Yujiapu

Live audiovisual performance with twelve 16-mm projectors

During the winter of 2015 Karl Lemieux travelled to China with BJ Nilsen and a small camera crew to make a piece about the country’s infamous ghost cities. The work presented is made with images and sounds recorded in the city of Yujiapu, near Tianjin, where ancestral fishing villages have been destroyed to make way for a multibillion-dollar real estate project that was to become the new financial district of the area. The entire city was developed in the style of New York's Manhattan district, but never finished and has been left uninhabited for over six years. The film uses the lines and frames of the buildings of Yujiapu and the lines and the frames of the film strip to create abstract elements that slowly reveal an incredibly desolate urban landscape.

Karl Lemieux’s (CA) films, installations, and performances have screened internationally in museums, galleries, music venues and film festivals. He is more commonly known as the ninth member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a Montreal music collective for which he does live 16mm film projections. His collaborations include works with sound artists such as BJ Nilsen, Philip Jeck, Francisco Lopez, Hyena Hive, Roger Tellier-Craig and Alexandre St-Onges. Together with Daïchi Saïto he founded Double Négatif, a Montreal-based collective, dedicated to the production and dissemination of experimental films.

BJ Nilsen (SE) is a composer and sound artist based in Amsterdam. His work primarily focuses on the sounds of nature and how they affect humans. In his recent work, he has explored the urban acoustic realm and industrial geography in the Arctic region of Norway and Russia. His original scores and soundtracks have featured in theatre, dance performances and film, in collaborations with Chris Watson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Stilluppsteypa and others. In 2017 he celebrates 27 years as a recording artist. Editions Mego released Massif Trophies – An Exploration of Acoustic Environments in the Alpine Landscape.

Photo: Sonic Acts 2017