In 2010, artists Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat co-founded the Montreal–based studio group with an odd French and English name which translates to “daily everyday.” Just a year before, Green Box Arts Festival began in the Rocky Mountains with an eye toward internationally relevant installation art.
Over the last eight years, Daily tous les jours has honed its specialty act, one that mirrors its founders’ artistic strengths. Andraos’s focus has always been on using cutting-edge technology for social change, while Mongiat, who holds a master’s degree in narrative environments, brings knowledge of participatory design to the interactive studio.
“Considering technology as a vehicle for social change is an important part of our approach,” Andraos says. “[Mongiat] was looking at participation in public spaces, and I wanted to see how technology could be used in a way to connect people.”
The Swings, an interactive artwork comprised of ten light-and-sound producing swings—which premiered at the Green Box Arts Festival in 2014—achieves exactly that. The swings are a joyful experience out of synchronicity, but when people use them precisely in tandem, their rhythms create melodies through technology and cooperation, almost as if by magic. The experience is transcendent.
“The idea was to work between arts and science to explore the concept of cooperation,” Andraos says. “It’s a game where, from the start, you need to adjust to the actions of others.”
CONSIDERING TECHNOLOGY AS A vehicle FOR SOCIAL change IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR APPROACH.
The artwork came out of a similar piece from 2011 installed in Montreal, 21 Balançoires (21 Swings). Daily tous les jours created the swing installation with help from scientist and biology professor Luc-Alain Giraldeau and musician Radwan Ghazi-Moumneh. The piece was an unexpected hit in Montreal’s popular entertainment district, Quartier des spectacles. Andraos and Mongiat had already created many interactive games using light and sound technology, but they were floored by the popularity of 21 Balançoires. For several years, the piece became a local springtime landmark.
Andraos and Mongiat have produced others works that embrace audience participation, including Bloc
Jam, a building that produces music and colored lights at the command of a passerby’s cell phone directive. Giant Sing Along is a field of microphones that inspires auto-tuned singalongs; Mesa Musical Shadows is an interactive courtyard piece in which participants’ shadows trigger a variety of singing voices from different floor tiles.
Larry Keigwin, Christian Keesee, and Blake Keesee co-founded the Green Box Arts Festival in 2009, hoping to “provide artists and visitors with an opportunity to nurture the creative process and explore new artistic directions” within the dramatic natural setting of the Pike National Forest and Green Mountain Falls, Colorado.
“It is a part of our mission to bring world-class art to our community,” Keigwin says, “and [The Swings] was particularly interesting because it was so interactive and engages the community in a playful and lighthearted way.”
The Swings was such a big hit that the installation will be back by popular demand for the 2018
festival. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Green Box has since hosted a diverse and elite group of arts productions, from American Ballet Theatre to outdoor installation works by well-known artists such as Spencer Finch and Tomás Saraceno.
Andraos and Mongiat chalk the work’s popularity up to the relationships that it creates.
“Wherever it goes, the project sparks connections and conversations between people of all ages and backgrounds,” Mongiat says. “At the Green Box Festival, we were surprised by how the swings also connected participants to their environment, the astounding mountains, taking the experience to a magical, meditative level.”
Daily tous les jours will participate in an ArtDesk Conversation on Saturday, June 30, 2018, at the Green Box Arts Festival in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. The Swings will be free and open to the public from Thursday, June 28 to Saturday, September 22, 2018.
greenboxarts.org, dailytouslesjours.com
