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Toronto-based artist Philippe Blanchard is an art and animation artist who developed this project entitled New Troglodytes. When visiting the piece, currently exhibiting at Arprim in Montreal, Canada, viewers will find themselves immersed in a sea of moving lights and sound. To create the installation, Blanchard built triangular cardboard sculptures that mimic cave formations, and covered them, as well as the walls, with screen printed paper. He then illuminated the room with projectors and flashes of red, green, and blue strobe lights. As the different colors hit the designated paper-covered areas, the installation comes alive with vibrant energy in sync with the music.
New Troglodytes is intended to be reminiscent of the confined spaces of a cave where cavemen danced around the central light of a burning fire. Blanchard says, "I’ve been interested in where our human fascination with moving light comes from, trying to figure out what our fascination with animation or cinema comes from. I’m tracing it back poetically to fire, the earliest form of visual technology, that’s had such an impact on human existence.”
