Karl Lemieux

A re-photography in video of material that was originally used in a performance during which Karl Lemieux, painted, scratched and burned film loops from an old western 16mm film. Traces of an impossible past and future collide in a trajectory where the present unravels.

All images and sounds of Unearthed were captured during a residency in the Arctic in Nikel, Zapolyarny and Prirechnyi in the Murmansk oblast in Russia, one of the most polluted areas in the world. True to his experimental cinema aesthetics, Karl Lemieux pursues his exploration of unusual locations as well as his long-term collaboration with musician and composer, BJ Nilsen. Unearthed is based on a work commissioned for the project Dark Ecology (2014−2017) curated by Sonic Acts and Hilde Methi.

Some 12,000 oil and gas platforms remain at sea. What happens when one reaches the end of its life? In an experimental audiovisual journey to the shores of Scotland, acclaimed filmmaker Karl Lemieux (Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Quiet Zone) documents the painstaking process of dismantling these industrial behemoths. Metal creaks, excavators crunch and workers weld against desolate landscapes, captured on 16-mm film manipulated with photochemical processes, and amplified by Swedish artist BJ Nilsen’s haunting sonic landscape. The result is a ritual that seems both alien and undeniably Earthbound.

Karl Lemieux's first project, a video interpretation of Lee Ranaldo’s talking sound-piece “The Bridge” (1985), made while attending high school in the Nevada desert, foreshadows Lemieux’s recent projector performances with live musicians.

Optical print film that was constructed from 16mm images that filmmaker Richard Kerr entrusted to Karl Lemieux.

Exquisitely filmed in black-and-white, this experimental narrative follows four friends on a road trip as they discover the complicated arena of unseen desire that arises when ecstasy and sexuality mix.

A re-photography in video of material that was originally used in a performance during which Karl Lemieux, painted, scratched and burned film loops from an old western 16mm film. Traces of an impossible past and future collide in a trajectory where the present unravels.

All images and sounds of Unearthed were captured during a residency in the Arctic in Nikel, Zapolyarny and Prirechnyi in the Murmansk oblast in Russia, one of the most polluted areas in the world. True to his experimental cinema aesthetics, Karl Lemieux pursues his exploration of unusual locations as well as his long-term collaboration with musician and composer, BJ Nilsen. Unearthed is based on a work commissioned for the project Dark Ecology (2014−2017) curated by Sonic Acts and Hilde Methi.

Some 12,000 oil and gas platforms remain at sea. What happens when one reaches the end of its life? In an experimental audiovisual journey to the shores of Scotland, acclaimed filmmaker Karl Lemieux (Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Quiet Zone) documents the painstaking process of dismantling these industrial behemoths. Metal creaks, excavators crunch and workers weld against desolate landscapes, captured on 16-mm film manipulated with photochemical processes, and amplified by Swedish artist BJ Nilsen’s haunting sonic landscape. The result is a ritual that seems both alien and undeniably Earthbound.

Karl Lemieux's first project, a video interpretation of Lee Ranaldo’s talking sound-piece “The Bridge” (1985), made while attending high school in the Nevada desert, foreshadows Lemieux’s recent projector performances with live musicians.

Optical print film that was constructed from 16mm images that filmmaker Richard Kerr entrusted to Karl Lemieux.

Exquisitely filmed in black-and-white, this experimental narrative follows four friends on a road trip as they discover the complicated arena of unseen desire that arises when ecstasy and sexuality mix.

Exquisitely filmed in black-and-white, this experimental narrative follows four friends on a road trip as they discover the complicated arena of unseen desire that arises when ecstasy and sexuality mix.

Exquisitely filmed in black-and-white, this experimental narrative follows four friends on a road trip as they discover the complicated arena of unseen desire that arises when ecstasy and sexuality mix.

Mamori transports us into a black-and-white universe of fluid shapes, dappled and striated with shadows and light, where the texture of the visuals and of the celluloid itself have been transformed through the filmmaker’s artistry. The raw material of images and sounds was captured in the Amazon rainforest by filmmaker Karl Lemieux and avant-garde composer Francisco López, a specialist in field recordings. Re-filming the photographs on 16 mm stock, then developing the film stock itself and digitally editing the whole, Lemieux transmutes the raw images and accompanying sounds into an intense sensory experience at the outer limits of representation and abstraction. Fragmented musical phrases filter through the soundtrack, evoking in our imagination the clamour of the tropical rainforest in this remote Amazonian location called Mamori.

This version is a pre-cut or study of the original video material, which was used to make the 35mm CinémaScope vertical film of the same name.

Shot on 16mm film, this piece creatively portrays the making of Creation Destruction, a multidisciplinary outdoor performance by choreographer Dana Gingras set to music by the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A cinematic capsule that is an ode to instability and collective resiliency.

During a stay in the Death Valley desert in California, Karl Lemieux encounters a demolished house wall, standing alone in a void and whose windows are only open gaps, washed out by light. Fascinated by the incongruity and poetry of the object, he films it. This segment of film, later, he (...) will re-film it in a variety of positions and situations; off-center, oblique, fixed, in motion, and above all hot under the effect of heat. This work will yield the film Halo Getters. The act of burning the film, like under the magnifying glass, doubles the effect and the memory of the light and the intense heat of the desert, the place of origin of the image. An orange circle dotted with bubbles forms in the image, resembling a "sun" which adds to and destroys the image. This circle burning the film in Halo Getters, forms a blind spot which masks and destroys the image, making visible the fragility of the support.

During the winter of 2015 Karl Lemieux travelled to China with BJ Nilsen and a small camera crew to make a piece about the country's infamous ghost cities. The work presented is made with images shot in the city of Yujiapu, near Tianjin where ancestral fishing villages have been destroyed to make way for a multibillion-dollar real estate project that was to become the new financial district of the area. The entire city was developed but never finished and has been left uninhabited for over six years. The film uses the lines and frames of the buildings of Yujiapu and the lines and the frames of the film strip to create abstract elements that slowly reveal an incredible desolate urban landscape.

Over the last 25 years, the Montreal post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor has released seven albums and presented visually extraordinary shows around the world. At State’s End is their latest show, captured at the majestic Cinéma Impérial. It features six 16 mm projectors playing images in a loop to accompany the music from the band’s latest album. Part documentary, part experimental film, At State’s End! is a unique auditory and visual experience.

Film super-8mm shot for the One Take super-8 in 2009. Music by Maussade.

No synopsis available yet.

The Seven Last Words sounds out the experiential states and rituals particular to humanity, based on seven themes expressed in an oratorio: forgiveness, hope, relation, abandonment, distress, triumph, and life after the death.

Shot in super 8mm in Silo # 5 of the old port of Montreal in 2002, this film was achieved in 2011. Music by BJ Nilsen.

Karl Lemieux deconstructs the narrative thread of found footage by slowing down its playback speed to the point of distortion. Music: Félix-Antoine Morin.

Hand-painted film on 16mm by Karl Lemieux. Music by Visions.

An abstract representation of an erotic relationship.

Mouvement de lumière (Motion of light), which is comprised of noise music and lines hand-painted directly onto the film, attempts to break free of a visual and sound-based order through abstraction, thereby initiating a process centred on inner sensation. A radical proposition of power inherent in film. Music by Olivier Borzeix.

Composed of paint and collage on 16mm film that had originally been tossed in the trash and later recovered to be reshot on an optical printer, Trash and no star! pays tribute to discarded objects. Tempted by extreme experiences and work on the internal sensations, the film was edited to the music of Dreamcatcher.

Otherworldly frequencies and textured, fluctuating images beautifully visualize the distress of people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and who must live in exile from cities in order to find solitude from the noise.

Otherworldly frequencies and textured, fluctuating images beautifully visualize the distress of people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and who must live in exile from cities in order to find solitude from the noise.

The Great Thaw is a project about permafrost thaw and how landscape is changed by it. We take a close look at ecosystems like the boreal forest, the tundra and the arctic coastline to document the impacts of the melting permafrost caused by climate change and to present the beauty of permafrost itself. After Antarctic Traces, The Great Thaw is a new part of the Ecological Grief Series which focuses on different aspects of human interaction with nature in the Anthropocene. The series investigates environmental melancholia and the loss of places, species and ecosystems. (directors' note)

Caught stealing drugs from the wrong people, 27 year old Vincent is in trouble and on the run from the local mob. Fleeing to the backwoods, Vincent unexpectedly reconnects with his brother Michel with whom he’d cut ties many years ago. As he tries to maintain the semblance of a normal life hanging out with friends and playing in his band, Vincent witnesses his brother's own turbulent downward spiral.

Experimental work detailing the movements of crowds in an urban context, where the movement is both charged and fluid. Result of a series of long exposure experiments carried out on 16mm film with the director of photography.

A video vignette marking the 50th anniversary of the artist-run centre Le Vidéographe