Gilles Goyette
I'm very sad to say that we lost Gilles to cancer on February 25. So, how can I introduce you to someone whose creative output was so broad? In his 59 years, Gilles never allowed himself to be limited by convention, habit, or medium. Ever independent, exploring whatever interested him, he never followed trends or sought support but created from “inner necessity” (Kandinsky’s phrase). The result is a striking and singular oeuvre in painting, photography, writing, and sound, including his most ambitious work, The Random Generated Text Project.
His “Sound Paintings” are the aural equivalent of visual art – strange, haunting improvisations captured in recordings, many created for contemporary dance (one was nominated for Toronto’s Dora Mavor Moore Award).
Lost in Light, his astonishing 15,000-photo slide-show movie (I don’t know how else to describe it), was chosen by NOW Magazine as a “Must See” during that year’s Contact photography festival. Both of these are both in production by House of ShAkE, too.
And his massive Random Generated Text Project is a labour of pure love and deep philosophical wonder, which I believe is destined to be one of the most important artistic responses to our time. It requires no expertise or special knowledge, only an openness to a new experience of reading –and to a new experience of meaning itself. It’s like discovering you can breathe under water.
The first volume, Super Vox, is now in production, and a GoFundMe campaign is under way https://gofund.me/f9d014e77. And a chapbook from the third volume, Kallikantzaros, is also now available.
