Introduction
Transforming cultural discard into playful, poetic experiences, Jean-Philippe Côté (a.k.a. Djip.Co) reimagines obsolete technologies as vibrant, interactive installations. Working with cast-off devices — archaic ATM screens, outdated pen plotters, old intercom systems, discarded iPhones, or obsolete security cameras — he uses custom software to conjure new narratives for technological debris. By “de-scripting” artifacts, he envisions alternate futures for e-waste, prompting viewers to reconsider their relationship with obsolete materialities.
Though grounded in critical reflection, his installations invite playful, poetic interaction, offering layered experiences on both interactive and interpretative levels. A recurring theme in his work is the mirroring of visitors’ bodies and senses. Presenting distorted, hybrid and liminal representations of the self, he highlights the dislocation between who we are and how we present ourselves in a world mediated by manifold technologies.
While Côté deftly repurposes hardware, software is his medium of choice, often shared openly. His contributions to creative coding, networked music, and physical computing have earned him respect within open-source communities.
About the Work
His work has been featured on 4 continents in prestigious venues such as Venice’s Arsenale, Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, Rio’s Museu do Amanhã, Montréal’s Museum of Contemporary Art and Société des arts technologiques (SAT), São Paulo’s Centro Cultural FIESP, or Fukuoka City’s Science Museum.
He has been invited to present or speak at various prestigious events such as: Ars Electronica (Austria), ISEA (France, South Korea), FILE (Brazil), Arte Laguna Prize (Italy), Die Blaue Nacht (Germany), Eyeo (USA), FITC (Canada), CODAME Art+Tech (USA), 404 Festival (USA, Mexico & Japan), etc.
His work has been supported by several grants from a variety of artistic and academic sponsoring organizations. More details can be found in his curriculum vitae.
Awards
In 2024, Empreintes sonores (created with Victor Drouin-Trempe) won a Numix Prize in the Digital Art – International category.
In 2019, his interactive work Yöti – The Algorithmic Portrait Artist won the Sculpture, installation and virtual art category at the Arte Laguna Prize in Venice. This is what the judges had to say:
For the technical research that integrates the millenary tradition of the portrait with a deeply contemporary vision in relation to the new technologies that are taking hold in the world of contemporary art.
This artwork was also a finalist of the International Symposium on Electronic Art‘s juried exhibition in Gwangju, South Korea:
Among the exhibitions, a few works were noticeable: (…) «Yöti, The Algorithmic Portrait Artist », by Jean-Philippe Côté, a machine combined of different elements, taking a picture of the user and rendering it through jagged white lines drawn with a white pen on a black sheet through a plotter, reducing the universal aesthetic of the selfie to a perfectly balanced combination of lines (…) »
His visual work was published twice in Aesthetica Art Prize‘s Anthology (2019 ands 2021) as well as in Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art Magazine and several exhibition catalogs.
Background
Going back to school to complete a master’s degree (2009-2013) is what brought him to visual and interactive arts. His research work yielded an interactive platform for non-musicians to play music together called Mmm. Afterwards, it did not take long before Jean-Philippe realized he could apply this same approach to visual and interactive arts. Having, himself, no formal training in drawing, he could use his programming skills to devise software and hardware contraptions that would help him create visual art. This has been is approach ever since.
Jean-Philippe teaches in the Multimedia Department of Collège Edouard-Montpetit. He holds a master’s degree in communication (with a specialization in experimental media) and is a doctoral candidate in the Arts Studies & Practices program at Université du Québec à Montréal. His research focuses on the reuse of obsolete devices and media in the contexte of interactive art.
He also is a speaker and workshop host and used to be a drummer and street photographer.