PHI Centre
Espace Rhino
315 Saint-Paul St West
Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 2M3
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday: 10 am to 7 pm
*Last show is at 6:20 pm
Friday and Saturday: 10 am to 9 pm
*Last show is at 8:20 pm
Closed on Mondays
Visit this page every day between 4 pm and 12 am EST for a special live stream featuring the robot
This event is part of the PHI Centre's free programming
Admission is free, but a reservation is required
All visitors will be required to present their valid vaccination passport + 1 piece of ID upon arrival in the building. The vaccination passport is required to enjoy the facilities.
For more details on safety measures in place at the PHI Centre, visit our COVID-19 page.
Long fascinated and terrified by robots, KROY (Camille Poliquin) surrounds herself with them to create ANIMACHINA, a series of seven performance art videos to be experienced communally.
The performance videos were created during a series of workshops conducted under the supervision of Jonathon Anderson at Ryerson University's Creative School (Toronto, ON). The pieces invite the viewer to see the machine not as a commodity but rather as a friend—one who has the power to act and evolve in concert with the human being.
These monster-machines, with unforgivable tentacles, perform choreographic movements with surgical precision. In unison, they strum, alter the performer's voice on pedals, and document the scene. The inherent danger in this dance of death where a single error in coordination can lead to a fatal accident allows KROY and her team to touch the sublime. It is amongst machines that she finds comfort and can fully vibrate.
In this co-creation relationship, KROY enters into a symbiosis with the robots surrounding her. Something vital and mortal emerges from these bodies as cold and lifeless as that of the robotic arm. In ANIMACHINA, KROY tames the beast, emancipating machines from their modern alienation and infusing them, perhaps, with a soul.
—Raphaëlle Cormier, Author
KROY is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist.
Described as a visionary, her soaring voice and bold pop explorations have garnered praise from Rolling Stone, Nylon, FADER, Complex, Noisey and more.
In recent years, KROY has lent her vocals and lyrics to producers Apashe, Qrion, and Felix Cartal and scoring for film.
She returns to unveil the fruits of her lyrical and musical obsessions in a new hyper-infused era. KROY, still macabre-oriented, features new dark pop melodies that sometimes veer towards country goth-inspired by love, death, robots, space, and the deep ocean.
"ANIMACHINA, as a whole, is meant to be consumed as an intruder walking into a new human/robot relationship. I was greatly inspired by PHI's Nuit Infrarouge at the beginning of 2021. Filming this video series of performances as I imagined them reminded me of the creative process that the viewer had access to while working on night demos at the PHI Studio. This stream is a way for me to combine these two experiences that significantly impacted my creative process during the pandemic. Giving access to an ongoing process, I want to allow myself to share my work in a continually morphing state." — KROY
Every day from January 21st - 30th, tune in for a special performance featuring the robot from the installation, live-streamed on this page directly from the PHI Centre from 4 pm - 12 am EST.
In lieu of a performance presented to the public, KROY will be hopping onto the KUKA’s arm to perform her newest single “RYAN ATWOOD” in a stripped down, melancholic version of the hyper-infused pop form it takes on streaming services. It will be broadcast on this page on Monday, January 24th at 6 pm EST over the live stream.
Free
The PHI Centre building comes to life with an interactive multimedia installation of a motion-activated river on its four-story windows on Saint-Pierre Street
Free
An ongoing collection of contemporary artworks, accessible and free at the PHI Centre
New Programming
Tune out the everyday noise and lose yourself in Montréal’s new immersive listening room
Free
As part of the exhibition Terms of Use, Quentin VerCetty and the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art invite you to take part in the Missing Black Technofossils Here augmented reality (AR) walking tour
Free
Terms of Use brings together works that explore the impact of technologies on the definition, construction, and (re)framing of individual and collective selves
Free
Visible from outside the Foundation’s windows for the first week of our exhibition Terms of Use, the installation will be open to the public from March 16, 2023, after the first creative activity facilitated by the PHI Foundation’s Education team
Coming Soon
An exhibition comprising a British immersive installation and four award-winning Taiwanese virtual reality works that take us through personal, empirical and historical experiences
