Studies in commercial art, drawing, painting, sculpture, design and interior decorating led Maurice Demers to develop a concept he would term environnements intégraux (“integral environments”). These were envisioned as liberating events of awareness which encouraged playful and festive participation, even a sociological and anthropological experience. Demers wrote about the first environment he constructed – Futuribilia, which combined art, science, technology and day-to-day life – in a book entitled L’art vécu. Une mutation face à l’histoire (“Art that is experienced. A transformation in the face of history”). The second, a multidisciplinary, plastic environment he called Les Mondes Parallèles (“parallel worlds”), was presented in Montreal at the Strange World Pavilion of the 1969 Man and His World exhibition. In 2009, art historian Anithe de Carvalho published a book on Demers’s work entitled Maurice Demers. Œuvre d’art total. Des environnements participatifs à la création collective (“Maurice Demers. Total art work. From participatory environments to collective creation”).
SEE:
« Repères », ESPACE, vol. 4 #4, p. 32.
« Des machines-sculptures propulsées dans des environnements humains » by Maurice Demers, ESPACE, vol. 7, n° 3, p. 10.
« L’environnement interactif : Ou s’entourer de son être en devenir » by Maurice Demers, ESPACE #17, p. 35.
