we are individuals, we are not special (2022) – electronic ecosystem
we are individuals, we are not special is an electronic ecosystem where guests encounter four different species of interdependent insect-circuits. They are coexisting in the space, all with their specific sonic, light, and movement responses and triggers. Structures emerge from the interactions, patterns of behaviours form as beings tune into each other. Guests are invited to observe, but also to recognize their own role in this tiny society, their membership to the ecosystem. Guests affect the insect-circuits: by talking and moving around, they affect their response, the way they influence each other. The visitors, in turn, are also affected by the critters: they are not ‘alive’ in a traditional biological sense, but they still entice reflection, invite care, tempt us to attribute personalities to them.
The work asks us to reconsider our relationship to nonhuman beings (whether they be biological or not), and to resist the urge to entertain an idea of nonhuman animals, insects and machines as identical, standardized, and non-individual.
Photo : Martin Morissette – Festival Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) – Mai 2023