the cupping hands. The two pieces together are meant to complement each other through their colours and acts of care.

As an artist I want to illustrate the idea of this dreamland of giants, in order to take a step back from everyday life and view the world in a different light.

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Esther Calixte-Bea 2nd Year, Visual Arts Our Shield. Our Curse, 2016 Acrylic on canvas 76.2 cm x 76.2 cm

This painting is about seeing the world in a different but realistic perspective. The circular shape in my painting is a shield; it symbolizes us, human beings, fighting for a cause. I see soldiers going to war, the innocent dying and individuals caring for those in need. No matter how much we try to make a difference and save lives, the conclusion is the same. People still die; it is a never ending cycle of war, death, people trying to help the victims, and it starts all over. My intention with this piece is to open people’s eyes and make them see the reality of this world. I wish for people to think about how the media covers up or romanticizes events, making us think that everything is all right or will be by creating a false comfort.

The face of the woman in the painting not only represents the women that gave birth to us but exposes what the media does,

which is distracting us from the truth. The painting also tries to show our mortality, that death is our curse, not only that we are born in blood but that we leave slowly degrading like a rose, to our end. This is my vision, that human beings and the entire world are cursed whether we acknowledge it or not. The theme of VISION(S) invites us to look beyond reality; to me it is looking beyond the illusion of what we think is reality.

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Micaela Calvo

2nd Year, Illustration & Design Azul, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 50 cm x 40 cm

The human visual system is extremely complex, involving communication between the eye and the brain and the perception of colour in our physical environment causes in us emotional responses.

“Azul” means “Blue” in Spanish. This colour has meaningful and positive associations like spirituality, inspiration and intuition. Personally I link the blue with a visualization of water and thus calmness. With the help of this text and the contemplation of blue as a main colour I invite the viewer to an experience of reflection. To remind ourselves how lucky some of us are to have eyes and sight and the possibility to enjoy the colours of life. But sight is nothing without a vision. A vision inside of the context of an idea, a movement, a change for a better future. Through symbols like insects, circles, eyes and the colour blue, I invite you to think about the link between all of us and our planet, and how every single species including ours has a connection with all of the others. It’s a circle of life and sustainability. That’s why even the extinction of the smallest creatures, like insects, would have a repercussion on human life. So let’s take an insightful look at our personal impact towards the environment and let’s care. Our roots are nature; we breathe and drink blue.

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David Fortin

1st Year, Illustration & Design The Faces of the Righteous, 2015 Ink on board 43.2 cm x 28.0 cm

This work depicts my view of one of the largest organized religions. The influence of the Catholic Church can lead followers to believe that their actions are for the greater good. This is shown by the large demonic creature at the head of the pulpit in the church. He is controlling the people of faith through the one person they see as infallible, in this case personifying the Popes. Are they the ones who are in charge or is there a darker force moving their hands and influencing the world? This piece shows that even those who think they are following a good, honest path can be corrupted by those above them, the ones who pull the strings from the shadows of light.

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Ashley Robertson 2nd Year, Professional Photography Women Reflect, 2016 Digital photograph 27.9 cm x 43.2 cm

This piece is demonstrating the fight women have with themselves: to be accepted as who they are. Women depend on makeup to “enhance” their beauty, or at least that is what society wants us to think. When women start to depend on makeup to make themselves more beautiful it is no longer enhancing their features but rather consuming them.

Women have always had a battle with inner beauty. Women compete with other women on a daily basis especially with those featured on magazines and billboards. Women buy into what a man driven society wants them to look like. This is what will eventually drive a woman into inner madness.

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The struggle is seen in two parts of this photograph. The first part is the woman in the centre of the image. She is smiling directly into the camera holding up her black lipstick as if it were a knife. The facial expression she has is a deviant one.

Her happiness has vanished and she is raging with madness.

This is the realistic vision of her in present time; totally in focus, sharp and straight on. The second part is the image of the two women on the side of her that fade off. The smeared makeup and the mascara running down the cheeks emphasize the inner sadness that is dwelling inside of her.

These ‘visions’ of herself on both sides of the image are what is being seen inside her mind. I made them transparent to reinforce the idea that they are not actual beings standing next to her but merely imaginative. This work is a composite showcasing the literal meaning of seeing through someone and being able to grasp what it is they are truly feeling. Beauty is indeed seen with the eyes but the real beauty is finding out what is on the inside.

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Bob Kavanagh

Conseiller cadre Barren of Light and Vision: Pray, Come for Me, 2016 Digital print 76 cm x 213 cm

Text schematic of a bifurcated soul Let me tell you, it has been a terrific month for deception1 *** We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes – This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be otherwise, In counting our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O Great Christ, our cries To Thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh, the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask.2

Sublimation of instinct is an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities… to play such an important part in civilized life… it is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct… we know already that it is the cause of the antagonism against which all civilization has to fight.6 TEDx, Winnipeg, Presentation by Jeff Hancock: https://www.ted.com/

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speakers/jeff_hancock.

We wear the Mask: Paul Laurence Dunbar (1895), A Century of the Blues (Robert

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Santelli); The Blues - a musical journey, 2003 Peter Guralnick (ed.).

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Children’s limerick to paraphrase the Poem by William Blake “The Liar”.

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Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy; Canto 1, Purgatory.

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Limelight lyrics written by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart, of the musical

band Rush, 1981.

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Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents: W.W. Norton and Co., 1989.

Liar, Liar your pants are on fire3 *** Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost and gone.4 *** All the world’s indeed a stage And we merely players Performer and portrayer Each another’s audience Outside the gilded cage5 ***

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Above: Barren of Light and Vision: Pray, Come for Me Below: Detail

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Mathieu Larone 3rd Year, Illustration & Design Giants and Valleys, 2015 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

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Presented in this drawing is the sum of various experiences associated with travel and the search for a creative identity. A young man, presumably myself, is running towards his vision of perfection. This moment of bliss between the giants and the boy encapsulates the everlasting pursuit for the answer to perfection that we all, in many different and unique ways, chase constantly.

These giants have also been a recurring theme in many of my works recently. There is something so enigmatic behind the idea of a gigantic being calmly towering over everyday situations without moving. The way these beings are simple in shape also adds to the mystery behind their origins. Perhaps like all-seeing stains we can’t quite wash off, watching our every move. Laughing in silence.

This piece is directly associated with a trip I went on to Peru, back in 2013. Everything about it screams a moment in time and a vision of perfection that I’ll never forget.

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Roberto Garcia Roman 2nd Year, Professional Photography Dreamer, 2016 Digital photograph 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

For this picture I was inspired by a portrait of Truman Capote (1924-1984, American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor) created by Irvin Penn, a master of photography. My image explores how a vision can be an internal experience, and like in Penn’s photography, a source of outward creativity.

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Britanny Guiseppe-Clarke 1st Year, ALC I am Always Changing, 2015 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

I consider my vision to constantly be changed and shaped by what surrounds me. The vision I have of life has been altered again and again throughout my life and will continue on this way. In this piece, you have an insight as to what my vision represented in the fall of 2015. My life consisted of doodles and workbooks, public transportation, drinks to keep warm and to keep the brain stimulated, a Polaroid, a book and an old building I pass by almost every day in my home town.

All these elements, at the time, were a part of my life at that particular moment. It was my first semester in CEGEP and many things in my day-to-day life changed, it was a whole new lifestyle I had to learn to adapt to. Old habits and new habits assembled. I am always changing for better or for worse and so is the world around me.

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Michael Leo

1st Year, Illustration & Design Visions of Fury, 2015 Digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

My piece explores the notion of the eye of the storm where things are bound to get worse. In the formation of the clouds an angry god-like image is seen with lightning bolts emitting from his eyes. There is a jagged bolt of lightning coming down disrupting the calm. The thunderclouds roll across the sky and a lightning bolt breaks the calm revealing the fury of the god. The huge figure is looming over the humans who are staring at the nebulous sky, their attention captivated by the crack that splits the sky.

Life can at times be overwhelming. When you feel like you are in the eye of the storm in your life, it can be hard to make decisions. The storm is all around you and your vision is cloudy where you can’t seem to see or think clearly.

Sometimes you just have to stay put until the storm passes and your vision becomes clear.

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Ann Sze

2nd Year, ALC The Life of an Orange, 2015 Video animation (pictured: a frame from the video) 46 seconds

An orange. It's just a fruit, nothing special right? But how did it get here? Where did it come from? Who brought it here? Life of an Orange brings focus on an everyday subject that we do not necessarily think about: our lack of connection with our foods.

Most of us purchase our produce from supermarkets. We see the variety of fruits and vegetables, and sometimes we catch a glimpse of their origin. We may see: “Product of China”. Neat, eh? But our observations often end there.

We often don't think about the food's “behind the scenes” journey onto our plates from its point of origin. We also may not realize how we may judge food due to superficial imperfections. Tons of food are discarded each day due to our discrimination against superficial imperfections. What happened to “don't judge a book (in this case an orange) by its cover”?

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Finally, we are all connected. The orange that we hold has been picked by another person from across the world, and that fruit had to travel hundreds of kilometers to reach us. All I hope is for viewers to gain a new perspective for their foods, and regain a connection with them.

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Keyiana Marques

1st Year, Visual Arts Explorations, 2016 Diptych: coloured pencils, ink, graphite, charcoal 50.8 cm x 128.3 cm

This piece mixes direct observation with the imagination, in order to imagine the visions of navigators from the early centuries. I tried to capture the type of environment that an explorer could have created while experiencing visions for future explorations and adventures. The left portion of my piece represents a specific environment, with bone and geographic studies. On the right, a simple sea setting represents a vision come true, based on what is implied on the left side.

I've always been interested in previous explorations. I love to imagine new horizons, and the discoveries that change the lives of explorers forever.

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Katherine Parthimos 2nd Year, Visual Arts Clear Mind, 2016 Photo silkscreen 50 cm x 65 cm

In order to welcome a vision you must begin with a clear mind, then continue by accepting whatever crosses your path. Quartz is a symbol of clarity because of its natural transparency. Peace of mind and clarity in yourself will allow for growth and feeling inspired by the world. Certainty about what is wanted and what isn’t wanted will crystalize. This consciousness can be yours, accompanied by a state of mind characterized by clarity over cloudiness. No need for complications; simplicity will bring happiness. Know yourself and you will find your vision.

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Elisa Vita

1st Year, Visual Arts Insight, 2016 Oil on canvas 101.6 cm x 76.2 cm

I have always viewed vision as something inherently connected to the body. Observations are made and then acted upon using the vessels of flesh and bone that transport us through our lives. The psyche and the body are thus irrevocably connected. In this piece I am exploring the process of turning vision inwards. This occurs not only in a literal, organic sense, but also in terms of the spiritual. I am attempting to discover what vision is harboured within us once we take the time to look. There is memory and sensuality. Time becomes irrelevant in the land of vision. I imagine that there is only the body and floating colour, your hue as different from mine as the tastes and smells of your vision-scape.

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Florence Yee Graduate, Visual Arts Photorealism, 2016 Oil paint 76 cm x 102 cm

We normally think of photorealism as a style of painting that represents subjects as normal vision would. However, there are very realistic ways of depicting abstraction, such as blurry photos. The curved shapes and lines could be taken as an abstract formal composition, but the familiar font of the numbers in the corner grounds the image to reality. It references the time and date stamped on every picture of early digital photography. However, the handwritten quality of the numbers reminds us that the painting is made by a human, subject to the tremors and inaccuracies of hands.

Initially, in my art production, I painted idealistic landscapes, but I soon realized that my view of these places only came from photography. Like many residents of urban cities, my love of nature was a second-hand experience that was only available through a digital lens. Hence, this painting captures multiple layers of blurry and defined elements that come together as a contemporary representation of my relationship to landscapes.

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Evidence of Things Unseen

Participants in this VISION(S) sub-theme followed their interests into dark and abstract corners of our world and minds. They discussed the evidence of society’s dark underbelly in film; the challenge of grasping abstract ideas such as String Theory or Plato’s Theory of Forms for which there is an absence of visual evidence; and other evidence of the hidden and the invisible that provoke curiosity and inspire us, even in the face of our visual limitations, to work to envision better.

Andrew Katz Faculty, English

Francis Boucher 3rd Year, Illustration & Design Things Unseen, 2015 Graphite pencil and digital 43.2 cm x 27.9 cm

Human nature has a natural tendency to render the obvious, unnoticeable. Is it ignorance? Is it oblivion? Or is it simply that one is not disposed to process the information necessary to put the pieces of the puzzle together, in order to see and understand the truth? Reality isn’t always easy to face, but the mind is better off enlightened than kept in a permanent state of ignorance fuelled by different defense mechanisms, which only contribute to distort one’s perception of surrounding stimuli. If one overcomes the bliss of ignorance to look at things from a different angle, then one can become the artisan of one's own reality. To be the author and the main character of one’s own story is to be empowered; it is to be free.

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Gabrielle Vendette 2nd Year, Liberal Arts Ladder of Love, 2016 Essay

The idea that we can see “a World in a Grain of Sand,” as the Romantic poet William Blake writes—that the universal can be glimpsed through the particular—echoes an idea in ancient philosophy called the Ladder of Love.

This idea relates as well to the Challenge of the Abstract discussion I took part in with other S.P.A.C.E. contributors. The idea, established by Plato, posits that by learning how to love specific things around us, we can eventually learn how to love the higher idea of Goodness. For Plato, humans are naturally attracted to the Good, which is the highest form of knowledge you can have. Reaching the Good means reaching the first principle and cause of all reality—the basic composition behind all our concepts such as love, beauty, justice, etc. The Good is the ultimate definition of all these concepts combined and all humans are naturally drawn to it. Our only hope of reaching this form of enlightenment is through love, through the love of the particulars to the general. Love is not a thing; it is a force, a spirit in itself, the “spiritual messenger” between us and the good, as my first semester ancient philosophy teacher put it so gracefully. Love creates our attraction towards the Good; we just have to follow it there.

Why do I like this idea so much? It’s hard to put into words. But then, abstract things often are, just as they are challenging to visualize—hence our need, in Plato’s theory, to approach them through the particular. I do love how general and open the idea is to everyone, as though anyone can reach full enlightenment by following the ladder of love. It’s a kind of universal guide to all humans on earth. And it makes the mystical world seem so accessible.

The divide between the spiritual realm and the physical realm seems to shrink; the otherworldly seems just on the other side of your fingertips. It’s very refreshing, makes you feel so much more powerful in your reach than regular life often seems to allow. The idea that I could have access to the knowledge of the functioning of the universe is a very inspiring feeling. Obviously, disclaimer, Plato does say no human can reach full enlightenment, but that our life goal is to strive towards it and get as close as possible. While some in our class viewed this disclaimer as depressing—i.e. working towards something you can never achieve—to me the idea was still awe inspiring, because even if you can never get there, you can always get closer.

The Ladder of Love is basically a how-to guide for reaching the Good. First, you start by loving a single physical form, the beauty of person. Then, you learn to love the beauty in all physical forms. Second, you learn to love the beautiful mind and soul of a person, their intellect.

Then, you learn to love the beauty in the intellect of all people. Third, you learn to love the laws and institutions that come from these beautiful minds and eventually the virtues that form them. Fourth, we learn to love beautiful science and eventually learn to love the general, natural sciences. We finally arrive to the top of the ladder and are able to contemplate beauty as a whole and in that sudden enlightenment, we find the essence of beauty. We find the element in nature of beauty, what makes beautiful things beautiful, be it a person, a flower, or a building. We learn what true, raw beauty is.

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Lucia Gargiulo and Ross Paraskevopoulos 1st Year, 3D Animation & CGI, and 1st Year, ALC Darkness As a Revealing Force in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, 2015-2016 A written conversation (excerpted),

Blue Velvet is the story of Jeffrey Beaumont, a young student who visits his hometown of Lumberton USA when his father has a stroke. When he finds a severed ear in a field and learns through a detective's daughter, Sandy Williams, that Dorothy Vallens, a nightclub singer, is somehow involved, Jeffrey breaks into her apartment and hides in her closet when she arrives home unexpectedly. There, he sees a man named Frank abuse Dorothy and force her to indulge his twisted desires. From this encounter, Jeffrey is pulled into a sinister mystery that exposes the dark underbelly he never knew existed within his idyllic suburban town.

Lucia

Perhaps more than any other of David Lynch’s works, Blue Velvet (1986) is a great film to examine in the context of the VISION(S) theme. The film deals explicitly with motifs of vision, voyeurism and representation. It's also, in many ways, a meditation of the essence of the film medium itself.

By its very nature, cinema is a medium that engages explicitly with the concept of vision, of sight, of gaze. By selecting the images we see and how they are presented, directors curate our visual experience to construct narratives in our minds.

Lynch particularly has a unique and powerful storytelling ‘voice’. A film like Blue Velvet is such an oddity that I sometimes find it hard to put into context.

I like to think of Blue Velvet as a piece of cinematic fetish, the ultimate talismanic experience for cinephiles. A meditation on what it is to see, to gaze, to show, to watch. A meditation on cinema, on making films, on consuming films. A reflection on a familiar set of visual cues, of genre conventions, and a reminder that someone is leading you by the hand. Lynch plays with traditional narrative archetypes and uses traditional film language, but he subverts everything. Nothing is what it seems, nothing is what you expect. And maybe that is what is so appealing about the film.

The film is a neo-noir of sorts, but what is the darkness in this film really about? In my mind the darkness in Blue Velvet does not aim to conceal or hide anything, but rather to reveal.

We can understand this conceptualization of darkness as a revealing force, a type of anti-light almost, that guides our gaze to things that should be hidden: hidden lives, supressed desires, taboo behaviours, the inner working of the film medium, the ‘behind the curtains,’ etc.

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Ross

The darkness in the film is definitely a revealing presence: it opens doors that would normally be closed to the characters by allowing characters, for example Frank, to express their passions and emotions without worry of being judged or without restraint.

An important scene in the film, between Jeffrey Beaumont and Sandy Williams (the daughter of the detective investigating Vallens), occurs at nighttime in front of what looks like a church. Sandy tells Jeffrey of a dream she had where the town was thrown into darkness because there were no robins anymore, which she says represents love in her dream.

The nighttime allows characters to pierce through their world's illusory surface appearance and reveal the hidden nature that surrounds them just below. The scene also suggests that Sandy has received some kind of divine vision.

Lucia

What you pointed out about Sandy's vision is very interesting. She relates her robin dream and in a way she appears as an oracle. And again this feels like another layer built on the same theme, of what we see, how we gaze.

I think in fact that many of the characters in the film possess a special kind of vision. Jeffrey Beaumont is also a voyeur of course, mediating our own gaze in the film, but he is at the same time a detective, staking out the other characters, watching them, photographing them.

Ross

As spectators, we also see things with a 'special kind of vision', according to different perspectives. As the film starts, shots of beautiful sunny suburban life flash by, which shows the surface level appearance of the town of Lumberton and its residents: happy, and 'normal'. But then the camera goes underneath a lawn and shows swarms of cockroaches and disgusting insects crawling around in the darkness, which symbolizes the hidden nature of the town. Evil and vile people who act in the shadows.

This also reflects the nature of the film itself. During daytime, shots show the characters going about their regular lives; Jeffrey Beaumont acts like a regular teenager/etc. Then at night, Jeffrey's true nature reveals itself as he sneaks into Dorothy Vallens’ apartment to find information and ends up witnessing a man beat her and engage in sexual activities with her.

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Lucia

I definitely also pick up on the duality you pointed out--that the film is separated aesthetically into day and night, that multiple personalities inhabit each character. Consider how he represents the two female characters, Isabella Rossellini’s very convincing femme fatale and Laura Dern's American innocent girl next door. These two women are opposites, and they function almost as sirens, becoming Kyle MacLachlan with two very different type of songs. Are these two sides of the same coin? What do you make of this duality?

Ross

I find your idea of Sandy and Dorothy being mirrors of each other incredibly interesting. Both call to Jeffrey and attract him in different ways. Sandy, the innocent girl next door, is still not perfect, as she cheats on her boyfriend, but her innocent qualities attract Jeffrey’s own innocence throughout the film.

Dorothy Vallens seems to appeal to the unfiltered desires of Jeffrey (and Frank equally). She is disturbed and depraved, she sees Jeffrey as her absent husband Don (who has been kidnapped) to fill that void in her life, which is, interestingly enough, similar to Jeffrey's own situation in the film; Jeffrey's father being hospitalized after a particularly forceful stroke consequently leaving Jeffrey without a strong male presence in his life.

So in a way, they both seem to be opposites that fill similar wants and/or needs for Jeffrey, his desires, both innocent and more unfiltered and “adult”.

Lucia

Everyone is performing for everyone else, constantly. Dorothy (Rossellini) is quite literally on a stage, Sandy (Dern) and Jeffrey play act a fake relationship for her father's benefit, and of course Frank (Dennis Hopper), who is absolutely obsessed with performance, and seems to require and demand that everyone around him be performing, constantly. And he is the ultimate fetishist, making a fetish out of songs, textiles, words, behaviours.

Frank is by far one of my all-time favourite characters from the Lynch universe; he is so bizarre, so alien, but so engaging.

So many of his characters are bizarre, grotesque, gothic almost. What do you make of characters like Frank; what do you see as their function? Do you think Frank is a window into a new type of vision for the audience maybe? What do you think his darkness brings to the film, if anything at all?

or most probably both. We're such visual creatures, and we attribute so much meaning to images, and some images we become very attached to. Frank’s obsession with specific imagery might be just an exaggeration of an instinct that we all possess.

Ross

As you've mentioned, Blue Velvet is a film that plays around with the concept of perspective and the very nature of films as a medium. What can we see about a certain person or event if we see it from different angles or lights/etc.?

Characters are constantly peering at something that was hidden to them—someone else's private life or the disturbed activities of a criminal sadist. But they also begin to see other people in different lights. The audience is linked to this whole process, which I feel is such an amazing aspect of the film's themes, of peering into the private nature of a whole town and its' residents.

We, like Jeffrey, see what he is seeing and draw our own interpretations on the events and characters. But the audience, not Jeffrey, are the true “Voyeurs” in Blue Velvet, as we see everyone and everything, without being watched ourselves. (Am I onto something with this point or picking at straws?)

Finally, Frank Booth is definitely a representation of our desire for anything sensory, i.e our visual fetishes, as you've stated. He delights in holding power over individuals and using these relationships to partake in his ritualistic consumption of 1950s music, (In Dreams by Roy Orbison being a favorite song of Frank) textiles like the titular blue velvet of Dorothy's dress, and the acts he forces others around him to play out, like Ben (Stockwell) lip-syncing “In Dreams”.

I feel that Frank's darkness brings to light a slight exaggeration of our inner desires to the film as a whole, which is what Lynch's film strives to accomplish, to present an audience with itself in a way. We all crave some form of visual stimuli or sensory pleasure at some point in our life. How we go about experiencing these wants and satisfying these needs are, at the end of the day, different to every individual.

With Blue Velvet, Lynch constantly makes viewers see people, activities, music, and environments in a different light throughout the journey. It never ceases to amaze me how captivating and absolutely enthralling this film and David Lynch's work is as a whole. He transports viewers into another world, bringing them to glimpse surreal reflections of our own human experience.

I wonder sometimes if Lynch is putting a mirror up to the audience with the Frank character, or putting it up to himself,

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Emily McIsaac1, Julien Otis-Laperrière1, Ross Paraskevopoulos2, Chloe Sautter-Leger3, and Gabrielle Vendette3 1st Year Science, 21st Year ALC, 32nd Year Liberal Arts The Challenge of the Abstract, 2015-2016 A written conversation (excerpted) 1

String theory. Plato’s Theory of Forms. Abstract art. The Tao. Across the disciplines, how do we grasp ideas that, on the one hand, may be fundmental to our understanding of reality, and yet that, on the other hand, may be very difficult, if not impossible, to visualize? A conversation between Emily McIsaac, Julien Otis- Laperrière, Ross Paraskevopoulos, Chloe Sautter-Leger, and Gabrielle Vendette Emily

Whenever I encounter something abstract, whether it’s abstract art without obvious embodiments or scientific theories describing something that can’t be seen by the human eye, the first thing I always think is: where do I even start?

I think sight is generally the first of the five senses we use to understand the world around us, and seeing an image we can’t identify, or trying to visualize something beyond imagining, like an 8th dimension, can entirely confuse. Some abstract scientific models are not even observable or falsifiable with our current technology. This is why it’s so difficult for people to accept these speculative theories: humans like to have evidence, to be able to test that evidence, and so these abstract ideas and realities can definitely be overwhelming.

Julien

The very idea of the abstract is unsettling—it implies that our perception doesn't cover the entirety of our reality. Try to think up an abstract scent, an abstract sound, an abstract consistency (touch) or an abstract taste. It is, to me, impossible to conjure up any of those ideas, suggesting that the abstract lies beyond those senses.

Of all the senses, vision might bring us the closest to abstract realities. Throughout our lives, we have all been explained abstract ideas such as good, evil, justice, love and others mostly through visual metpahors, such as darkness and light.

We can also glimpse abstract realities through their visual evidence: for example, we see a punch being thrown, we see retaliation, which are manifestations of the abstract idea of justice. But the vision remains a metaphor or a glimpse of something unseen beyond it.

The abstract is usually communicated through language. It is by talking, writing, using words like the ones mentioned above––good, evil, justice, love––that we usually discuss the abstract. Despite the fact that we cannot physically sense an abstraction, we communicate it through sounds and sights–– spoken and written letters.

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Gabrielle

Your suggestion, Julien, on describing our abstract experiences through senses and words makes me think of an essay I read on trying to describing sight to a blind person. When we start trying to describe the abstract world around us, I realize how important it is that we all have a common starting ground.

Imagine trying to explain the sky or the ocean to someone who has few other comparative bases. This is where the flaw in our communication about the abstract comes up; we use comparisons that most people have lived to try and explain abstract concepts, but what if someone doesn’t share the same frames of reference?

From what I remember, the person who wrote the essay suggested that we use emotions to try to describe things to the blind. For example, the sky makes me feel free, inspired, scared, etc. I find it interesting how, still, in that case, we use abstract emotional experiences to try and explain abstract sensory experiences to people.

Emily

One abstract phenomena in our world that has been discussed again and again is love. One dictionary definition of love is: “an intense feeling of deep affection.” This definition, however, isn’t satisfactory to me. Instead of getting at the heart of love (pun intended), it seems to diminish ‘love’. In fact, when people are asked questions such as, “Why do you love him/ her?” or “What do you think love is?” people often answer with stories and comparisons. Someone might say, “Love is like a warm cup of sweet tea,” since tea is widely known and associated with certain feelings. Or someone might tell the story of how they met their partner, or stories from their journey of falling in love.

Therefore, I think, when we perceive abstract or unfamiliar things, our first resort is to compare them to concrete things that are familiar to us, in order to understand them.

Chloe

I agree with the idea that every physical thing we can possibly imagine has to be something or a combinations of things that we have once perceived. That's why I find abstract visual art can be interesting: it synthesizes parts of things we know into new combinations. These combination of shapes, colors, and textures not only do not represent anything from the world around us, but also have no function other than an aesthetic one. Other forms of abstract art—art that does not emulate VISION(S)

nature (for example architecture or culinary art) have the function of attending to one of our fundamental needs. We manipulate and mix food to make eating more pleasant; we finely design and decorate the places we live and work in to make them more agreeable. What I find weird is the fact that for centuries and centuries in the visual arts, humans have tried to represent concrete things of the world with exactitude instead of, like with food or building materials, trying to come up with new, pleasing mixes of colors and shapes. From the over-17 000-year-old paintings of Lascaux to Brunelleschi's linear perspective, and even to impressionist art, which although it sought to focus on impressions still depicted the concrete objects from which those impressions arose, visual art has been an ‘imitation’ of nature to different degrees. Why did abstract visual art not develop before the 19th century?

Certain works of abstract visual art—my favorite are ones by Kandinsky, Arthur Dove, and Fernand Léger—are extremely pleasing to look at. When I look at the whole picture, I feel a satisfaction that the disunited, cacophonic pieces somehow fit well into the whole (usually rectangular) space of the work.

The work of art thus stands for itself, as it does not represent anything concrete from outside of it, except for colors, textures, and shape.

Music has always been abstract (especially music without words—but then again, words themselves, even if they represent concrete things, are also abstract); and so has dance, so I really wonder why it took so much time for people to truly appreciate the power of visual abstract art as something aesthetically pleasing and possibly emotionally inspiring.

Emily

In response to Chloe about abstract art: I also find the recent esteem for abstract art very intriguing. It’s possible that abstract art has existed for a long time, but it has only been explored and accepted recently. Or, since it is widely thought that the largest human fear is the fear of the unknown, and since abstract art does not represent concrete realities and truths, but “unknown” ones, it can be unsettling. Therefore, I think it took open modernist views for people to deeply explore the abstract.

The emergence of abstract art is seen not only in paintings, drawings, and sculptures, but also in photography. My favorite periods in photography are American straight photography and the early 20th century European avant-garde photography, where different styles were explored and photographers re-evaluated what photos can depict. Man Ray and Edward Weston are two of my favorites.

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Ross

A theory that deals with the abstract that I find incredibly interesting is Taoism.

The eastern philosophy of Taoism states that our reality is composed of Tao, which is the source of our existence and yet does not possess any physical being, nor is it some kind of God. The Tao Te Ching, fundamental Tao text, begins with "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” In other words, we cannot describe what the Tao is through language; we can only feel the Tao in its effects on the world around us.

For example, Tao is present within a running river flowing downstream, or a gust of wind, and it is also responsible for the very essence which makes us human beings.

I find this kind of thinking is both incredibly interesting and frustrating. A source of life is around us, and yet, we cannot understand or communicate it.

Chloe

What you brought up about Tao is very interesting, Ross.

Many religions and philosophies revolve around some concept of a One 'thing' that exists beyond anything we can imagine or describe. The Zhuangzi says that "the Way is to man as rivers and lakes are to fish, the natural condition of life.” It is somehow all-encompassing, omnipresent, but we do not understand it.

In some way, as you find, Ross, this is frustrating. But I think this concept might be there because we encounter things in life that we simply cannot explain, either because we don’t understand how they happen or because we don't know any words that have been invented in our language that can describe the exact feelings we are feeling. Out of these unexplainable (abstract) irrational moments, we can develop a belief in something like Tao. Some things are more obviously unexplainable than others, but I wonder if any emotion can ever perfectly be described.

We have hundreds of words to describe our emotions; we learn to use these words by experiencing many of these abstract emotions, for example by being 'irritated' many times, and then we understand what these moments have in common. But I don't think that our emotions are ever exactly the same. They are each time so complex that even the abstractions we have—our words—cannot describe them precisely.

I think recurring dreams are one of these things that we associate with each other, even though we can't always put words on them and can never describe them exactly. I find the fleeting memory of dreams a fascinating phenomenon that might offer a glimpse of the abstract.

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Luca Raskin

2nd Year, Liberal Arts Visions of Space: Edwin Hubble’s Continuum of Discovery, 2015 Essay (excerpted)

In most fields of study, paradigm shifts do not happen in isolation. There is always a chain––sometimes unseen or omitted in the story of these shifts––that led up to the moment of change. Scientists, for instance, as Isaac Newton famously once said, see only “by standing upon the shoulders of giants” (Letter to Robert Hooke). We can only build upon what has been done before; not even energy or matter is ever just created.

It is from this standpoint that the work of Edwin Hubble should be understood. Often regarded as one of the 20th century’s most outstanding astronomers, Hubble’s work is significant because of his synthesis of various theories regarding celestial observations that were historically available to him.

Had Hubble worked at the Mount Wilson Observatory even 20 years earlier––in particular, before the work of Harvard Observatory astronomer Henrietta Leavitt and that of other astronomers––he would have had little to work with. That said, through his evaluation of nebular distances, his focus on strengthening the link between light and distance, as well his use of his astronomical and mathematical background to enhance cosmology, Hubble did effectively change the way we understand the universe by proving its expansion from a point of origin and where we stand in it.

When Hubble entered the astronomical work force, the genuine belief was that the Milky Way was the entire static universe measuring a rough 30 000 light-years (LaViolette 254). Still, the proof of a larger and growing galaxy (and not universe) existed before 1919, an aspect Hubble did not neglect.

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Once at Mount Wilson, Hubble began working with the institute’s new toy: the 100 inch Hooker Telescope installed

by G.E. Hale. It was the world’s largest at the time (Kerrod 162). Hubble later credited the device, claiming, “[t]he break through was an achievement of great [technology]” (Hubble 4). With such technology, it became possible to investigate what pivotal Harvard Observatory astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (1868-1921) had explored nearly twenty years earlier as noted in her 1908 article “1777 Variables in the Magellanic Clouds”. At that point, Leavitt and the rest of the astronomical community had argued these two ‘clouds’ were nebulae; after Hubble, they were established as neighbouring dwarf galaxies.

By 1924, Hubble had established that the Milky Way was indeed much bigger than previously imagined, and presumably not alone. Five years later, with the help of Mount Wilson janitor turned astronomer Milton Humason, Hubble found and calculated the distances of stars up to 25 million light-years away (LaViolette 255).

In addition to Hubble’s daunting observations and mathematical method, his work remains extremely relevant today because of its deep connection to cosmology. Until the era of the Copernican model, our anthropocentric assumption of Earth’s place in the universe made it seem that everything centers on it. Hubble’s realization of the correlation between distance and velocity made it appear to some as though “all galaxies appear to be receding from us” (Goldsmith 84, emphasis is Goldsmith’s). The time in which Hubble published his discovery was a time much more philosophically weary of our place in the universe. So taking into account our “fairly representative” (Hubble 11) view of the universe, Hubble explained the reasons that led to a “single conclusion” (Goldsmith 84) that the universe was expanding in all directions. This does not mean the nebulae, galaxies and stars are getting farther apart but rather the dark ocean of space itself is getting bigger, therefore pushing bodies away from one another (Charap 29) like chocolate chips in an inflating cooking muffin.

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Today’s modern physics attempts to go even further than Hubble had imagined. In recent years, applying Einstein’s idea of mass/energy’s ability to warp spacetime, and Hubble’s law of expansion, astrophysicists proposed the Big Crunch Theory in which the universe will gather so much mass that its own gravity will pull all “contents of the entire universe” (38) into a black hole singularity, disappearing into the unknown. Even more recently, with the popular support of Stephen Hawking and Alan Guth, the idea of the multiverse became evermore intriguing. This model is complexly based in String Theory and the grand idea that our still vastly unknown universe is only one of an “infinite number of closed big bang models laid out in time” (Gott 163). The possibilities are quite endless.

Works Cited Charap, John M. Explaining the Universe: A New Age of Physics. Princeton: Princeton U P, 2002. Print.

Goldsmith, Donald. The Astronomers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

Print.

Gott, J. Richard. Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. Print.

Hubble, Edwin. The Observational Approach to Cosmology. Oxford: Oxford U. P. 1937, Print.

Huchra, John. “The Hubble Constant.” Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. June 2008. Web. 30 Sept. 2015.

Kerrod, Robin. Hubble: The Mirror on the Universe. Richmond Hill: Firefly Books, 2003. Print.

LaViolette, Paul A. Beyond the Big Bang: Ancient Myth and the Science of Continuous Creation. Rochester: Park Street Press, 1995. Print.

Leavitt, Henrietta S. “1777 Variables in the Magellanic Clouds.” Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 60.4 (1908): 87-108. SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS). Web. 5 October 2015.

Newton, Isaac. “Letter to Robert Hooke”. 15 Feb. 1676. MS. London.

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Gilles Morissette

Faculty, Fine Arts just beyond the range of normal sight, 2016 Paper, cast resin, metal 15 cm x 215 cm x 84 cm

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tHE tEXT The act of reading just beyond the range of normal sight, is a moment in time.

Standing and looking marks a point in space, our presence.

It designates a point of view. just beyond implies something that is out of reach, not readily accessible. normal sight characterizes the scope of our anatomical possibilities. range suggests limited distance, the unattainable. just beyond the range of normal sight creates a desire that drives the imagination and leads to a vision. In turn, this empowers us to individually and collectively seek ways to envision new realities for ourselves and for others. sOME vISIONS (...) (November 19th, 1926, Brooklyn) (...) (November 12th, 1936, London) (...)

(December 10th, 1948, Paris) (...) (June 1961, New York) (...) (August 28th, 1963, Washington D.C.) (...) (April 27th, 1967, Montreal) (...) (July 20th, 1969, Sea Of Tranquility) (...) (1970 to 1971, and 1981 to 1998, New York) (...) (October 10th, 1979, Montreal) (...) (April 17th, 1982, Ottawa) (...) (July 4th, 2012, Geneva) (...)

(September 14th, 2015, Hanford, Livingston) (...) (April 26th, 2016, Montreal) (...) tHE sPIRAL Revolving around the installation, we perform one of the most fundamental movements of human existence, the walk. Encircling the form connects us physically and spiritually to the spiralling motion of cosmic phenomena. tHE dRAWING With the simplest of gestures, I swirl the paper into a spiral form. The paper follows my lead; yet it folds, creates layers, opaque, transparent; its particles interact. I envision the cosmos, a spiral in flux, drifting, floating.

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Alexia McKindsey 2nd Year, Visual Arts Shifting Tides, 2016 Acrylic on wood 101 cm x 76 cm

Water is one of the most basic and vital elements known to all life forms. On the surface it is an abundant and mundane necessity essential to everyday life, however it has the capacity to evoke an array of possibilities. The presence of water to the human eye is ever-changing. From a clear refreshing glass of water to surfing the oceans crashing waves; water is never one thing. Keeping in mind the fluidity of water both literally and figuratively, I wanted to represent its vagueness in terms of colour, form and motion. I attempted to mimic its nature through the application of several watered down hues merged and layered into the other over a wooden support. The painting very much became a representation of the complexities one can envision in its dimension.

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Frank Mulvey

Faculty, Fine Arts, Illustration & Design Seen by One, 2016 Charcoal on paper 71.0 cm x 58.3 cm (framed)

A filled glass, the city beyond, and uncertain times.

One wrong move, the glass tips, the liquid spills.

For a second, the city sparkles and twists.

An unknown magic seen only by one.

In a city of thousands, In a world of a thousand cities.

Inspiration is a fleeting vision that upsets the order of what one knows. Visions are vulnerable, unreliable and slippery. To express them presents risk. To act on them can be dangerous, but the road to enlightenment always is.

Photo: Anthony MacLean

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Myriam Wares 1st Year, Illustration & Design Ascending Muse, 2015 Ink on board 28 cm x 43 cm

The figure seen in the sky is inspired by the nine muses in Greek mythology. She does not represent any muse in particular, therefore can be interpreted freely by the viewer.

The figure in the foreground looks up at this muse in awe, while the secondary figures in the alleyway are oblivious to its presence. To me, this is what it feels like to have an idea, inspiration or vision. It takes up so much space that it becomes its own entity, separate from yourself, over which you have very little control. It shines over the dull reality of your everyday life and gives you no choice but to pursue it. It is the artist’s duty to explore these abstract apparitions and make them into concrete realities for the world to see.

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Sabira Langevin 1st Year, Illustration & Design Light and Hunger, 2015 Ink on board 28 cm x 43.5 cm

The sublimity of the natural world and the triumph of human determination: they coexist within this piece, separate worlds drawn together and split apart by the choices we make.

The foreground figure is nude and bald, within a state of birth, young and uncorrupted, able to see the vision of the two worlds weaving together. While at home in the natural world, she still has that yearning for the progress of the city.

The clothed figure, back turned to the viewer, stares into the horizon but can see only the vision of skyscrapers. She has experience where the other has innocence. She must consciously choose which world she wants to live in, the same choice all of us have to make. But in choosing, do we close ourselves off from the possibility of a synthesis between the two? Two balancing forces, two worlds. Perhaps they don't need to be separate after all.

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Acknowledgments

Gratitude to all participants (students, faculty, staff, alumni, and others), including those individuals and entities listed below.

Guidance and assistance: Neal Armstrong, Amanda Beattie, Nalo Bruce, Alexi Dagher, Nelly Dahan, Guiseppe Di Leo, Pauline Fresco, Dipti Gupta, Meinert Hansen, Julianna Joos, Bob Kavanagh, Andrew Katz, Frank Mulvey, Brian Rahilly, and Joel Trudeau.

Editor, creative director, S.P.A.C.E. and exhibition coordinator, additional photography, prepress file preparation: Frank Mulvey Administrative assistance, file management, proofreading: Ursula Sommerer Graphic design: Catherine Moleski Design elements incorporated into cover design: Catherine Braun-Grenier Dean of Academic Development: Barbara Freedman SSAP Coordinator: Tina Romeo

Office of the Director General: Donna Varrica Admin. Support Agent, Visual & Applied Arts Programs: Helen Wawrzetz S.P.A.C.E. advisors: Andrew Katz, Aaron Krishtalka, Maimire Mennasemay, Kenneth Milkman, and Richard Shoemaker Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery Committee: Andréa Cole, Don Corman, Raymon Fong, Mary Di Liello, Guiseppe Di Leo, Olivier Forgues, Scott Millar, Frank Mulvey, Luc Parent, Michel Seguin, and Cheryl Simon Individual contributors (photographs, scans and digital files) Note: material from collective projects often represents a selection from larger sets of content, visible on the S.P.A.C.E. explorations pages at space.dawsoncollege.qc.ca © 2016, Dawson College

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication VISION(S) / introduction by Maimire Mennasemay, Kenneth Milkman, Aaron Krishtalka and Andrew Katz ; edited by Frank Mulvey.

Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery from April 26 to May 11, 2016.

ISBN 978-1-55016-996-6 (paperback) 1. Art, Canadian--Québec (Province)--Montréal--21st century--Exhibitions.

I. Mennasemay, Maimire, writer of introduction II. Milkman, Kenneth A., writer of introduction III. Krishtalka, Aaron, 1940-, writer of introduction IV. Katz, Andrew, 1975-, writer of introduction V. Mulvey, Frank, 1960-, editor VI. Dawson College, issuing body VII. Warren G. Flowers Gallery, host institution N6547.M65V58 2016 709.714'2807471428 C2016-901912-8

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