Luc Courchesne D.F.A. (1952) is a Canadian artist and academic known for his work in

interactive art Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist ...

Life

Luc Courchesne was born May 20, 1952, in Saint-Léonard-d'Aston, Quebec. He received a bachelor's degree in design from the

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design or NSCAD, is a public art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that offers bachelor's and master's degrees. The univ ...

in 1974. In the 1980s, he received a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree in visual studies from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Courschene was a member of the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

at its inception in 1985. Courschene was a professor of

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

at the

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (UdeM; ; translates to University of Montreal) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-de ...

Work

Courchesne is known for his interactive video installations and environments. He began working in interactive video in 1984 when he co-authored ''Elastic Movies'', and since has produced many installation works and image series. In his early works such as ''Family Portrait'' and ''Portrait One'' (1989), the viewer interacts with the a human image programmed to engage in a lifelike conversation with the viewer. His later work ''Landscape One'' (1997) surrounds the viewer with a 360 degree immersive and interactive video projection of a park. On September 11, 2001, while he was on assignment in New York City for a "Québec–New York" cultural event, Courchesne happened to be videotaping the smoldering North Tower of the World Trade Center as the second plane hit the South Tower. The 23-minute video of his experience on that fateful day was available at CBC/Radio-Canada archive

In 1994, he exhibited his work in a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York titled ''Project 47: Luc Courchesne''. and has had numerous later solo and group shows, both nationally and internationally. In 2022, ''Luc Courchesne - Observateur du monde'', an exhibition, was shown at the Carrefour des Arts, Université de Montréal. He is represented by gallery Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain in Montreal. He has been awarded several artist-in-residence positions internationally. Since 1996, he has been a member of the Society for Arts and Technology in Montreal. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1996 to 2005, then Vice-Chairman from 2005 to 2008.

Collections

Courchesne's work is included in the permanent collection of the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ( en, National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is situated in Battlefield Park and is a complex consisting of four bui ...

and elsewhere as well as in many institutions internationally such as the

Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989. and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former muni ...

(ZKM) in Karlsruhe.

Awards

* 1997 - his installation ''Paysage no. 1'' won the Grand Prize of the first biennale of the

NTT InterCommunication Center NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) is a media art gallery in Tokyo Opera City Tower in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. * 1999 - honorary mention in the category of "Interactive Art" of the Prix

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the ...

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

. * 2010 - member of the RCA by way of their nomination process. * 2019 - received the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas, Quebec's highest award in visual arts. * 2021 -

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

. * 2022 - awarded an honorary doctorate from NSCAD.

References

External links