Musée d'art contemporain in Montreal is featuring Phase Shifting Index from December 12th 2023 to February 25th 2024. This is Jeremy Shaw's latest and largest production to date, a seven-channel video installation that explores the themes of ritual, ecstasy and transcendence.

Phase Shifting Index offers a revisionary look from a distant point in the future at a time-period around the 22nd century, when human beliefs and survival are at stake. Shaw has created seven fictional sub-cultures that express themselves in ecstatic choreographed bodily movements, inspired by various historical and contemporary practices such as shamanism, rave culture, voguing and martial arts. The videos are projected on large screens that surround the viewer, creating a sense of immersion and participation. The soundtrack, composed by Shaw himself, combines elements of techno, ambient and classical music, as well as voice-overs that narrate the stories and beliefs of each sub-culture.

Shaw's work challenges the boundaries between art, science and spirituality, and questions the role of altered states of consciousness in human history and culture. He invites us to reflect on our own relationship with reality, identity and community, and to imagine alternative ways of being and belonging in a world that is constantly changing and evolving.

Phase Shifting Index is a co-production of Centre Pompidou in Paris, where it premiered in 2020, and Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany, where it was shown in 2021. It has also been exhibited at Kumu Art Museum in Estonia (2021) and The Polygon Gallery in Canada (2023). The exhibition at the Musée d'art contemporain in Montreal will be accompanied by a catalogue and a series of public programs. More information on this exhibition can be found here. For updates on Jeremy Shaw and his work, click here.

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