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 (NSCAD), is a public university, public art school, art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution tha ...

in 1974. In the 1980s, he received a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degree in visual studies from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. Courchesne 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 MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

at its inception in 1985. Courchesne 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 adva ...

at the

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) 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-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

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 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, while he was on assignment in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

for a "Québec–New York" cultural event, Courchesne happened to be videotaping the smoldering North Tower of the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...

as the second plane hit the South Tower. The 23-minute video of his experience was made available at

CBC/Radio-Canada The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its English-language and F ...

's archives. In 1994, he exhibited his work in a solo show at the

Museum of Modern Art in New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

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 (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is located in National Battlefields Park and is a complex of four buildings. Three of them were purpose-built for ...

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 former munitions factory in Karlsruhe, Germany. The ZKM (Germa ...

(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, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Jap ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. * 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 t ...

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

. * 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, each with a prize amount of $25,000. Created in 2000 by then Governor General ...

. * 2022 - awarded an honorary doctorate from NSCAD.

References

External links