by MATTHEW WOODLEY

When Arscénique Productions produce, they tend to go very huge. Last year's Art Bizarre event, which coincided with Pop Montreal, was a barrage of visual art, music, projections and fashion best described as "Lynchian" that took over two bars and reportedly left people with those spirals in their eyes that you only see in cartoons. Under a year later, they're out to overwhelm the senses even more with a multidisciplinary event known as Love & the Machine. Brainchild of co-ordinators so efficient they can only be part machines themselves, Christine La Fontaine and Jessica Darlington, L&M sets the scene at SAT for sensory stimulus and general good times. Expect fashion from corset queens Ritual Designs and jewellery maker Lydia Lukidis, an interactive installation by Scott MacLeod, light projection by Paul Werne, music by NWAR, Freeworm, Vitaminsforyou, Radarsat-1 and more, and techno-fused paintings, photos, mobiles and video created by yet more. Through e-mail machinery, the Mirror got a taste of the love to come from Christine La Fontaine

Mirror: You say that Love & the Machine aims to re-incorporate the organic into the hard, structured surroundings of city life. Could you expand?

Christine La Fontaine: Love is soft and mushy yet complicated. The city is hard, concrete, but strictly predictable. When you slap the soft and mushy with a piece of hard concrete, you occasionally ignite sparks that you never knew could exist - but really we're trying to let a crowd of organic beings roam free within the confines of techno-aesthetics, you'll understand once you get there.

M: People in the country are often busy chopping wood and listening to the radio, so you don't see many multidisciplinary events with interactive installations and vinyl clothing. Do you think that this kind of expression is exclusively the product of an urban setting?

CL: I think "country folk" are a lot weirder than people tend to give them credit for. It's definitely a lot harder to reach a certain critical mass of people who share similar eccentricities when the population density is so much lower, and of course many of the bizarre will eventually escape to cities to showcase their kink in anonymous freedom. As for the vinyl clothing, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at what Ritual Designs is preparing. Vinyl no longer resides as the central medium of wear for this event (though fanatics of the stuff will still find their needs fulfilled). They're opting for a more dystopian feel, this time around.

Apocalypse soon

M: If the lights went out during Love & the Machine, do you think the people in attendance would be savvy and resourceful enough to live off the land for a few weeks until things returned to normal?

CL: I think we would eventually turn to cannibalism, with the Ritual Designs girls and Lydia Lukidis leading the way, and there'd be plenty of Ketel One vodka at the SAT to keep warm. Paul Warne's installation would definitely aid in clothing the entire population and the music will at once trigger and subside the insanity.

M: In what year will machines fully take over?

CL: Have you been watching? They've been here for years. I didn't even have to speak to you to get through this interview. I simply hit small qwerty squares and they communicate for me, though they have a strange way of being extremely literal about everything. We live so completely immersed in the machinery around us that it's not really possible to conceive of it all at once - it's okay, though. Machines are usually rational, and only madmen want to rule the world.

M: In what year will machines be able to love?

CL: September 3, 2005. You just wait.

Love & The Machine kicks off at the Sat (1192 St-Laurent) on Saturday, Sept. 3, with a visual vernissage from 5–7 p.m., a fashion show beginning at 9:30 and music and projections all night long