Laser Show - Amphibian Regalia

Personal Regalia for multimedia performance, Dance Party, VJ armour.

Each of these 4 pieces is made of or contains elements of family heirloom that has been passed down to me.

 Regalia Mode

     Laser Show - Hand me down Louiseville Slugger, Horsehair, acrylic.

                       Laser Show is a commonly used baseball term for when a team is hitting  

                       the "light out," or rather getting multiple runs. I also like to use lasers in daily

                       life.

                 

Hand Me Down Welding Mask, Gifted fake moustache and Unibrow, Barbie Arms, Yellow Cedar tongue. - The Light Blocker

Hand me down License Plate, Horse Hair, Gifted wooden and bone beads

  

Regalia for everyday performance. Regalia with personal attachment. Non-constrictive to medium.

Sideways Days

It's a full moon.

I am posting up some new work here ----> Everyday Dream


This piece everyday dream is made with live-visual tools, collage techniques and some editing in final cut pro.

I have been dealing with the aftereffects of another car accident. I've been associating work with pain a lot over the last couple years. Making work. Aggravates the embedded pain. Rest just seems to let it settle in even more so the only thing to do is keep moving.

Everyday Dream is cut into 3 pieces and is meant to be seen projected as part of a live performance and/or installation. It begins in the mountain, and travels to space and into the water...all places where I seek clarity or separation from the technological world.

The Buffalo in this piece comes from a clip of Eadweard Muybridge's studies on movement. I have been very interested in his work and his studies in pseudo-science. Muybridge was involved in a deadly train accident as a young man and suffered brain injury. This injury had negative consequences on his health and demeanour, but it also seemed to open a portal. After the accident he became an artist, photographer, wanderer, and a showman amongst other things. I am able to relate to this in some sense. I have been a few accidents and have also had brain injuries...(not nearly as severe as Muybridge's). These bruises in my brain and the pain I have been dealing with have definitely had an effect on my work. I am hesitant to over-intellectualise my work and process, I am relying a lot more on intuition and inner-vison. Some people have joked that they need to be on the meds I have been prescribed to "get" my video work. That's cool. I don't always "get it" myself. I am learning by just engaging and doing.

I don't have a cultural connection to the Bison, yet I feel an affinity towards this animal. I have had dreams of them and walked amongst a field of glowing buffalo bones. In North America the Bison were hunted to the brink of extinction purposely in order to control Indigenous populations. I think today when we look at the salmon runs on the coast we can see the parallels. Not only have Salmon been over-fished, they also deal with the negative effects of fish farms (sea lice) and pollution (warming water temps).

I will add some more text on this piece later...but feel like I should shut my eyes and sleep. Manifesting dreams of thunderous hooves and renewed cycles and rejuvenated rivers.

Below are some stills from this piece.

    

Audio Credits
Lost in the Woods - Deano
Emu Chase - Impossible Nothing
Give You the Moon - Tikawa

Visual Credits and thank yous 
Chris Bose - Salmon run
Eugene Boulanger - Rifle Shot
Darwin Frost and Amede Keats - Mountain
Nasa - Space
Eadweard Muybridge - Bison     

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.

Two Worlds Poster

Two Worlds Performance - Alligator Tears Dance Ghost - Photo by Mark Gauti

Two Worlds - Rainbow Dance - Photo by Mark Gauti

Two Worlds - Skookum - Photo by Mark Gauti

Two Worlds - Alligator Tears Dance Ghost - Photo by Mark Gauti

Two Worlds - Propaganda - Photo by Mark Gauti

The Lone Ranger and John Wayne Ghost World Dance Battle - Digi Collage

Idle No Moe - Digi Collage

I don't like to define myself as an artist based on on single medium. I have been mixing digital media, performance, painting, collage and anything else I can get my hands on or try. I was told that I would eventually choose 1 or 2 mediums.  That prospect seems suffocating to me. It may mean I never master any one technique or medium, but I also don't believe in the concept of mastery. I think once you call yourself a master your practice then stagnates, because you believe you are at the pinnacle with nothing left to learn or explore. The word I use for my practice is "Wuulhu." which comes from the Wuikila language meaning "to fuse together." Traditionally this word may have been used for tool making or painting, or perhaps it had spiritual connotations - fusing to the supernatural. I use this word today to wrap my methods, ideas, symbols and actions into one process. I feel the message and the media can interact equally and the chosen medium can in turn be fused with others...continially remixed, re-fused and recombined and subtracted.

https://vimeo.com/57101918 Here is a link to a piece I am working on. Sala = Patience is a short video that has been used as part of a live audio visual performance and as a digital installation.

Patience = Zero :)

I should have known I was setting myself up for drama when I decided to make a piece about "Patience."

The last week and a bit I have been trying to work not only on this video, but on other projects, with chronic neck problems, Stomach flu, and an unpredictable computer.  At this point I have used up most of my Sala, and don't think I will be able to fully reflect until I am feeling more balanced out.

I have decided to take a break from digital media a.s.a.p.  My mission to "fuse" my digital work with visual art and performance has ended up being somewhat one-sided.  I am really feeling the urge to paint and make sculptures in the silence of the studio.

Here are 3 Images from my recent shoot:

Sala - Ovoid Erasure

Sala - Un-masking

Sala - Ovoid Erasure b/w

 Artist Statement 

 

Sala = Patience is the first installation of the Wuulhu Digitial 
 series. Wuulhu comes from the Wuikila language, and means "to fuse together." In the Wuulhu Digital series words will be re-interpreted through the fusion of traditional and digital technology. Sala (Patience) comes from the Heiltsuk language and is a word we have used while working in the studio, during technical glitches, and in moments of pressure, repetition and practice. This moving-image montage is the recording of a live-mural performance and it will be continually remixed when online and in live-settings. Sala is produced through labour, chance and enacting performance on the subject of patience.

The carved mask that is worn in the piece is the first mask I made while training with my Heiltsuk relatives, Bradley Hunt and his sons Shawn Hunt and Dean Hunt. The mask is called Kvulus Transformer. Kvulus is a Thunderbird being who has the ability to change between supernatural bird and human form, often changing into human when its feathers become too hot on its inner-skin. Kvulus with an egg on top of its head is the main crest that is represented by my family in Wuikinuxv.

This mask contains “traditional” elements, but presently it would not be danced ceremonially back home. It does not represent the traditional depiction of the Kvulus thunderbird mask, it instead reflects the transformation from human into the supernatural state. Previously, I have worn this mask in a performance art piece and received some second-hand criticism from an semi-anonymous source, for wearing it in that kind of setting. The question I wanted to ask this person was when should can it be worn? If not in ceremony, and if not in an arts setting, then where? Should I just sell this mask, keep it in a box, or hang it on a wall? Selling our masks to outsiders has been an acceptable occupation for a long time, but keeping them for personal expression seems to be taboo in some instances. If feel like we are sometimes stuck trying to re-create the past, because so much was taken away by Colonization. I feel like the movement to re-claim our traditions should also include our work taking new forms. This is how our People traditionally operated, like most artists, reacting to and interpreting the environment around them.

I have carved items intended for the ceremonial Big House and family Potlatch, but have realized that there are a whole set of protocols I need to address in order to make this happen. I have hung onto all pieces that I have carved and turned down offers of money for them in hopes that they can be danced and their spirits sung.....Sala.....Sala....Sala.

The ovoid shapes that are seen in the making this piece are forms that are practiced over and over again by Northwest Coast artists, and they become a signature of each individual. What is needed to create this shape, taking into account positive and negative space, line-composition and blood memory is the practice of Sala.

Near the end of the piece when the ovoid is covered over. I intend this not as an act of frustration or violence. I intend this to reflect the ephemeral nature of creation.  I have an non-conventional views when it comes to preserving artwork.  I have put many of my pieces in the fire or have painted over them.  I feel like this is based in the action of wanting to renew and intuition to revise.  Traditionally, where I am from we would let our carved figures go back into the the elements after they became "rotten." There was not the insane notion to archive, and tag and display everything as is done in a museum. At Potlatches ceremonial items are burned to mark a renewal and release. By covering the ovoid I am opening myself up to the future.

I want to expose myself and reveal moments of pressure, play, pain, and practice. I chose to make nocturnal isolation a requirement for its production as well. Sala also reflects my desire to be uncomfortable within my work. From this discomfort I feel I remain fresh in my steps. A non-linear movement with no defined finish line, requiring patience...Sala.

  

I'm posting another video piece I worked on over the last couple weeks.  Another mashup of sorts...fusing Flash Gordon, Buffy St. Marie, Sharks, Lions, Thunderbirds and Eagles.  My friend Darwin Frost made the Audio for it.  He was back in New York when I started working on it.  I was sending him a message to see if he was safe from Hurricane Sandy, and while I was writing it he sent me a letter to see if I was safe from the Earthquake that happened off the coast of Haida Gwaii.  I was already working w some of this footage and thought it fit like a glove.  The dancing figure in the video is a a depiction of the Thunderbird who is a figure that connects to thunderclaps, lightning and earthquakes. 

I installed this video along with Sala = Patience and another video called Salish Seas Rythm last November 10th and again on the 17th at the W2 Community Media Arts Centre.

Below are some visual documents of that.  The photos were taken by Joffrey Middleton Hope www.joffrey.ca 

Wuulhu - Installation - Woodwards Atrium - W2 - Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival

Live-Visuals from Trickster

Live Audio Visual Performance w Skookum Sound System - w Impossible Nothing - Biochemical

Live Audio Visual Performance w Skookum Sound System - w DJ Deano and Csetkwe - Alligator Tears

Csetkwe sings Alligator Tears

Deano w the H'lulu drum

I am still working with the video footage from the installation and performance on the 10th.  Below is a poster I designed for the installation and performance.  It was the first time I have had access to so many projectors...I think 10 in total.  I have wanted to transform public spaces with big projections for a while now and this felt like my first real taste of it.  I've been thinking about "projection bombing" and intervention performance using projections.  Still need to conduct some more technical research, but would like to approach that in the new year.

Sala = Patience is still in a fine color correction edit.  I have been looking at changing the "ending", but I haven't come up with an idea that I feel works for the piece.  I still like the idea of the surreal "otherworld" being revealed as the everyday.  There isn't much I feel like I can do with my current footage to alter it, so I will have to figure out a new way to execute it.  I like being in this place between though.  I feel like this is integral to the production. Patience and pondering.

Installation and Catchup

Back to posting here.  I've attached a few images from my Residency in Regina w the Sakewewak Collective and the Mackenzie Art Gallery.  It's been interesting getting back into the school swing of things.  I have also landed down into another mini-residency at the W2 for the Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival.  I will be installing digital installations and performing with Skookum Sound System on the night of the 10th.  I have been spending most (meaning all) of my time getting ready for this.  Hoping life will return to the chaos I am used to after the 11th.  I have also spent considerable time on my artist statement for my Sala video.  I am going to re-work the ending, but will need to setup another photo shoot to shoot it.  I also I working on the visual ideas for a more satisfying conclusion.

I've been working on a lot of video mashups for our next show....I am attaching the link to the "Father" video I made.  It's a rough mix I did over a few days.  Chopping up footage from Return of the Jedi and  Empire Strikes back.....lot of rendering time.  I posted it up on the day Disney bought the star wars franchise....noticed an influx of star wars memes and mashups the day I posted.  In my opinion Disney can't do much worse than some of the newer Star Wars efforts.  I like the originals.  Nice metaphors on the machine-like qualities of political power and the fight to retain a good spirit even though the darkside has a strong pull.

The paintings are more like studies for me.  They are pretty small in size.  The circle is part of my daily practice.  I like to warmup before I draw by making circles for 5 or 10 minutes....both clockwise and counter clockwise.  I've taken that into my paintings as well.  Trying to make a nice circle without a stencil or compass.  The other painting is a self-portrait.  It's based on my first night in Regina.  It was dark, windy, snowing and the only thing I could see that was open was a Mcdonalds.  Fortunately My trip went a lot better after that first cold night.  The bottom picture is of a couple of the youth (sisters) I workshopped with, practicing before the exhibition.  They were really adept at handling the interactive part of the live-visual thing and a lot of the youth taught me some new tricks in my program and also taking a more experimental approach in the performance with it.