Since its creation in 1993, in the infancy of the Internet, TOPO has assembled and distributed a unique catalogue of independently produced art-house multimedia works on CD-Roms and DVD-Roms. This collection favours, but is not exclusive to, works that emphasise text and image: fiction, poetic fiction and other interactive fantasies.
The use of CDs for purposes other than music has fallen into disuse, and in the age of cloud computing, with today's computers gradually losing their USB ports, the presence of an optical drive in our computers has become obsolete. Today's operating systems no longer support this technology, and the short but rich history of interactive media fiction has been consigned to oblivion.
Although, apart from a few academics, no-one contacts us any more to consult or buy CD-roms, TOPO has carefully preserved this collection of some sixty titles from Canada, Australia, the United States, Belgium and France, produced between 1994 and 2007. The centre has also taken care to preserve old computers whose operating systems still allow these works to be consulted.
As part of a process of upgrading its archives, the centre wants to highlight sophisticated interactive works with a variety of navigation mechanisms. In January 2025, TOPO will be exhibiting a selection of titles from its collection, some of which have never before been made available to the public. The exhibition window is transformed into a computer room worthy of a cybercafé, where 9 CD-ROMs of fiction and interactive poetry produced in Quebec can be consulted, with the participation of over 60 people.
The title of this exhibition honours one of Canada's first cybercafés, Le Café Électronique, opened in 1995 in Old Montreal by Ginette Major and Hervé Fischer, at the Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal. The café was an international success, welcoming curious onlookers, foreign delegations and television film crews from all over the world, offering computers with Internet access and a library of CD-ROMs for on-site consultation.
Overview of the 9 titles on show
Fiction
LIQUIDATION (Michel Lefebvre and Eva Quintas, 2001) interweaves the narrative codes of detective fiction and photonovels, giving random access to fragments of the story. In La Suite mongole (D. Kimm, 2001), the narrative becomes fiction in exotic territory through an imaginary Mongolia. Les Quatre Saisons picaresques is a comic strip roadmovie . Einstein’s Dream (Daniel Canty, 1999) takes us on a journey through time in Albert Einstein's dreams about the theory of relativity.
Art interactif
L’archiveuse de Chocolat (Pierre Zovilé, 2007) is a dynamic presentation of an imaginary and eccentric machine that travels the world denouncing the international chocolate trade. Palomar (NeuROM-X [Joseph Lefèvre , Éric Mattsonet Alain Mongeau], 1994) explores the theme of the gaze through a dozen interactive scenes, while Chimé (Frédérick A. Belzile, 2004) transports us into four imaginary spaces.
Poésie interactive
On the poetry front, Haijin (zero_degré [Boris Dionne, Yuani Fragata and Mario Lelièvre], 2000) presents Japanese haiku through an interface inspired by one of their major themes, the fruit falling from the tree. Poetry takes the form of a diary and is combined with video in Mordre/Parenthèse (Yannick B. Gélinas, 2000).
Finissage event
L’événement, initialement prévu au mercredi 19 février, est reporté au mercredi suivant, le 26 février en raison des conditions météorologiques. Merci de votre compréhension.
TOPO invites you to the final viewing of the CD-ROM exhibition currently on display in our showcase at the Pôle de Gaspé on Wednesday 26 February from 5.30 p.m. in our studio on the 6th floor. Before going upstairs, take advantage of the Café Électronique in our vitrine on the ground floor to consult the CD-ROMs on display.
To pay tribute to a pioneer in the dissemination of the digital arts, we will be honoured to welcome the artist writer philosopher Hervé Fischer, director of the Images du futur festival in the 1980s and 1990s and promoter with Ginette Major of the Café électronique in Old Montreal, an emblematic venue of that era. After a short talk from him, we'll have a more open discussion about the challenges facing digital creation today and in the past.
