Joins us for the opening of I am vertical (but I would rather be horizontal)!

On the occasion of iMAL's 25th anniversary this ‘introspective’ remembers and reflects while looking forward, longing for more horizontal and harmonic models, as Plath does in her eponymous poem. The artworks explore the possibilities of digital creation not seeking to scale at the expense of planetary boundaries.

On july 1st, iMAL will open its doors to celebrate this milestone with a rich and engaging program including guided tours, performances, artist talks and moments of collective reflection.

A conversation guided by a fully automated yet hand crafted question roulette, with iMAL founder and former director Yves Bernard and the team that curated the exhibition I am Vertical (but I would rather be horizontal)
Speakers: Marloes de Valk, Yves Bernard, Aymeric Mansoux, and the iMAL team

The presentation will be followed by a guided tour with the curatorial team and the artists: Cécile Babiole, Peter Beyls, Quentin Destieu & Sylvain Huguet (Collectif Dardex), Sunjoo Lee, Leonard Leyens, Val Macé, Raquel Meyers, Navid Navab and Claire Williams

Organism: In Turbulence by Navid Navab

A 1910 Casavant pipe organ is rescued from impending gentrification at a heritage site in Montréal and brought back to life as Organism, an experimental instrument and investigative platform for stochastic patterning via turbulent processes of formation. In this acoustic solo performance, Navid Navab improvises with Organism to explore ways in which its turbulent thresholds manifest unstable timbres and intricate sonic self-organization.
Organism destabilizes the socio-historical tonality of the organ to liberate and sound its hidden turbulent materiality, robotically unleashing timbres unheard after centuries of sonic restraint. The rescued pipes and their pneumatic architecture have been carefully modified to remove aerodynamic ‘edge-tone’ stabilizations that historically aimed to eliminate turbulent flow and its uncontrollable sound world.
During the concert, Organism’s slowly-shifting metastable states allow for the pipes’ energetic thresholds to transductively fall into and out of compatibility with one another, turning each pipe into a vortex-shedding, edge-tone jumping, theatre of spectra and tone. With no digital sounds, Navab aerodynamically shapes the resulting ecology of interdependent timbres into emergent realms, traversing microsonic polyrhythms, post-rock overspill and swampy soundscapes.

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