Defrost
Video installation by François Quévillon | 2001
François Quévillon is a Montreal-based artist that explores the interactions among environmental changes, societal issues and technological developments. His work explores phenomena of the world and of perception through the implementation of processes that are sensitive to changing environmental conditions and human interference. Made in 2001, Defrost laid the foundations of his interdisciplinary practice that addresses planetary disruptions as well as those affecting contemporary media.
​
The video installation probes the different states of matter by orchestrating its transformation. At the center of the three screens is a slowly growing mass of ice around which several phenomena caused by thermal contrasts evolve in a manner that can suggest a geological timescale. Building momentum through environmental turbulence, the work evokes nature’s cycles as well as the disturbances associated with climate change.