Montréal: Luminothérapie

Every day until February 2, starting at nightfall, the luminous installation Entre les rangs turns Place des Festivals into a wonderland, while Trouve Bob, a monumental series of seven animations, transforms the Quartier’s building façades into a city-sized animated game.

With Entre les rangs, Place des Festivals is transformed into a futuristic wheat field created by a multidisciplinary team led by the Kanva architecture firm.

Fluttering atop 28,500 flexible stems that bend in the winter wind, white reflectors scatter light from the projectors in Place des Festivals. Right in the heart of the city, these stylised stalks of wheat dance and shimmer to a musical score by Patrick Watson, inviting passers-by to enjoy a dreamy stroll among them.

Inspired by the shape and layout of the rangs, the system of land division used in New France, the designers of the Kanva architecture firm, working in collaboration with Udo Design, Côté Jardin, Patrick Watson, Boris Dempsey and Pierre Fournier, created a large-scale metaphor that beautifully evokes the shimmering of vast fields of wheat in the wintery city.

Bob is a unique character who likes to hide in the playful animated worlds projected on seven large walls in Quartier des Spectacles. Trouve Bob is a little like a nursery rhyme for pedestrians: it is a gigantic game accompanied by the kind of 8-bit music typical of early video game consoles. Bob travels through seven different fantastical worlds, piquing the curiosity of passers-by, who have to find his hiding place at three difficulty levels.

On the first level, Bob is stationary and obvious; in the second, he is stationary but heavily camouflaged; and in the third, he’s in motion.

Hiding among the robots of Futureville on the façade of the Grande Bibliothèque, travelling to unknown lands on the Pirate Ship on the façade of Cégep du Vieux Montréal, enjoying the BBQ Party in Place de la Paix or flirting with the bearded ladies of the Carnival on UQAM’s Pavillon Président-Kennedy.

Created by Champagne Club Sandwich in the spirit of the popular Where’s Waldo? books, this animated game invites visitors of all ages to take a short break from their routine to enjoy a game that takes them from place to place in the Quartier.