Under the direction of artist Natacha Clitandre and TOPO's mediation team, citizens were provided with a text, sound and photo capture application programmed by Anagraph to record their geolocalized testimonials on the Spectrographies.org page. Combining local history and personal accounts, this exercise ultimately captured the current spirit of a place.
Initially developed for this exploration around the MIL Campus, the same process had a New York component in October 2017, at the Art in Odd Places festival. Spectrographies in New York thus offers a kind of snapshot of 14th Street represented through the objects we find there and the locations we come across, with which a varied sampling of passers-by identify. This American iteration makes it possible to locate different interpretations and uses of the same heterogeneous sector of the city.
On Thursday, November 8, 2018, a presentation of the project was held at the Salle de diffusion de Parc-Extension for a personalized tour of the website in the presence of the people who participated in the project, which has nearly two hundred testimonials.
Natacha Clitandre
Natacha Clitandre completed a B.A. in visual arts at UQAM in 2000. In 2007, she completed a Master's degree in Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art and New Media at Université Paris 8 and École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD). As part of her studies, she spent time at Brown University and RISD, in Providence, Rhode Island.
As part of her work process, she wanders the city to document the shifting poles of attraction, collecting data and narratives that help identify what influences our sense of belonging. Using ubiquitous technological devices, she creates mechanisms that highlight the relationship between the artist, the public and our shared spaces. By inviting us to take a different look, she seeks to create social links, break down the barriers between living environments and reveal the different layers of history that urban space and the contents of interest to a variety of communities harbor.
Her work has been presented in Europe (Nantes, Paris, Brussels) and North America (Montreal, Laval, Quebec City, Gaspésie, Pittsburgh, New York, Baltimore). Also a cultural worker*, she notably developed the Slow Tech posture of the feminist artist-run center Ada X, where she was-from 2017 to 2022-coordinator of programming and the HTMlles festival. She lives and works in Montréal/Tio'tia:ke.
