Starting next Tuesday with its traditional wine and stinky cheese party from 5–10 p.m., Studio XX launches the Maid in Cyberspace festival at the Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault (2022 Sherbrooke E.).

In its sixth year, this five-day festival features Web art by women with a wide range of voices. There’s the urban viewpoint captured and transmitted by wireless cameras connected to moving bicycles in Michelle Teran’s 2.4_interference_interaction to Nunatinnit Nomadic Media Lab’s daily musings from Baffin Island, aided by the latest satellite telephone and mobile computing technologies.

New this year is the Free Radical Concert Series, featuring bands, DJs and electroacoustic composers every night starting at 9:30 p.m. Also new is the Radical Youth Radio Camp, where students in grades 9–11 can sign up for the three-day after-school course about airwaves, building transmitters, sound production and producing radio features. Highlights will be broadcast on CKUT 90.3 FM. For the complete festival schedule see www.studioxx.org or call 845-7934. : » Christine Redfern

Visitors to the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, are often greeted with the zany fact that if they were to look at each piece of art in the collection for one minute, it would take seven years to see it all. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has borrowed 75 minutes of St. Pete’s fame, with a collection of French avant-garde works opening this Friday, Jan. 31.

Voyage Into Myth: French Painting from Gaugin to Matisse focuses on works created from 1887–1913, when impressionism morphed into modernism. The show boasts heavyweights such as Bonnard, Cézanne, Denis, Derain, Picasso and Rodin - among a few other lesser knowns - so expect some familiar-looking pieces. And with familiarity comes the gazillions of dollars that the art is worth, so much so that it was flown overseas in 10 separate airplanes to avoid one massive loss. Runs until April 27. : » Matthew Woodley

This Sunday, Feb. 2, word fiends face a hard choice. At Casa del Popolo (4873 St-Laurent), recent Mirror noisemaker Mia Rose Brooks launches her first book and CD, Throw the Captain Overboard. She’ll be performing with Anni Lawrence on cello, Peter Burton on double bass and guitarist Stefan Christoff. “The book/CD is based in storytelling,” Christoff explains. “But at the same time it’s addressing very important issues to people in general - police brutality, the destruction of our rural lands in Canada, the creation of megafarms - discussed in a subtle and beautiful way.” The launch also features the bluegrass jam unit An Under the Snow Grass Band, poet Kaie Kellough, and DJ DXTR X., 8 p.m., free admission ($10 for the book).

The same night, at Café Sarajevo (2080 Clark), fellow-noisemaker Jon Paul Fiorentino co-hosts (with Julia Tausch) the launch of Alissa York’s novel Mercy. It also features Winnipeg poet Dennis Cooley and Robert Allen. 8 p.m., also free. : » Vincent Tinguely

Southern solidarité: Pop quiz time: what country or political party does this flag represent? Answer: None… yet. Montreal-based artist Jeremiah Woolsey created the banner in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of his hometown, Mobile, Alabama, which was originally founded by two Quebec brothers. Drawing on both Québécois culture and Confederate rebellion, the flag could represent a few different political factions, and the artist is not opposed. “Whether it’s a sovereigntist flag or a separatist flag, it is unquestionably a flag for the anarchist, the independent thinker, the shit disturber and the rebel in all of us.” To get one of your own, or for more info, write to rebel_flag649@hotmail.com. : » Amy German

Metal motion: Lauren Degilio choreographs and performs with a handful of other dancers in Flesh, a show with a big, steel, monkey-bar-like structure as primary prop. See them swing around at Tangente (840 Cherrier), Jan. 30–Feb. 2, 7:30 p.m. • Best on show: Recipients of the Pierre Ayot and Louis Comptois awards for excellence in visual arts show selected works at the Maison de la Culture Côte-des-Neiges (5290 Côte-des-Neiges) until Feb. 23. :

Artistat: Number of countries represented in Quebec City’s annual Mois Multi, a totally 21st-century art fest incorporating Web, electronic, digital and interactive art (Jan. 31–Feb. 28, (418) 524-7577 or www.meduse.org/recto-verso/moismulti for info): 9 :

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