GEG and me / moi et GEG

For nearly four years, I took care of the Gillett Entertainment Group website. In that time, I think I must have done several thousand animated GIF's, countless texts and bios, and sent a few hundred newsletters. The fun was all in receiving the artists' posters in full-size resolution - it was quite tempting to get them printed. By writing bios and doing research for content, if not simply to categorize the artists whilst I entered their shows in the CMS, I invariably became familiar with every single artist coming through Montreal. Oh how I miss having free tickets to see U2 and The Rolling Stones...

Unfortunately, since that time GEG has changed their website and feature only videos as additional content apart from admats (that's the term for visuals). Alas, my texts are gone, but I kept some of the newsletters I created.

http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/GEG_Juin.html
http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/GEG_May.html
http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/danse_eblast.html
http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/indie_eblast.html

It's also a testament to my abilities in translation - not many Quebec artists post their content in English, and everyone else, particularly the artists States-side, simply don't write anything in French.
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Voilà un contrat qui m'a bien occupé pendant quatre ans: le site du Groupe Spectacles Gillett. C'était un mandant assez relaxe, dans la mesure que, bien que j'avais à produire des milliers et des milliers de GIF animés, que je devais composer des biographies et des textes promotionnels à profusion, et que j'étais responsable de la conception et de l'envoi d'infolettres, j'en avais profité pour découvrir tous les artistes de passage à Montréal. Inutile de vous dire que ce temps me manque...surtout les billets gratuits pour voir des groupes comme U2 ou The Rolling Stones...

Depuis ce temps, GEG ont refait leur site internet, et le seul contenu supplémentaire excluant les admats (c'est le terme utilisé pour décrire les visuels), ce sont les vidéos. Hélas, l'ensemble de mes textes sont perdus à tout jamais - mais j'ai cependant conservé quelques infolettres:

http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/GEG_Juin.html
http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/GEG_May.html
http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/danse_eblast.html
http://manifeste.ca/Blog/newsletters/indie_eblast.html

C'est tout de même représentatif de mes capacités en traduction - vous pouvez imaginer que la plupart des artistes Québécois n'offrent pas de traductions en anglais, et que l'inverse est vrai pour les artistes américains ou d'ailleurs.

Vernissage: ECHO/EKO exposition bénifice pour Haïti à la Galerie du viaduc

Last week I was asked by artist Natalja Scerbina to document an event I think was an excellent initiative; to hold a fundraising exhibit for Haïti. And so last Friday the exhibit ECHO/EKO opened, selling quite well. All proceeds from the sales went to CECI, one of the better organizations involved in providing aid in Haïti. 40 artists participated in the event, and a variety of works were shown, including photography, paintings and in-situ installations. I'll refrain from saying which ones were my favorites - I wanted most of them anyway.

Sevilla

Ronda, Andalusia

Sacromonte

Berlin

One of my favorite pieces of what-the-hell architecture in Berlin.

Alhambra - interior

I left this post nice and big so you can gawk at the details.

Palacio de Pena - Sintra, Portugal

This is a major work of early Romanticism. I think it's exactly what you get when someone rich and powerful doesn't want your typical natural tones and spiked point-to-the-heavens niches. This king wanted a big bright multicolored fairy-tale castle nearly half a kilometer up from the village of Sintra. He painted nymphs in a studio overlooking a very mythological forested hilltop. You can hear him saying: "yeah, mix the styles up, throw in some red, some yellow, some blue, give me some enchanted forests to chase my mistresses in if ever i have any. I want a studio. Oh, and put the whole thing up there."
Where the f*** is my dragon?

Alhambra - tower

Labjeanmarc.com - Live webcast

For approximately two seasons, or two years, I worked on a show called Labjeanmarc.com. Eager to find a way to get in touch with his potential online fans, the comedian Jean-Marc Parent teamed up with Spin Communication and created this "Lab" enabling him to have a more intimate yet public context to, in a way, perfect his punchlines. I was hired by Spin to handle the computer work, to acquire and inquire about all the soft-and-hardware needs, and basically get the show online, live. Broadcasted on a monthly basis, this brought me the bulk of my webcasting experience.

I was also responsible for handling a chat session being held simultaneously - people were able to comment on the show in a live context, and Jean-Marc Parent would invite the fans to react in various ways.

The contract also called for some video montage; though the mixing console had done a general job for the webcast itself, Canoe.ca wanted 2 minute capsules every week to be available on their portal.

Backyards - Cuevas (diptych)

This is part of the ongoing "Backyards" series.
These are photographs of the cuevas, essentially gipsy homes carved out in the mountainside which surrounds the town of Grenada in Andalusia. The gypsies have been moved further up the mountain in the past decades as gentrification takes hold of the various barrios.

Backyards - Oporto triptych

Calanques (official photo for the Libre association de psychanalyse de Montreal)

This is the official photograph for LAPM.ca. They chose this photo for its hazy otherworldly quality; it's a strangely intimate expanse of space.
The view is of a Mediterranean seashore composed of limestone near Marseille, called Les Calanques.
For inquiring minds, here's the Wikipedia entry on that region:
Calanque

Photoshoot: Les installations Bernier

A photoshoot for Les installations Bernier, illustrating their completed landscape and pool sites