The Ex Machina team offers a personalized scenography with 10 libraries, real or imagined, an invitation to take a journey from Sarajevo to Mexico and from Alexandria to the bottom of the sea on board the Nautilus, by means of virtual reality.

Upon entering the first room, the visitor discovers a reproduction of Alberto Manguel’s library. This initial step allows the visitor to enter the author’s universe while adjusting to the relative darkness of the exhibition.

The second room, the forest, is the heart of the scenographic experience. Wandering through this wooded landscape, the visitor encounters a space that contrasts with the order and rigour that characterize libraries. There the visitor will find stations where, by means of glasses using a 360° immersion technology, he will be transported to a virtual reality. This project uses a 360° video immersion technology.

This exhibition is a voyage through time, and around the world, to 10 mythic places—an immersive and sensory adventure that involves both our intelligence and our memory.


Current and past exhibitions:

19.04.2023 - 09.07.2023: Dimensions — Digital Art since 1859, Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V. Bonn, Pittlerwerke, Leipzig, DE
10.03.2022 - 05.06.2022: Lighthouse Immersive, Toronto, CA
09.09.2019 - 25.01.2020: SESC Copacobana, Rio de Janeiro, BR
15.06.2019 - 15.09.2019: Bibliothèque Humaniste, Sélestat, FR
04.02.2019 - 03.03.2019: Le Parvis - Scène nationale Tarbes Pyrénées, Ibos-Tarbes, FR
03.10.2018 - 10.02.2019: SESC Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo, BR
11.12.2017 - 14.03.2018: touring exhibition organised by AP-HP (hôpitaux de l'Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris) within several hospitals, FR
12.10.2017 - 12.11.2017: International festival-school of contemporary art "Territoria",
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, RU
20.09.2017 - 07.01.2018: Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR
16.05.2017 - 13.08.2017: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, FR
12.10.2016 - 02.04.2017: Musée de la civilisation, Québec, CA
27.10.2015 - 28.08.2016: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Montréal, CA

The Library at Night was designed and produced by Ex Machina to celebrate the Grande Bibliothèque's 10th anniversary, based on an original idea by Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

Director: Robert Lepage
Co designer and creative director: Steve Blanchet
Author, co designer and narrator: Alberto Manguel
Set designer: Marie-Renée, Bourget Harvey
assisted by: Marie McNicoll
Sound Design: Jean-Sébastien Côté
Lighting Design: LigthFactor
Visual effects: Voltam
VFX Supervisor: Nicolas-Denis Robitaille
Head of Compositing - 2D Compositing Supervisor: Nathalie Girard
Lead 3D artist: Éric Maltais
Matte painter: Richard Bergeron
Director of photography: Sébastien Gros

Producer for Ex Machina Michel Bernatchez
Associate Production - Europe and Japan Richard Castelli - Epidemic
Associate Production - The Americas, Asia (except Japan), Australia, NZ Menno Plukker Theatre Agent

Ex Machina is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Quebec's Arts and Literature Council
and the City of Quebec.