Agence TOPO and the Réseau Accès culture of the Ville de Montréal present: Detours – Poetics of the City … A mobile art and technology project that will tour 5 Montréal Maisons de la culture as part of the first International Digital Arts Biennial (BIAN) :: May 10 – June 13, 2012 :: Launch: May 10, 2012; 6:00 pm :: Maison de la culture Ahuntsic-Cartierville, 10 300 Rue Lajeunesse, Montréal, metro Henri-Bourassa, Montréal, Canada.

Detours – Poetics of the City is a Web work for mobile platforms created by Taien Ng-Chan and produced by Agence TOPO as part of its 2011-2012 artist in residency program. The work consists of a cartography of various urban itineraries and a visual and literary interpretation of brief moments of exploration, encounters and places, and contact with urban elements which often escape visibility.

Thanks to support by the R̩seau Acc̬s culture of the Ville de Montr̩al, the Detours РPoetics of the City project was accompanied by a series of creative encounters between the initial creators of Detours and citizens from the five Ville de Montr̩al boroughs. Presented in the form of exploratory digital art workshops, these encounters provided participants with the opportunity to use photography, video and sound to catalogue, record and interpret their neighbourhood in a new light. These workshops led to the creation of Web clips and new interactive itineraries which expanded the initial work. These itineraries will be launched in the presence of the participants and the public during the opening which is scheduled for May 10, 2012 at 6 PM, at the Maison de la culture Ahuntsic-Cartierville located at 10 300 rue Lajeunesse, metro Henri-Bourassa.

In the Maisons de la culture, the Detours – Poetics of the City will be set up according to the requirements of each site and will be displayed on computer terminals, as a projection or on digital tablets. Presented as part of the first edition of the first International Digital Arts Biennial (BIAN), the Detours project will be shown from May 10 to June 13 in the participating Maisons de la culture. Please see the Agence TOPO website for details about locations and show-times.

A fruitful partnership

This project was produced by Agence TOPO as part of its cultural mediation activities and supported by the Réseau Accès Culture of the Ville de Montréal in collaboration with the Maison de la culture Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the Centre des loisirs de Saint-Laurent, the Maison de la culture de Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension, the Maison de la culture Ahuntsic-Cartierville, the community education organization Au coup de pouce Centre-Sud and the Maison de la culture Frontenac. This project received funding from the Ville de Montréal and the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition Féminine du Québec within the framework of the Entente sur le développement culturel de Montréal.

Agence TOPO is a Montréal-based artist-run centre dedicated to the production, dissemination and distribution of multimedia works that explore new narrative modes within an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach.