Virutorium
The KIT Collaboration + Robert Saucier

Virutorium is the second joint project by The KIT Collaboration + Robert Saucier. Their first project, Infrasense, was a large-scale sound installation that toured 11 galleries in Canada, UK, USA and Belgium from 2004 – 2006. This work dealt with the cultural economy of paranoia surrounding the word ‘virus’ in its biological (sexual), computational (coding) and capital (marketing) forms.

Virutorium is an interactive robotic sound installation. This kinetic and aural work advances themes originated in the Infrasense by highlighting the influence of viral systems and models on bodily and computer based communication systems, modes of capitalism and socio-sexual relations. This project ultimately contemplates how we construct cultural memories about dangerous, transient entities.

About the Artists

The KIT Collaboration has produced numerous interactive robotic installations for galleries and museums, sound and video projects for new-media festivals, and site-specific works for offsite locations across Europe, the Middle East, North America, Australasia and Japan since 1995. Invited to undertake residencies in universities, sculpture parks and production units, the KIT Collaboration develops its projects from a wide range of situated practices. // kitcollaboration.net

Originally from the province of New Brunswick, Robert Saucier currently lives and works in Montréal, Canada, where he is a professor of sculpture and media art at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM). Since he began his professional practice in 1979, Saucier has produced artworks for many solo exhibitions and has been curated into group exhibitions for galleries, museums, and festivals in Canada, USA and Europe. He is an active member of Hexagram, (Art and Technology Research and Development Centre) in Montréal, which funded portions of his recent research in the robotic arts.

Image courtesy the artists.