Cortège is a participatory and somatic work for smartphones – that is, it is experienced physically the length of the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne. Wearing earphones and guided by geolocation cues from their phones, participants are invited to have an immersive sound experience. The walk begins with individual occasional instructions and then becomes more complex with encouragement to interact with other users. The actions to accomplish are diversified: hold up one’s phone to passersby who can read a message on it, distribute leaflets to passersby, or follow and watch other people. Through this participatory aspect, Cortège stands out from passive guided tours and encourages users to break away from their primal relationship with the screen. (Source: Nathalie Bachand)

“Rather than undertake a reading of Promenade Fleuve-Montagne limited to the physicality of the constructed environment and natural territory, we were inspired by the socio-historical tensions that it accommodates in order to explore the behaviour of the masses in a poetic register.”
Étienne Grenier and Simon Laroche

Cortège is the first digital work for mobile devices to become part of the municipal public art collection.

The digital work Cortège was produced as part of development of the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne, a bequest for the 375th anniversary of Montréal that links two of the city’s emblematic sites. With the aim of bringing pedestrians back to the urban space, the promenade conveys the city’s desire to rebalance its streets to encourage active mobility and create a pathway that offers rich experiences by revealing the history, heritage, and cultural specificity of the areas it crosses through.