January 15, 2010 My name is Kassie Cornette, I was born in Montreal on Friday the 13, in March of 1981. Maybe its the day I was born that lead me to a certain catastrophic tendency, who knows? I was never really good at anything special but I always felt like I could see things others could not. I always wanted to travel but could never afford it so I started wandering the streets of my hometown like they were from far away and unusual. Going off the beaten path for a while, in back alleys and abandoned areas, an alternate urban reality slowly emerged, one that nothing to do with what I had previously known. Then, one day, lost in that other zone I had an epiphany: this new world I was traveling into was inhabited by mysterious creatures that took the shape of throwaway objects. Since then I have believed that all around us, there is some kind of sub-reality filled with Mutant objects, the ones we take advantage of and then we abandon. The cause of their mutation is still unknown to me. But it seems that, when escaping the control of ownership, they finally get to have an existence of their own which transforms them. Homeless but free, they wander the streets in an altered state, glittering with their last flamboyancy and displaying a neglected but captivating beauty...

At this moment before falling a sleep, in this transitional hypnotic state between reality and dream, I can see the Mutants. They are finally free. Humans are dead. The Mutants have found a substance that once mixed with plastic and metal is highly poisonous to humans, but it can turn any soulless object, thrown or not, into a conscious and alive creature, this within a few weeks. That’s how we slowly disappeared, infected by the radiation of objects...

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Karine Cossette (b. 1981, Montreal, Quebec) received a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal where she currently lives and works. Her work is mostly organized around the Mutants, an ongoing project that explores, though a fictional plot, the surreal possibilities surrounding abandoned objects. During the summer of 2008, with the support of the Quebec Art Council she went in a trip to the United States to document various abandoned roadside attractions. She recently achieved a two-month installation performance in an empty apartment, where she personified her alter-ego, Kassie Cornette. Bounette is her solo musical project.

karinecossette@gmail.com