Quarantined
I often imagine the dystopian state the world would be in without games and stories. We got a glimpse of the necessity of entertainment this year when the only thing getting us through the long quarantined days was our gaming consoles. When I wasn’t playing my Nintendo Switch, I was building a series of drawings anchored on the theme of games. Using the cinema where I work as a structure for my collection because of its arcade space, I created narrative pieces depicting the coexistence of arcades and architecture.
There’s a building in the middle of Laval, Quebec, in the shape of a giant flying saucer like the kind illustrated in photos from the 1950’s for claimed observations of extraterrestrial spacecrafts. The only thing alien about it, however, is how much it stands out in the landscape of the commercial complex among the restaurants and stores. This space ship landed in the suburbs in the year 2000 and operated by Famous Players under the guise of a cinema named Colossus. It was acquired by Cineplex in 2005, and had its name changed to Cineplex Laval, but it is still widely remembered as Colossus by the community of Laval.
It is definitely a commercial building with a goal for profit, and cannot be denied of its capitalist nature. Paradoxically, the cinema is responsible for the dissemination of artworks in the format of movies and films and I would go as far as to compare it to a commercial art gallery.
This gallery is definitely not a white cube. It is styled in a retro-futuristic design reminiscent of middle twentieth century sci-fi/fantasy cinema aesthetics; think Star Wars or Star Trek. It used to have more extraterrestrial interior decoration such as cliche green alien ticket kiosks and circuit-board-patterned carpeting, but has since adopted a more modern interior design. This shift is a reflection of evolving business and customer taste with a goal for profitability.
Separated in three parts: concession stand, arcade and auditoriums, the cinema is a hub for entertainment. Each division offers a unique aesthetic that I translate in two-dimensional mediums. In my latest body of work, I am focusing on depictions of the cinemascape, a word I use to encompass the architecture and interior landscape of the movie theatre, to create abstracted snapshots of the arcades.
If you came of age in the 70’s or 80’s, you probably have experienced the thrill of going to the arcade. The popularity of arcades fluctuates throughout history with new machines appearing throughout the decades: Skee Ball, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Pong. The golden age of the arcade is long gone, and is practically a myth nowadays with today’s youth playing their games on smartphones or video game consoles in the comfort of their living rooms.
I use these relics as instigators for stories through titles, composition or materiality. I layer light, arcades and architecture in the subdivided picture plane to create depth in the story. Using colouring pencil and marker, I replicate the high gloss of the plastic surface on most arcade gaming consoles, the metallic sheen, the scratches, the radiating light from the neons hitting these surfaces. Thus, my work often shifts from narrative and formal pictures.
In The Event that Destroyed the Dominant Lifeform (2020), a dinosaur from a Jurassic Park arcade is next to an overhead incandescent bulb as if the bright, flaming meteor is about to hit the planet, when in reality these are just elements found in the cinemascape. In Typhoon (2020), I’m interested in the cadmium orange plastic against the ultramarine background in a saturated, complementary and poetic manner.