Seeing Synergie

By GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

Video artist Louis Veillette knows his way around the history of the local rave scene--he was there waaaay back when. "I went to Solstice in '93 and found the best music I'd heard in years, plus lots of fun, plus a very technological environment that could easily accommodate the stuff I do," Veillette reminisces. Innumerable events and clubs have "accommodated" Veillette's visuals since that fateful rave, from circuit parties like Black & Blue to music festivals like Cream.

Working under the name of Synergie, his latest project is a multimedia application called macDerome, named after former Radio-Canada anchorman Bernard Derome, who Veillette says "became part of Quebec's collective conscience as 'the man who holds the truth and will explain it to us.'" The program's "visual result is a kind of word-stroboscope that becomes a real word-kaleidoscope when used in synch with the music," Veillette explains. He recently returned from an artist's residency in Marseilles where he teamed up with experimental DJ erik M, whose music he incorporated into a video piece which ties in footage of the Ungava Bay dam project. Watch it on the World Film Fest 15 Minutes screens, Saturday, Sept. 2, 6-6:15 p.m. "It's a satiric media collage, made to fit six illbient songs--I'll let you figure it out." We'll try.

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