Local 24

Local 24 is a media installation based on the temporary occupancy of a vacant store inside a Laval shopping centre, specifically, ‘local 24‘ in Les Galeries Laval, formerly occupied by TVGL, a community television station. The installation consists of a video projection with audio in the form of a radio broadcast, and is based on the artist’s on-site research into the characteristics of the space. Over the course of seven consecutive evenings, the artist will animate the installation in real time as part of an hours-long performance.

The artist’s work involves the division of the site into two separate spaces: one which he temporarily occupies and activates, and which is physically closed off from the public, and a second space that is open to the public. The artist’s actions within the closed space are transmitted to an “unpredictable” audience (shopping mall customers and impromptu viewers) via a live audio-visual media projection. This temporary occupancy of the space, inviting viewers inside a media structure anchored within a site, puts Local 24 at the confluence of various artistic practices.

By using audio, television and film production techniques that go slightly against their traditional purposes, Local 24 demonstrates a keen sensitivity to the mediation processes that structure the transmission of information. The proposed grammar of video images is as much akin to the notion of “live cinema” as it is to the traditions of video art that emphasize the “device” aspect of the medium, and to the performance art practices that structure time through a predetermined routine rather than the interpretation of a dramatic script.

Local 24 offers viewers an alternative listening experience reminiscent of, while remaining distinct from, the contemporary digital media experience. Also, by capturing the radio waves that haunt the shopping center’s corridors, each viewer participates in the activation of the work and is given access to a liminal space at the crossroads of multiple registers – spatial, urban, video and radio. Bring your FM tuner and headphones to hear the soundtrack.

A limited number of radio tuners will be available on-site. Some mobile devices come with an FM tuner.