Scott MacLeay | |
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![]() Scott MacLeay | |
Born | Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada | March 25, 1950
Known for | Photographer, musical composer and new media artist |
Spouse | Barreto Costa MacLeay |
Website | www |
Scott MacLeay (born March 25, 1950) is a Canadian photographer, composer and new media artist. His images, like his music, often deal with juxtapositions of fragmented elements in multilayered environments. He began his career in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the later 1970s, moving to Paris in 1979. In 2010 he moved to Florianópolis, Brazil.
Scott MacLeay earned an Honours B.A. degree with a major in economics from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario in 1972 and a Master of Science degree in economic theory specializing in development economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1974. He left his doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1975 to pursue a career in photography.
He gained notoriety in the early 1980s for his color series Attitudes [1] incorporating detail-free, graphic figures in flat two-dimensional fields, first exhibited in 1980 at the Space Gallery [2] of Pete Turner, Ernst Haas, Jay Maisel in New York. In 1981 he began collaborating with the Fresson family for the printing of his work. The luminosity of the pigment-based, Fresson charcoal process [3] was ideally suited to the texture-free, color palette he was exploring. [4] In 1982 his work was included in the Life Library of Photography in the volume dedicated to the Art of Photography. [5] [6]
His work has been exhibited widely in Europe, N. and S. America and Japan and was represented by the Galérie Ufficio dell'Arte / Créatis in Paris and the Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery in New York where he exhibited both quadrichrome and dichromatic work during the 1980s. [7] [8] [9] He participated in both solo and group exhibitions for the Biennale Mois de la Photo de la Ville de Paris in 1980, [10] 1982 [11] and 1988. [12] His photographs are in included in private and museum collections worldwide. [13] [14]
In 1980, he founded the Photography Department at the American Center for Artists in Paris becoming Director of its Center for Media Art and Photography in 1985 following in the footsteps of founder Don Foresta and Anne-Marie Stein. [15] [16] [17]
In 1982 he began composing experimental music for contemporary dance for American and French choreographers including Robert Kovich, Ruth Barnes, Marc Vincent and Jean-Marc Matos in collaboration with French choreographer François Raffinot. Musical composition became his principal activity by the end of the 1980s and in 1988, he formed Private Circus with vocalist Christel Desjardin, [18] an informally structured musical research group, that made two CDs on the French independent label Sordide Sentimental: the contemporary cabaret opera Les Petities Foules / Small Crowds (SSCD004, 1990) [19] and a compilation of music created for contemporary dance La Moitié de L'Histoire (SSFP99, 1994). [20]
In 2010 he settled in Florianópolis, Brazil where in addition to returning to photography and new media work, [21] [22] [23] [24] he also curates exhibitions of young Brazilian new media artists [25] [26] and writes on conceptual approaches to photography. [27] He has directed workshops / portfolio critiques at various events such as Floripa na Foto (2011 and 2013) [28] and the Festival de Fotografia de Tiradentes (2013/2015/2018/2019/2020) [29] [30] as well as at institutions such as the SESC Santana and SESC 24 de Maio, São Paulo (2014/2017/2018). [31] His book of essays on photography Pensar, Sentir, Ver: Percepção e Processo em Fotografia (Thinking, Feeling, Seeing: Perception and process in Photography) was published in 2015.
Since 2017, Macleay's work has been increasingly dedicated to exploring interactive, non-linear storytelling, employing photography, video and audio. The first phase of his transmedia project Encounters in the Right and Left Hemispheres was completed in December 2019: an interactive book of the same named published in February 2020. The second phase, an interactive web platform, was completed and available for online exploration in January 2021: https://encounters-right-left-hemispheres.online [32]
In 2018, his cultural action company CREATIVE PROCESS, founded in 2011, [33] began publishing books in the field of new media. To date, five books have been published including two devoted to MacLeay's work: Quadrichromie 1978–1988 (2018) and Encounters in the Right and Left Hemispheres (2020).
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- Official Selection, Summer 2017 Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival (June, 2017)
- Official Selection, 2017 Experimental Forum Festival in Los Angeles (screening: November 18, 2017)
- Award Winner, 2017 Canada Shorts: Canadian and International Short Film Festival, New Brunswick, Canada - November 2017
- Award winner, 7th Art Independent International Film Festival, Vanchiyoor, India (November 2021)
- Award winner, Canada Shorts: Canadian and International Short Film Festival, New Brunswick, Canada (December 2021)
- Official Selection, Berlin International Art Film Festival, Berlin, Germany (November 2021)
- Semi-finalist, Tokyo Shorts Festival, Tokyo, Japan (February 2022)
- Finalist, Santa Barbara Shorts Festival, Santa Barbara, California, US (May 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Paris International Short Festival, Paris, France, (May 2022)
- Semi-finalist, New Short Filmmakers Festival, Austin, Texas, US (June 2022)
- Semi-finalist Rio de Janeiro World Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (July 2022)
- Official Selection, Stockholm City Film Festival, Stockholm, Sweden (June 2022)
- Official Selection, Miami Indie Film Awards, Miami, US (July 2022)
- Official Selection, LA Indies Film Festival, Los Angeles, US (July 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Tokyo Shorts Festival, Tokyo, Japan (August 2022)
- Award winner, Paris Film Awards, Paris, France (July 2022)
- Honorable Mention, London Movie Awards, London, England (August 2022)
- Semi-finalist, San Francisco Arthouse Short Festival, San Francisco, US (July 2022)
- Award winner, Hong Kong Indie Film Festival (August 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Munich Short Film Awards, Munich, Germany (August 2022)
- Official Selection, Florence Film Awards, Florence, Italy (August 2022)
- Official Selection, Toronto Indie Shorts Festival, Toronto, Canada (August 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Vancouver Movie Awards, Vancouver, Canada (September 2022)
- Nominated, Art Film Spirit Awards, Toronto, Canada (September 2022)
- Official Selection, Top Indie film Awards, Tokyo, Japan (January 2023)
- Semi-finalist, Prague Underground Film Festival, Czech Republic, (November 2022)
- Official Selection, Top Indie Film Awards, Tokyo, Japan (January 2023)
- Official Selection / Nominee, Berlin International Art Film Festival, Berlin, Germany (April 2023)
- Official Selection / Nominee, LA Indies Film Festival, Los Angeles, US (April 2023)
- Award winner, London Indie Short Festival (September 2022)
- Special Mention, 01 NFT | New Media | Experimental | Digital Arts Film Festival, United Kingdom (March 2023)
- Honorable Mention, Experimental Forum Festival 2023, Los Angeles, US (April 2023)
- Nominated, Berlin International Art Film Festival, Berlin, Germany (October 2022)
- Official Selection, Boston Independent Film Awards, Boston, US (October 2022)
- Award winner, Florence Film Awards, Florence, Italy (November 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Munich Short Film Awards, Munich, Germany (December 2022)
- Semi-finalist, 2023 ARFF Berlin International Awards, Berlin, Germany (December 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Rotterdam Independent Film Festival, Rotterdam, Holland (November 2022)
- Semi-finalist, Dublin Movie Awards, Dublin, Ireland (February 2023)
- Award winner, Best Experimental Film, London Movie Awards, London, England (March 2023)
- Floripa na Foto (2011, 2013): Photographic Festival in Florianópolis, Brazil
- Foto Em Pauta – Festival de Fotografia de Tiradentes (2013, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020): Photographic Festival in Tiradentes, Brazil
- Workshops BH (2012, 2013, 2019, 2020): Private Photographic workshops organized in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- ICP – International Center of Photography (2012): Transmedia Workshop “Different Worlds in the Same Place” in collaboration with Professor Jeanne Hilary, ICP, New York, US
- BC Foto Festival (2014): Photographic Festival in Balneario Camboriú, Brazil
- Casa da Ladeira (2013, 2017, 2018): Photographic Association, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- SESC Santana (2014, 2017): Visual Arts Department, SESC, São Paulo, Brazil
- SESC 24 de Maio (2018): Visual Arts Department, SESC, São Paulo, Brazil