Big Other (4), 2023
Pierre&Marie (Quebec)

Several buildings seem to have come to life with big googly eyes, recalling emoji. Thus personified, these architectures challenge the viewer and direct their gaze, while giving them the unsettling impression of being watched by a Big Brother-like presence. This ostensibly benign yet oppressive form evokes our ambiguous relationship with social networks in the era of surveillance capitalism. While entertaining content and endless emoji give such digital platforms a veneer of harmlessness, they capture our personal data to feed industries bent on controlling our behaviour.
Pierre Brassard and Marie-Pier Lebeau have worked together as Pierre&Marie since 2008. Their work manipulates symbols of popular culture to express benevolent resistance on social issues and has recently been the subject of major solo exhibitions at the Musée Régional de Rimouski and Espace 400e.

Acknowledgments
Musée de la Civilisation, SODEC, OMHQ-SOMHAC, Funiculaire du Vieux-Québec, Norplex, Société Parc Auto du Québec
Subscribe to our newsletters
so you don’t miss any of our news