From May 23 to 27, 2022, the 2nd edition of the NUMIX LAB Canada, the French-language meeting place for digital cultural immersion. We had the pleasure of contributing to its organization alongside Images du réel and XN Québec (association of Quebec producers of digital experiences). For this edition, we assembled a European delegation of 40 museum, audiovisual and digital professionals from France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Belgium. With this delegation, we discovered a diversity of cultural venues, projects and innovative practices in the cities of Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa, and met with this teeming creative ecosystem. This article summarizes the highlights of a week rich in impressions, visits and encounters.
Impressions day 1: Open up to collaboration to innovate.
On May 23, we began our journey by discovering two of Quebec City’s cultural institutions: Le Diamant and the Musée de la civilisation.
Le Diamant is an interdisciplinary cultural venue created at the instigation of Robert Lepage. With his company Ex Machina, this renowned playwright, director and set designer has initiated numerous creative and artistic projects combining the performing arts, music, audiovisuals, singing and new technologies.
Opening in 2019, this magnificent performing arts venue presents some twenty shows a year, at the crossroads of genres and audiences: plays, operas, but also wrestling matches (a kind of institutional recognition of wrestling, thus promoting diversification and cross-fertilization of audiences). Le Diamant is also a place of residence and creation. Ex-Machina designs shows in which technology is used in a slow, iterative and experimental process, so as to integrate it as naturally as possible into the company’s spaces and creations.
INSPIRATION 1
The teams at the helm of cultural venues such as Le Diamant are committed to opening up their programming to broaden and diversify their audiences. They are also prepared to dedicate space to creative work, and give the necessary time to experiment and iterate, so as to integrate technology into their creative processes as effectively as possible.
The delegation then headed for the Musée de la Civilisation de Québec. Opened in 1988, the museum currently offers a particularly varied and high-quality cultural program:
- An exhibition between art and science (Vast Body),
- A more historical one (Pompeii),
- A more scientific and societal one (O shit! Yes, you read that right
- And, finally, a 360° immersive experience to share a day with a Cree family from Waswanipi (Eeyou Itschee).
Each of these exhibitions was the subject of a particularly innovative collaborative approach:
- Vast Body. Mouvement infini was created with Vincent Morrisset and his studio AATOAA. Various interactive devices between man and machine at the crossroads of dance, artificial intelligence and deep fakes are accessible.
- Pompeii. Immortal City was produced in collaboration with Tempora, a Belgian exhibition design company. The itinerary and visitor experience, as well as a number of digital and immersive devices, were designed by the museum and now complete the offering for this touring exhibition.
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Ô Merde ! enabled us to create various interactive devices with CREO, a Quebec-based creative studio with expertise in digital experiments for scientific purposes.
- Finally, Eeyou Itschee enabled the creation of a 360° projection experience under a tent (acting as a dome) with La Boîte Rouge VIF, an aboriginal non-profit organization. This experience was also an opportunity to test a new way of broadcasting Wi-Fi using light: Li-Fi, with the Lifineo company.
To encourage and structure this innovation strategy, the museum has set up a laboratory: the Creaform M-Lab.
Inspired by the spirit of openness, testing and experimentation at the Muséomix event in 2013, the aim of this laboratory is to welcome visitors, cultural institutions and companies to prototype and disseminate innovations that can improve the way the museum welcomes and supports its visitors, as well as benefiting other players more widely.
INSPIRATION 2
The programming of a cultural venue can be an opportunity to test and experiment with new, innovative projects. These projects are carried out in close conjunction with an ambitious strategic innovation plan: 60 employees in the Fixed Assets, Digital and Technologies department! Although it would be difficult to transpose this program across the Atlantic, given the scale of the resources deployed, the laboratory is a tangible expression of this program, which fosters the realization of particularly innovative projects and contributes to their dissemination in a truly virtuous logic.
Impressions day 2: Creating the right conditions for innovation by equipping and networking.
Back in Montreal on Tuesday, we visited the National Film Board’s audiovisual creation studios and the Quartier des Spectacles, a venue for the dissemination of digital works in public spaces. These two visits bear witness to the particularly substantial investment made by public authorities, at both federal and city level, in various infrastructures to promote Quebec’s digital and audiovisual creativity. The day ended with the NUMIX AWARDS gala, a major occasion for rewarding this creativity, but also federating and animating a particularly abundant ecosystem.
In the morning, a visit to the Quartier des Spectacles showcased the city of Montreal’s ability and political will to transform an entire neighborhood through quality cultural offerings as part of its urban renewal program – $200 million has been invested in this project. To achieve this ambition, the entire district has been equipped with network infrastructure, cables, ramps, customizable furniture and more. These infrastructures contribute to making the district a cultural destination and venue capable of easily hosting some forty large-scale events, installations and digital itineraries. These various events resonate with the programming of the many cultural institutions located in this km² of city: 80% of tickets for shows sold in Montreal come from this district. As a result, the district’s various public squares are regularly used for off-site activities. Last but not least, the more recently created Quartier des Spectacles International subsidiary is now responsible for distributing the artistic and cultural productions hosted in this unusual public space to other cities.
INSPIRATION 3
Setting up infrastructures in the public space and, above all, animating an entire district in close collaboration with its residents, shopkeepers, cultural institutions and users can foster a cultural ferment that makes accessible (and, potentially, exportable) quality programming, both entertaining and institutional, open to everyone.
The day was also an opportunity to discover theNational Film Board ‘s newly-created creative studios, which are part of the federal agency responsible for encouraging and supporting the audiovisual creativity of Canadian studios. With a budget of $1.9 million dedicated to French-language interactive productions, the NFB supports the creation of a body of work, from study and experimentation to actual implementation. To this end, the federal agency provides project developers with expert, highly specialized staff, experimental facilities, animation and editing studios, and distribution outlets. The NFB has supported a number of projects, such as Chomsky VS Chomsky (a virtual reality experience in multi-player mode, in which players engage in a conversation with an AI about artificial intelligence), or the creation of a digital art installation at the Montreal Botanical Garden, on a decontaminated plot of land, to promote scientific data.
INSPIRATION 4
Public investment in infrastructure to support creation can encourage the development of ambitious artistic projects.
The day ended with the NUMIX AWARDS gala. For this year’s event, 500 professionals were in attendance, and numerous prizes (31 for 93 finalist projects) were awarded in recognition of their creativity and capacity for innovation in terms of podcasts, museum educational systems, virtual reality experiences, video games and more. Over and above the conviviality of the event, such an award highlights the ability of a professional organization such as Xn Québec to federate and animate a network of multidisciplinary skills. Such a network binds together the diversity of these creators, enabling them to build up a genuine common platform of expertise, in a spirit of “co-competition” (a term often used during our visit), conducive to asserting their interests with public authorities and export markets alike.
INSPIRATION 5
The work of numerous professional organizations, such as Xn Québec, has helped to structure and bring together a particularly powerful and diversified digital cultural industry. The PRIX NUMIX is a way of communicating with creators, but also of bringing them together to make their issues and specificities known to public authorities, and to help them promote and disseminate Quebec’s excellence internationally.
Impressions day 3: Innovating in the exploitation and distribution of immersive digital experiences.
Wednesday was devoted to sharing a fascinating study on the challenges, advantages and obstacles of distributing virtual and augmented reality works at festivals, in cultural venues and as part of referencing actions on stores. In addition to sharing this study, the day was also an opportunity to discover a space dedicated to immersive digital exhibitions (OASIS immersion), an incubator dedicated to cultural and creative industries (Zù) and the premises of the famous creative studio (Moment Factory).
Opened two years ago and located in the Palais des congrès de Montréal in the heart of downtown Montreal, OASIS immersion hosts a number of immersive digital exhibitions. These exhibitions are the subject of a rich and varied program, the fruit of demanding artistic collaborations with, by way of illustration, creative studios such as Normal Studio or Adrien M & Claire B. Unlike other venues similar to OASIS, the exhibitions and experiences on offer change with the day and the audience: immersive lunch, afternoon exhibition, evening DJ set. A true place of experience and life, the proposed tour also takes into account visitors and their needs in terms of both mediation and comfort: benches, seating, mediation areas, etc. In view of the increasing emergence of proposals of this type in Canada and internationally, and to nurture this quality of programming, the OASIS team is constantly on the lookout for new collaborations and new models for international distribution.
This ambition for renewal is also shared by the Moment Factory creative studio. Founded in 2001, Moment Factory has made a name for itself with a wide range of projects: digital scenography for shows, outdoor digital tours, museum installations, sound and light shows and playful installations in public spaces… This visit was an opportunity to discover the studio’s prototyping spaces, where a wide range of practices and technologies are being tested: tactile walls, interactive projections, individualized content, etc.
The day was also an opportunity to discover Zu‘s spaces. A flagship creative hub in Montreal, Zu is home not only to companies, but also to an incubator dedicated to the cultural, creative and entertainment industries. While all the companies housed here are linked by the same technological ambition, they come from a particularly wide range of sectors: performing arts, TV, cinema, video games, music, sport, etc. Created in 2018, the incubator has supported 79 start-ups (with a 92% survival rate). 100 mentors/experts and some thirty institutional and private partners support these companies in the creation of their offerings (creation and production tools made available to them), in the distribution and monetization of their content or the engagement of their audiences.
INSPIRATION 6
The day illustrated 3 very different strategies for distributing and disseminating digital cultural projects:
- OASIS illustrates the first of these strategies. It is based on a “location-based” approach. A location favors the dissemination and experimentation of rich and varied collaborations with a large audience, with a view to exporting them to other locations.
- Moment Factory, the second. It’s a studio that experiments and tests innovative projects, making them available to their customers through an R&D approach in the form of prototypes.
- Zú, the third. Supporting and accompanying innovative digital cultural projects through an active mentoring policy, and coupling them with a rich and teeming ecosystem as part of a bootstrapping approach.
Impressions day 4: Innovating through co-production.
OASIS Immersion’s “face-to-face” approach to innovation, and Moment Factory’s “prototyping” approach to innovation, were echoed by the delegation on day 4, when they visited LAB7 and the Society for Arts and Technology.
LAB7 is the laboratory of the world-renowned 7 Doigts, a creative live performance and circus company founded in 2002 by Cirque du Soleil alumni. The laboratory’s ambition is to carry out applied research projects designed to push back the boundaries of creativity by bringing together a variety of skills and professions: creators/companies, entertainment designers, producers, broadcasters, researchers and public authorities. These various collaborations are housed in a 6,000 m² experimental facility for prototyping shows, producing or broadcasting immersive or multi-reality experiences. Projection, capture and broadcasting equipment in 2 studios (estimated at 2 million dollars) enable these experiences to be tested, for example, to capture movement, work in 3D, and innovate in the production, broadcast or monetization of shows. By way of illustration, LAB7 has worked on :
- The creation of an augmented itinerary (in collaboration with OHRIZON),
- Projection of immersive works with synchronized choreography in real time (project carried out for the centenary of Canadian painter Riopelle),
- The creation of NFT collections with the Drop the act project, aimed at capturing artists’ acrobatic movements in 3D and offering them for sale in the metaverse,
- Broadcasting multi-reality shows (like Didier Strowe’s concert, offered live, in livestream, in virtual reality and in a video game via real-time reproduction).
In the late afternoon, we visited the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Although not a laboratory but a venue for the dissemination of digital art, experimentation is also at the heart of its programming. Opened in 1996, SAT has been a pioneer in digital arts in all its forms. A multidisciplinary venue par excellence, it offers a café, a foodlab, a concert hall, an exhibition space and a dome to screen documentaries, films, immersive works or host DJ performances accompanied by videos (VJing). To fuel this programming, a co-production approach has been implemented through calls for projects (among 60 recently submitted applications, 15 have been selected). Drawing on the wealth of its production, the SAT has also developed a virtual training space, a digital arts training campus and open-source projects to make them available to other cultural venues.
INSPIRATION 7
Experimentation at LAB7 and SAT is driven by a strong sense of openness to co-production. Two complementary approaches are illustrated: the call for projects approach (as used at SAT) and the commissioning approach (as used at LAB7).
Impressions day 5: Innovating to support the transition of cultural venues.
The last day of the trip ended in Ottawa with a visit to two federal museums: the Canadian Museum of Nature and the Canadian Museum of History.
Housed in Canada’s first museum building (inaugurated in 1912), the Canadian Museum of Nature is home to a particularly wide range of collections (fossils, mammals, water, land, living things, birds, Arctic) and pursues a policy of regular exhibitions to educate and engage the public in the protection of nature. In this respect, the Planet Ice exhibition provided an opportunity to test a number of digital devices designed to enhance the exhibition’s scientific content. The first, in collaboration with Moment Factory, the second with the National Film Board. The first, interactive and fun, offers a “magic moment” hidden in the exhibition: visitors are invited to make an animal projected on one of the museum walls appear. The second, more didactic, broadcasts various videos on natural and human life in the Arctic directly onto ice from the pack ice. In contrast to the Museum of Civilization or the Canadian Museum of History, the Museum of Nature’s approach to digital technology is defined more by opportunities for collaboration, or by the relevance of a technological contribution to the exhibition’s purpose and the desired visitor experience.
This busy week ended with a final visit to the Canadian Museum of History. With an impressively rich tour itinerary, the museum is developing numerous digital projects in support of its collections. To discover them, a preliminary visit to the collection areas was organized, followed by workshops with the teams to discover the diversity of the systems developed: interactive games, online tours, immersive systems, etc. Although the museum’s human resources are much more limited than those of the Musée de la civilisation, the will, expertise and enthusiasm of the teams have helped create a shared and ambitious digital policy for the institution.
INSPIRATION 8
A museum’s digital policy can be implemented in a variety of ways. The Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City has opted for a team and substantial resources, with a laboratory to materialize this commitment. The willingness to invest in digital technology as opportunities arise, as is potentially the case with the Musée de la Nature. The involvement and cross-functional commitment of teams to internalize the design of digital projects in a shared and coordinated way, this would be the option taken by the Canadian Museum of History.
In conclusion, these 5 days highlighted the know-how and expertise of French-speaking digital experience designers (from Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and France). The diversity of approaches taken by cultural players in the museum, performing arts and audiovisual sectors in terms of experimentation, production, distribution and exploitation of digital experiences was also particularly well illustrated. We were also struck by the networking effected by professional organizations, and the substantial support provided by public authorities, notably through Quebec’s digital cultural plan. However, while this article is dense, many questions remain open as to the transposition of some of these practices to Europe: practices are specific, resources are allocated differently and the digital sector is structured differently.
What’s more, a writing exercise of this kind can only capture part of our impressions of the trip. The exchanges within the delegation, the many presentations and the meetings with our French-speaking counterparts enriched us just as much. Many thanks to Xn Québec (Sophie, Geneviève, Juliette, Isha, Stéphanie, etc.), Images du réel (Christophe and Josée) and all our partners. We look forward to the 3rd European edition of NUMIX LAB in the autumn!
