Update

2 Worlds

I've been working mostly with digital media installation and performance the last few weeks and learning more about the history of projection based installations. I will post a link on vimeo with clips of some of the new media I am working with, but here are some stills from an event I was part of last weekend in Victoria at the Royal BC Museum as part of the Two Worlds Media Performance series.

I was asked to do a solo multimedia performance, but I wanted to bring along Skookum Sound System. I have been working with the Skookum collective for the last year and half and we have been getting more opportunities to perform in diverse spaces. We did a 30 minute audio-visual performance in the museum. My part in the performance was creating and performing the live-visual aspect of the show and setting up the visual installation. We performed in what is called the First Peoples Gallery. As you will see in the images it is a room filled with totem poles, masks, regalia, tools, canoes etc. When I was first asked to do the show I went to a meeting in the Gallery. The Two Worlds show was presented as an opportunity for the artists to speak back to the spirits in the room.

Traditionally many of the items in that room, especially the masks would not be out on display. Usually masks are kept in boxes and their spiritual potential is unlocked in live ceremony. I left that first meeting at the museum feeling kind of sick. This is usually how I feel when I see a West Coast Native "exhibit." It was an honour to be able to perform in that space, but there was also a heaviness. Feeling the history of these pieces and how they were procured and the manner in which they are publicly presented, which is directly linked to colonization and the "vanishing race" theory that was so prevalent at the time.

In my original plan I wanted to map light onto each totem pole to acknowledge their life. I was unable to do this though, as there were still quite a few rules of the museum to deal with. I was able to install projections onto the petroglyphs that were on either side of the room near the ceiling. It created an interesting texture with the moving images on top. I would like to work on projecting onto areas that aren't just flat white screens some more after this initial effort.

I've also attached a few digital collages I have worked on. I find that I start making these when I am wanting to get an idea out quickly. I sometimes turn this work into a bigger visual image, collage or painting....and sometimes they just die in my computer.