Handheld Magazine (Fall 2012)

board of directors

PRESIDENT LON A. PARKER • VICE PRESIDENT Cori Stent treasurer Andrea mann • secretary sigrid mahr directors Eric Becker • lia rogers • brad struble

staff

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Peter Curtis Morgan emadmin@emmedia.ca ProgramS & Outreach Coordinator Vicki Chau programming@emmedia.ca Production Coordinator KYLE WHITEHEAD production@emmedia.ca ARCHIVE & PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Joel Farris joel.farris@emmedia.ca

production committee

HEAD OF COMMITTEE Eric becker NOEL BÉGIN • Philip bowen • Ramin Eshrashi-YazdI • JoshUA fraser • Jim Goertz Carl spencer

programming committee

HEAD OF COMMITTEE LIA ROGERS Joshua fraser • Jennifer McVeigh • GRANT POIER HANDHELD Media Arts MAGAZINE IS DESIGNED AND COMPILED BY Vicki chau EDITOR Jennifer McVeigh PRINTED IN CALGARY BY burntdog communications Cover Photo By Aran wilkinson-blanc • Family Meeting by wednesday lupypciw HANDHELD MEDIA ARTS MAGAZINE WELCOMES submissions of ARTICLES ON MEDIA ARTS RELATED SUBJECTS. AN HONORARIUM IS PAID. EMMEDIA RESERVES THE RIGHT TO EDIT OR OMIT ANY SUBMITTED ITEMS. HANDHELD MEDIA ARTS MAGAZINE ISSN 1925-6280 SUBSCRIPTION RATEs INDIVIDUALS $10 / YR • INSTITUTIONS $15 / YR NEXT DEADLINES APR 1 2013 + Oct 1 2013 • NEXT RELEASE DATES May 2013 + Nov 2013

advertising rates

REACH ARTISTS, PRODUCERS, GALLERIES AND MEDIA CENTRES ACROSS CANADA IN HANDHELD MEDIA ARTS MAGAZINE. all bookings and FURTHER QUESTIONS ABOUT RATES OR AD EXCHANGES FOR NON-PROFIT ARTS CENTRES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO VICKI CHAU AT programming@emmedia.ca WELL BEFORE THE RELEASE DEADLINES above.

RATES • BLACK & WHITE ( we accept High quality jpeg, tiff, or pdf files at 300 dpi) 1X 2X SIZE wxh $30 $50 1/4 PAGE 2.4375” x 3.9375” $60 $100 1/2 PAGE 5” x 3.9375” $120 $175 FULL PAGE 5” x 8” EMMEDIA GALLERY & PRODUCTION SOCIETY IS A NON-PROFIT MEDIA ARTS ORGANIzATION THAT PROVIDES EQUIPMENT, TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND PROGRAMS FOR INDEPENDENT VIDEO, AUDIO AND MULTI-MEDIA ARTISTS / PRODUCERS. EMMEDIA’S INITIATIVES EMPHASIZE THE DIVERSITY OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA ARTS PRACTICES. OUR SUPPORT EXTENDS BEYOND VARIOUS GENRES OF VIDEO TO ENCOMPASS ARTISTS EXPLORING DIVERSE FORMS OF TIME-BASED ART INCLUDING INSTALLATION, NEW MEDIA AND ELECTRONICS, PERFORMANCE, ANIMATION, AUDIO AND WEB-BASED WORKS.

Address

EMMEDIA 203, 351 - 11 AVE SW CALGARY, AB CANADA T2R 0C7

PHONE FAX HOURS WEB

+1 (403) 263-2833 +1 (403) 232-8372 MON–SAT, 10AM–5PM emmedia.ca

table of contents Parts of music boxes sit poised, waiting for Icaro Zorbar to start his Assisted Installations performance during the M:ST 6 Festival.

2

Member News A Day in the Life of the EManimenteur

• by Sandra Vida

Particle + Wave: Inaugurating Concept • by Joel Farris and Peter Curtis Morgan

4 8

Merging Media and Audiences: Dispatches from MIX: A Conference Exploring Transmedia Writing and Digital Creativity

12

I Am What I Am - Or Am I? Calgary fiction writer turns filmmaker (and you can too)

16

• by Luba Diduch

• by Laurie Fuhr

Anamnesis: The Art of Kenny Doren • by Andrea Williamson

EMMEDIA IS SUPPORTED THROUGH ASSISTANCE FROM THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, THE ALBERTA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, CALGARY ARTS DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA, WEBCORE LABS, PRIVATE AND CORPORATE DONATIONS, OUR MEMBERS, ARTISTS and PRODUCERS, VOLUNTEERS, AND THE CALGARY COMMUNITY.

Black

CMYK

18

(Top L-R) Vicki Chau, Gordon Sombrowski, Kevin Allen, (Bottom L-R) Sandi Somers and Jasmin Poon attend the Particle + Wave Festival Closing Celebration.

It's been a busy fall for EMMEDIA and its members, with all of us igniting the media arts scene in Calgary!

We want to congratulate the Moutain Standard Time Performative Art Society for producing another successful festival in October. EMMEDIA artists who were featured at M:ST 6 include Sandra Vida, Dick Averns, Kay Burns, Kyle Whitehead, Karilynn Ming-Ho and Wednesday Lupypciw.

EMMEDIA member Brian Batista is a busy man with two exhibitions under way. At Stride Gallery, Batista explores historic Vedic deities with Divine Inspiration, while incorporating Tibetan Thangka style painting into his own practice in Dragon, on view at the 7th Avenue and Centre Street LRT platform as part of the City of Calgary's Open Spaces: Windows to a View program.

Glue, a short film about marriage, f laws and being impossibly stuck, is directed

by EMMEDIA member Michal Lavi and produced by board member Eric Becker. It premiered at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and has 2

screened at many other festivals since, with no sign of stopping.

Glue was also presented at the Calgary International Film Festival's Alberta Spirit: Short Shorts program this year, along with the work of several other EMMEDIA members including Sandi Somers & Corey Lee's Blow Me a Kiss, and Ramin EshraghiYazdi's Break Out. EMMEDIA board member Lia Rogers was a participating "maker" at the first Calgary Mini Maker Faire in September, where she activated the event with her fun drawing robots. On a personal note, Lia and husband Trevor Textor are expecting a baby boy! EMMEDIA would like to congratulate them on the happy news.

Speaking of babies, EMMEDIA board member and artist Andrea Mann has given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Alexia Rose Pringle! EM extends its congratulations to Andrea and husband Marco Pringle on the new addition to their family.

EMMEDIA bids adieu to former Artists in Residence and committee members, Rick Silva and Adam Tindale, who have

left Calgary to pursue teaching positions in Oregon and Toronto, respectively. We will miss the energy they brought to EM and to the media arts community, and we wish them luck in their future endeavors.

A whole host of EMMEDIA members have been named Calgary 2012 Resident Artists, and we look forward to seeing their projects come to fruition at locations around the city. They include: Mia Rushton & Eric Moschopedis, Noel BĂŠgin, Shelley Ouellet, Kimberley Cooper, Sharon Stevens, Mechthild Reinders, Chris Hsiung, Kevin Allen and Dick Averns.

In June, Prairie Tales 14, curated by the Alberta Media Arts Alliance premiered at The Source National Media Arts Summit in Banff. Again this year, works by a number of EM members were selected as part of the program of Alberta's best film, animation and videos, including: Rosanna Terracianno, Xtine Cook & Jesse Gouchey, Kari McQueen, Wednesday Lupypciw, Zoe Slusar & Bailey Kerluke, Peter Curtis Morgan, Claudette MorganYez and Nigel Yez. EMMEDIA hosted a screening at the Particle + Wave Festival in September, and the compilation will be playing all over Alberta throughout the year.

This year's Soundasaurus Multimedia Sound Arts Festival brought a few of EM's audio artists into the mix, including: Ryan McClure Scott, Joshua Fraser, Woulg (Greg Debicki), and Joe Kelly, plus Adam Tindale, Rick Silva and Katherine Fraser with ARRAY.

March 1 - April 5, 2013, Eastern Edge (St. Johns, NL) April 20 - June 1, 2013, and Latitude 53 (Edmonton, AB) June 14 - July 20, 2013.

Finally, Vicki Chau, EMMEDIA's Programs & Outreach Coordinator, will be curating the fourth edition of &ampersand, a group exhibition of collaborative projects, as part of Calgary 2012. The work of many EMMEDIA members will be showcased in the exhibition, to be held at the Untitled Art Society Satellite Gallery from January 12 - February 2, 2013.

(L-R) Jim Goertz, Grant Poier, and Kenny Doren at the EMMEDIA XMAS Party in 2011.

In Memory of Kenny Doren 1966-2012 EMMEDIA would like to take time to acknowledge the passing of Kenny Doren, a senior media artist whose work and spirit resonates in our community.

Kenny was an amazing artist and composer who brought together creative people from many different disciplines to collaborate on his work. He was also an active member of EM, who brightened up the centre every time he arrived. His kindness and generosity will continue to reverberate throughout EMMEDIA and the arts community. Our thoughts go out to his family and his wife, Gayle.

EMMEDIA's Production Coordinator, Kyle Whitehead, has secured four upcoming venues for his experimental film and audio installation, Circles of Confusion.

Be sure to check it out if you're in the following cities: Smith's Row (Bury St. Edmunds, UK) January 18 - March 23, - EMMEDIA staff, board and committees 2013, Galerie Sans Nom (Moncton, NB)

3

Sandra Vida hangs a poster on her newly installed bulletin board at the entrance to EMMEDIA.

By sandra vida

On a typical day in my life as the EMAnimenteur, I might have met with a member to go over an artist statement, help with a grant proposal, or offer feedback on their latest work-in-progress.

Production Access participants were in and out throughout the day, shaping their projects. Bogdan might drop by to pick up equipment and tell me about something he read about living on the street. Lon might be constructing the set for his video shoot in the screening room, and I’d have a look. Zac, of course, would be editing away in the Red Suite with the door closed. Meetings with Vicki, Peter and Kyle were interspersed throughout the day to discuss programming, production and other issues. In the evening I might be attending a meeting or program at EMMEDIA, or another arts organization in the community, giving me the opportunity to talk up EM, and media art in general.

All in all, this job allowed me to do things I like! It was fascinating to see work develop in front of my eyes, to see EM humming along like a well-oiled machine, and to 4

engage in intense discussions of art, life, and politics.

The EMAnimenteur position was conceived to enhance the profile and critical analysis of the media arts in general, and the work produced at EM in particular. The job was defined as providing support and assistance to EM’s artist members, as well as providing feedback to staff, board and committees. While my time was spent doing all of the above, I realized that my role as Animenteur depended largely on self-definition. My own skills and interests would have to shape my work here, while I remained open to the unexpected and unfamiliar.

[Victor] Turner posits that, if liminality is regarded as a time and place of withdrawal from normal modes of social action, it potentially can be seen as a period of scrutiny for central values and axioms of the culture where it occurs… one where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are undone. In such situations, “the very

structure of society [is] temporarily suspended.”1 My own media work has been described as “liminal”2 and Turner’s seminal essay on the subject seemed to help me define my role as a “threshold person”, both in my artistic practice and, upon re-reading, in my role as EMAnimenteur.

My re-encounter with this (perhaps overly used) concept might be why, for the second month of my job, I became obsessed with the entranceway to EM. It should be less cluttered, I felt, and more inviting. To cross that threshold would mean an artist could partake not only of the equipment there, but become part of a creative community.

I wanted folks to feel they could come right in and feel at home.

I painted the front door. With help, I took down old plywood panels and put up clean new bulletin boards that swooshed around the curving wall at the entrance. I installed a lamp and a chair near the literature table in the hallway. While Kyle renovated and upgraded three entire editing suites, I had the privilege of painting the door to each one: red, green and blue.

The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae ("threshold people") are necessarily ambiguous. 3 … One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation, but also the possibility of new perspectives. 4 My time at EM offered me an in-between space that was highly fertile. Neither a full-time staff member, nor an outsider, I could be in the space between, offering artists an introduction or a re-entry point, acting as an ambassador for EM’s activities, or as a liaison between EM and other organizations and events.

Part of my role was to encourage people to cross that threshold into EM on a more regular basis. I would encounter

people at openings and coax them to have another look at that video footage in their basement, or finish that piece that never got completed. I encouraged everyone to attend EM events, to have conversations, experience viewings and screenings, meet others in the arts community, and to advance their own careers.

Sitting in on production, programming and board meetings was enlightening and inspiring. It was great to sift through proposals for programming and participate in discussions of ways to implement EM’s mandate, which has been honed and refined in recent years. Those discussions fed into my role as an ambassador and promoter; between EM and the community, new artists and EM, and in the broader sense, between the artist and society.

EM offers a place of intersection. The hallways and offices are a hub or waystation; a meeting place, a social centre or a concourse everyone crosses at one time or another. Artists drop by and sit on the big sofa to chat about what they’re up to. Meetings with curators and visitors from other cities occur frequently. To some extent, my role formalized these encounters as people set up appointments with me each week.

The concept of liminality works well in media theory, since there are many reasons why one may consider media as liminal. Media may adapt a multitude of forms, even including what can be considered to be “formless.” As it is both “everywhere and nowhere,” conceptualizing media as liminal does not seem too far-fetched. 5 As a mentor for Production Access participants, the notion of liminality became useful as both a metaphor and a talking point. At the intersection of the human and the machine, these artists embodied for me both Donna Harraway’s concept of the cyborg6 and Turner’s idea of 5

Sandra Vida chats with EMMEDIA members Zac Slams and Anne Marie Nakagawa.

the in-between state in which “there is a certain freedom to juggle with the factors of existence.”7 Artists who work in media arts can bend reality to their purposes in specific ways unavailable to other art practices: Zac Slams slows video to its limit in order to focus on second-by-second experience, or speeds it up to suggest frantic obsession.

Kim Seung Pen uses the tendency of video and sound to glitch unexpectedly to draw attention to the unreliability of our perceptions. In all cases, the machines of video and sound recording and playback become an extension of a personal, creative eye and ear, in direct opposition to the goals of corporate production. Meeting with these artists was one of the most rewarding elements of my time as EMAnimenteur and it was a treat to see these six new projects come to fruition.

Liminal space can be an event, a ritual, or a journey, and one EM program was all that and more. As twilight fell, the half moon rose, and day and night were equal, artists Sharon Stevens and Josh Fraser created a time and space for unique encounters. Equinox in Union Cemetery: A Vigil, was, as Stevens described it, “a unique participatory event honouring our ancestors.”8 Fourteen artists and a score of volunteers created a village of tents with f lags, lights, music, video, poetry and art.

Visitors were welcomed, moved through a threshold arch and along a pathway, drank tea, made memorials and lanterns, and told 6

stories about their departed loved ones. The EM team was on hand with vital technical support for this magical event and my role was multiple; a helper, guide, and one of the artists who created a memorial installation; mine was called My Mountains, and consisted of 54 small illuminated paper pyramids arranged across a hillside.

Another point of convergence was the Independent Media Arts Alliance (IMAA), Source National Media Arts Summit, which took place in Banff in June. Panels provided much food for thought about curating, exhibiting, preserving, and facilitating the media arts, as well as ample opportunity to meet other media artists. Best of all was a sneak preview screening of the 2012 edition of Prairie Tales, which included a selection of such challenging works, many

by EM members.

The liminal…is transitional. Every instant marks a liminal movement to the next thought and experience, a shift that may be smooth or turbulent, depending on its nature and oh how we choose to engage with it. It is also transformative; liminality stretches and relaxes, allowing new ideas, perspectives, and understanding to be born. 9 EM itself is in a time of transition, but I can’t remember a time when this was not the case. Some of the most challenging and exciting discussions during my tenure took place around the idea of moving the organization into a purpose-designed space

in Calgary’s new “arts incubator,” the King Edward School. When surveyed, most EM members felt this would be a good move, giving the organization an opportunity to re-energize. EM President Lon Parker has put considerable time and energy into engaging with cSpace, an independent affordable space initiative of Calgary Arts Development, to draft the proposal for EM, along with Quickdraw Animation Society, Fairy Tales Presentation Society and Untitled Arts Society to become anchor tenants in the building. Their proposal was approved in September 2012.

More than ever, I’m impressed with teamwork of EM staff, and became accustomed to the efficiency of their sometimes sub-liminal ways of communicating. Somehow they just knew when it was time to sit down together to talk, or to take a break. Kyle’s technical knowledge is impressive, as is his engagement in community. Vicki is always on top of upcoming programming and can churn out a newsletter or brochure in record time. Peter seems to be everywhere at once, his finger on the pulse and his eye on the collective vision of the organization.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that I enjoyed having a deeper understanding of EMMEDIA and its artist-members.

Having dedicated my own practice to

media arts over the past three decades, I had no problem being a booster for EM. I appreciate the role that EM has played in my own work, and I’m proud to be part of this supportive and innovative community.

It has been good to have a chance to give back to this community in my role as EMAnimenteur. So it’s “au revoir, but not goodbye”10 to EMMEDIA. I’ll see you soon.

1 Arpad Szakolczai, Liminality and Experience: Structuring transitory situations and transformative events (International Political Anthropology 2009) p. 142 (Quoting Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: Liminal Period” in The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967) 94.

2 Mireille Perron, "The Space of Resilient Aesthetics in the works of Pauline Cummins and Sandra Vida," in Between One and Another / Sweeping Change (Centre Culturel Irlandais/The Irish College, Paris, 2012) 10.

3 Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: Liminal Period,” 94.

4 Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: Liminal Period,” 106. 17.

5 W.J.T. Mitchell, “Addressing Media” in What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) 216.

6 Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991) 150.

7 Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: Liminal Period,” 156 8 Sharon Stevens, Equinox in Union Cemetery – A Vigil, facebook page.

9 John Hutchinson, Saunter, publication of the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin. 2 10 Lew Brown and Albert Von Tilzer, Au Revoir, But Not Good Bye Soldier Boy - World War 1 Song, sheet music published January 15, 1918.

Sandra Vida gives Production Access 2012 participant, Zac Slams, some creative input on his new project.

7

Particle + Wave:

Inaugurating Concept

The audience watches TRENCH by Lon Parker at the festival's closing celebration.

By Joel farris and peter curtis morgan

What role do festivals serve in the contemporary art world today? Etymology traces the word back to 1400 when it referred to feast days, holidays and other celebrations that were often connected to church life. The current, and perhaps more common definition though, includes an organized series of cultural events, typically held annually in the same place. Like the feast days of yore however, a modern festival’s function is to engage, celebrate and create community. It is a chance for like-minded people to gather and share a common passion – in this case, media art.

September bore witness to EMMEDIA’s first media arts festival, Particle + Wave.

Its inception was part of an earnest determination to celebrate the artistrun community’s media art and artists.

Building on EM’s thirty-three year history of innovative, new media based, grass roots programming, the event presented the best of what media arts in Calgary has to offer, combining many aspects of EM’s programming and production activities into a concentrated, three day experience.

Particle + Wave was launched with opening receptions at EMMEDIA and Untitled Art 8

Society, along with the Calgary premiere screening of Prairie Tales 14. Wednesday Lupypciw’s installation, Family Meeting, was exhibited in EM’s screening room for the week. This two-channel, video project was the first presentation of her year-long residency at EMMEDIA. The second evening moved things outside of galleries and straight into the public sphere. With the help of Justin Waddell, EM organized the second installment of Bring Your Own Beamer (BYOB). On this thankfully warm night, over 15 artists used their slide, video and overhead projectors, or beamers to activate Central Memorial Park. The historic green space was transformed into a dynamic installation of light, sound and imagery, mirroring EMMEDIA’s new programming theme, Light, which began in September 2012.

Artists featured over the three days included EM’s current artists-in-residence, Wednesday Lupypciw and Joshua Fraser; Production Access participants Lon Parker, Greg Marshall, Kim Seung Pen, Bogdan Cheta, Matt McKinney, and Zac Slams; and the many artist-producers whose work was part of the Re.Compression program.

Re.Compresion compiled material from the archives of EMMEDIA’s annual Compression Camps since 1999.

a success. It was an intensive, dynamic launch of our 2012/2013 programming year of Light, and we look forward to many more amazing events to come.

EMMEDIA would like to thank all the artists, volunteers and attendees for making the first Particle + Wave festival

1 Noel BĂŠgin creates a beautiful projection in Central Memorial Park for Bring Your Own Beamer. 2 (L-R) Bailey Kerluke, Zoe Slusar, Lindsay McIntyre and Rosanna Terracianno answer questions about their work at the Prairie Tales 14 screening. 3 The Cedar Tavern Singers (Daniel Wong and Mary-Anne McTrowe) perform at the festival's closing celebration. 4 Carl Spencer sets up his projections in Central Memorial Park for Bring Your Own Beamer.

5 Kim Seung Pen prepares for her audio/visual performance f/ash/v/itter, at EMMEDIA.

9

1 (L-R) Kyle Whitehead, David Frankovich, Carl Spencer, Icaro Zorbar and Vicki Chau celebrate after the Assisted Installations performance. 2 Shawn Dicey performs at the Particle + Wave Festival Closing Celebration. 3 Rita McKeough enjoys a drink at the Particle + Wave Opening Reception. 4 Sharon Stevens speaks before the opening of Equinox: A Vigil at Union Cemetery. 5 Joe Kelly works his magic with five film projectors at the Bring Your Own Beamer event in Central Memorial Park. 6 Tributes from the audience are projected onto the digital shrine for Light2Dark at Union Cemetery. 7 David Frankovich and Emily Promise Allison collaborate with Icaro Zorbar to

10

create a new performance. 8 Icaro Zorbar prepares Assisted Installations at TRUCK Gallery. 9 Brad Struble and Sandra Vida are having lots of fun volunteering at the Particle + Wave Closing Celebration. 10 John Will and Dennis Hrubizna attend the Re.Compression screening at the John Dutton Theatre. 11 Kyle Whitehead congratulates Kim Seung Pen at her performance f/ash/v/itter. 12 Philipp Artus and Vicki Chau pose in front of the title wall at the Snail Trail opening reception. 13 Vicki Chau and Shiori Saito type up tributes for the Light2Dark digital shrine.

14 Cori Stent reflects during Sharon Steven's Equinox: A Vigil at the Union Cemetery.

11

Merging Media and Audiences: Dispatches from MIX: A Conference Exploring Transmedia Writing and Digital Creativity A still from the intro film at theflickerman.com.

By Luba diduch

Can you imagine Picasso pushing a button that says "Share", Gertrude Stein posting a video of artists at her Parisian salon on YouTube, or Jackson Pollock creating an iPad application encouraging his audience to contribute to his drip paintings?1 Fast-forward to 2012, where transmedia f lourishes and is increasingly used in contemporary art practices.

digital poetics, art, music, game writing and installation. Mark Amerika, Lisa Mead and Lance Dann presented papers that demonstrated the ways they are exploring transmedia in their own art practices.

Many of the approaches, techniques and ways of using transmedia tools discussed at the conference are not new. In the 1970s and ‘80s, artists and theorists such as Roy Ascott were already using digital mediums to explore distributed narrative through group collaborations.2

During the opening address of MIX: A Conference Exploring Transmedia Writing and Digital Creativity that took place in Corsham, England in July 2012, several questions were posed for the participants’ Ascott, in particular, was writing about consideration: How can transmedia be the ways in which artists could use used for artistic purposes and how can interactive computer art, digital networks we create a suitable critical vocabulary and telematics in their art practices. These for this activity? What is the relationship approaches to art production mixed between digital creators, audiences and analogue techniques with newer, emerging artworks? Who are the audiences for technologies and were instrumental in transmedia artworks and how can they developing theories related to what be accessed? Fifty speakers responded to was to become telematic art, and later, these questions during presentations in transmedia.3 In such articles “Is There drop-in sessions over a period of three Love in the Telematic Embrace?” Ascott days. Presenters came from the United began to articulate preliminary ideas in States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy relation to telematic artworks. He described and the UK and included individuals from this process of art making as based in the the fields of digital media, poetry, text art “technology of interaction among human and digital narrative, performance, film, beings and between the human mind and 12

systems of intelligence and perception”. 4 He also attempted to define a paradigm for art in the information age and develop the beginnings of a critical vocabulary regarding the use of technological devices in relation to the spectator's participation.

In 1983, Ascott used computer network technologies to facilitate La Plissure du Texte.5 The project invited participants to assume the roles of traditional fairy tale characters such as the princess, the witch, the fairy godmother and the prince.6 There was no script provided — the writers/ artists were asked to improvise through spontaneous narratives that were typed and transmitted using early versions of computer networks. As well as marrying old and new technologies, the project investigated the technique of merging technologies to create a narrative while investigating the ways in which audiences could become collaborators in an artwork.

In their current incarnations, transmedia approaches in art practice continue to be used in the merging of multiple mediums and technologies. Audience participation is facilitated through emerging methods of presentation and integration - creating experiences through engagement with multiple platforms, formats and devices.

Interactive video, iPad applications, mobile devices, film, sound art, websites, cell phones and books can each be uniquely configured to contain part of an artwork that relates to a larger whole. By accessing the individual pieces of an artwork through these diverse formats, audiences are given the opportunity to assemble the various fragments, creating unique narratives for themselves.

As a result, the relationships between artists and audiences have changed. The idea of hierarchical systems where the artist creates the whole artwork for the audience member to experience in a traditional gallery space is being questioned. In some ways, artists are increasingly becoming

facilitators or architects of projects when they let go of control of the work, leaving the final outcomes open-ended and f luid.

The approaches of the 1970s and 1980s continue to be relevant to a number of contemporary artists, perhaps due to the invention and availability of ever-evolving networked technologies that seem useful and pertinent to their practices.

At MIX, presenter, artist and new media theorist Mark Amerika spoke about the ways he combines media in his practice.

Amerika “sees himself as a “DIY polymath who hacks institutionalized forms of cultural production”.7 Working in the spirit of transmedia, his practice includes still and moving images, programming code, audio, performance and text.

The artist describes his project REMIXTHEBOOK as a “DJ tool made from rhythms downloaded, ripped, mixed, spliced, diced, and burned into our collective hard drives, then re-uploaded”. 8 Relating to the collective community of remix culture, he relinquishes his control over the project. REMIXTHEBOOK is traditionally printed and bound, but also contains interactive interfaces designed specifically for mobile environments.

In addition, Amerika provides sampled elements to be used by artists to create their own versions of the original work.

In this respect, Amerika addresses questions regarding the relationship between artist and audience. He encourages audiences to create their own iterations of his original project, thereby presenting novel possibilities regarding the relationships between artist and participant.

Another presenter, Apples and Snakes creative producer Lisa Mead, talked about a hip-hop graphic novel project that she developed and produced called The Rememberers. Apples and Snakes is 13

an organization based in London that “produces innovative and participatory performance work in spoken word”.9 The Rememberers was written and performed by New York hip-hop artist Kenny Baraka, and was staged by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

A post-apocalyptic story of good and evil set in the year 2150, the narrator tells the story of a girl named 7 who comes to the realization that she has the power to help save humankind. The live theatrical performance combined the talents of graphic novel and comic illustrators, video artists and musicians. Baraka related the story through rap music, while characters and setting unfolded around him in projected images around the theatre space.

In her presentation, Mead described the way that the converging mediums incorporated into the theatrical production created an immersive theatrical environment where the audience felt a part of the production.

Finding themselves in the midst of projected images and video, as well as music in a “theatre in the round” format, spectators automatically realized that they had been invited to be in the centre of the performance. In this instance, the lines between artists and participants, and their respective roles within an artwork, had become blurred.

One of the concerns voiced by several speakers at the conference was the challenge of delivering transmedia projects to audiences. Lance Dann, producer and sound designer with BBC radio, described how locating and accessing audiences who would participate in his project was initially more difficult than he had anticipated.

His multi-platform radio drama, The Flickerman, was launched in 2009.10 Along with broadcasts on BBC radio, the story was told concurrently through photo sets posted on Flikr, an iPhone application, various radio interviews, a Google map, a Facebook page and YouTube videos.

14

These mediums were used to send messages related to a major character in the narrative, Lucinda Lamb. “Lucinda Lamb is missing”, Dann wrote in his description of a YouTube video. “Please search your old photos and videos for images of a blonde woman - and submit them to ABC National's Pool web-site”.

Even after creating multiple opportunities for entry points into the artwork, Dann said audience participation was lower than expected. He realized that keeping collaborators committed for the lifetime of an artwork requires a high level of interest on their part. Finally, he decided to promote the project through mainstream media.

He was interviewed by The Guardian newspaper and that article reached a wide audience which helped to establish larger communities of participants around access points to the work.

Dann’s experience indicated that transmedia artworks often require mainstream media to make potential audiences aware of their existence, as well as constant evaluation of the evolving relationships between the artwork, artist, audiences and contributors.

MIX thoroughly explored the questions posed in its opening address. The range of presenters provided a broad perspective on transmedia artworks being produced today, as well as the ways that transmedia ideas are used in artistic practice. The presenters demonstrated how they used different types of media in their works, creating depth and multi-dimentionality both in construction and meaning.

Relationships between audiences, artists and the artworks themselves were explored in depth, showing that transmedia approaches can result in fascinating collaborations that blur traditional roles.

Transmedia artworks make it possible for a range of behavioral and temporal layers of involvement to emerge from a project,

some of which extend far beyond the space and time, or original intentions of the artist.

Born in Montreal, Luba Diduch is a visual/sound artist currently living and working Calgary. She received a BFA from Concordia University in 1984 and an MFA from the University of Calgary in 2008 and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. She recently participated in residencies at the Banff New Media Institute and teaches New Media Production and Design at SAIT Polytechnic. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Visual Art/New Media at the Bath School of Art and Design in England.

The research she was invited to present at MIX explores participatory and collaborative paradigms within artworks, while studying the roles of artist and spectator to test these concepts.

Phillip Rostek, In conversation during Journey to the West: a planetary fairytale. The 9th Shanghai Biennale.

2012.

2 Inke Arns, Interaction, Participation, Networking Art and Telecommunication. (Media Art Net, 2004) 3 Roy Ascott. The Telematic Embrace, Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. (University of California Press, 2003) 4 Roy Ascott, "Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace? ", Vol. 49, No. 3, Computers and Art: Issues of Content (Autumn, 1990), 241-247 5 La Plissure du Texte has recently been revived at the 9th Shanghai Biennale. In its new incarnation, Roy Ascott has titled it Journey to the West, a planetary fairytale. As in the earlier iteration of this work, fifty participants worldwide have been contributing to this project via Skype, while the rolling narrative is projected onto a white panel at the Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum. http://www.facebook. com/LaPlissureDuTexte/timeline?filter=3 6 Roy Ascott, La Plissure du Texte. (Artex, 1983) 7 Mark Amerika, "Mark Amerika: Who is Mark Amerika.".

Mark Amerika, n.d. Web. 12 Nov 2012. <http:// markamerika.com/>.

8 Mark Amerika, "Mark Amerika: Who is Mark Amerika.".

Mark Amerika, n.d. Web. 12 Nov 2012. <http:// markamerika.com/>.

9 "Apples and Snakes." Apples and Snakes. N.p.. Web. 12 Nov 2012. <http://www.applesandsnakes.org>.

10 Lance Dann, "The Flickerman09.". Wordpress, n.d.

Web. 12 Nov 2012. <www.theflickerman.com>.

1

Remixes posted at remixthebook.com.

15

Roberta McDonald. Photo by Laurie Fuhr.

By laurie fuhr

Roberta McDonald was a fiction writer, carving out a novel manuscript when something occurred that changed the course of her craft. Now, with two shorts to her credit (the second was recently submitted to the Berlin Independent Film Festival) and a third to begin production shortly, Roberta’s loving her new direction.

Might it be the case for other literary writers that their craft lies more in imagery and story than in literary trends and conventions? Could film help transform it into what it really was all along?

To learn more, I caught up with Roberta at Gravity Espresso Bar in her home neighbourhood of Inglewood, during the mid-morning café bustle. Over the scenesetting clatter of spoons, scraping of chairs, and foaming of dolce lattes, Roberta imparted some compelling secrets.

Laurie Fuhr: How did this mysterious thing occur – your transition from writing fiction to writing and directing films?

Roberta McDonald: I have to say that my own transition is pretty much Jeremy Dodds’ fault. I was working on a novel manuscript last year and was meeting with him regularly (he was the writer in residence at the U of C last year) and at one point he looked at me and said, “Umm, 16

this is very visual writing, it’s not all that literary exactly” – he was trying to get me to use more metaphors and similes and such.

It took a while for the eureka moment to hit, but when it did, I got straight to work on my first screenplay.

LF: Your first film, shot in 2011, was called Out of Order, and was created for a filmmaker’s challenge based in Calgary in which mobile devices were used to shoot and edit. What prompted you to rise to that challenge?

RM: It seemed like a very unintimidating way to get into film. Because I knew it didn’t have to be feature length, I knew I could tackle the writing part of it without getting fully overwhelmed. Magic happened and all of these amazing people got involved. Doing it on the iPhone made it fully accessible to me. The whole thing from start to finish was rewarding and gratifying. Things come together right when you start living your passions; I’ve been finding this out consistently over the last year.

And I’m somebody who requires deadlines with my background in journalism. So the fact there was this deadline looming kept me motivated even when I felt I wasn’t prepared to do things; it was like, it doesn’t

matter if I’m prepared, it has to get done.

I love that the film industry shares that deadline consciousness.

LF: Finding resources can be challenging for new filmmakers. How did you find the cast of your second short film, Mona Says Yes? RM: Shane [McLean] and Sarah [Scott] were both found on Craigslist. It’s funny, part of the story [of the film] is involved with Craigslist so it just seemed fitting. As far as extras, I turned to the non-union actors group on Facebook, where I found Dre Trochim and Blake Whiteside. It turned out we’d met before; they’re in the band BLIST with Andy Sparacino from Out of Order [also from FUBAR].

LF: What about John Creary, the writer and filmmaker who assisted you with editing Mona?

RM: It was almost on a lark that I asked him if he wanted to film Mona, because I’d written it and it was during the [Calgary] Underground Film Festival? and I just bumped into him; he was volunteering.

I said, “Hey, I know you have a video camera, would you be interested?”. I didn’t understand the depth of his knowledge until we started working together, and then I realized I’m so lucky because he is very creative and also very skilled.

LF: Set locations can be a challenge on a small budget too. How did you find the set for Out of Order, shot in a 50’s style diner?

RM: We went to Blackfoot Diner because we wanted to film there and we were realizing just how challenging that was going to be, and Doug Wong was sitting there. Out of the blue he said, “You ladies need a diner?” And we just couldn’t stop laughing. Because who’s got a private diner in the middle of the city? Doug Wong does.

I’m just basically relying on the kindness of friends and strangers to get things done.

LF: That’s a really great approach I think - a collaborative approach - asking the people closest to you first and getting their assistance. Even if they might not all be professionals, they’re people who are really loyal to your vision and they really want to help you.

RM: Yeah, that keeps me bolstered in my times of doubt. That people have committed to my projects just blows me away, it really does; when people believe in what I’m doing and are willing to share their time and talents with me it makes me want to cry, it makes me so happy. Every time it just comes together in this delightful way and it gives me goosebumps thinking about it.

LF: You’re still keeping tabs on the literary community; the poetry and music nights you’ve organized at The Area (called We Have Something to Show You) have been refreshingly out of the ordinary, and earlier this year you hosted the New Street Spoken Word Safari, also in Inglewood. Since you’re being relevant to the literary community and to the film community at the same time, do you feel more writers might give screenplay writing and filmmaking a chance?

RM: I would love to see that. Writers have the resources to distil our world and offer it back to us in surprising and meaningful ways. Poets in particular have this robust economy of language that lends itself so well to film dialogue. I'd encourage writers of all stripes to explore this realm. It's hugely satisfying.

Laurie Fuhr is a freelance writer, musician, and EMMEDIA member. Her creative writing has been published in several anthologies and in magazines including Handheld.

17

Anamnesis:

The Art of Kenny Doren1

Still from Your High Imperial (2000).

By andrea williamson

Whether or not you knew Kenneth Doren as a person, his inner nature in all its iterations and discovered entanglements, is offered completely as a transcendent version of himself in his art.

His generosity to listen always, his warm eyes paired with a mischievous grin and at times a leveling honesty - it’s all there.

He gave himself entirely to every one of his many ambitious and spiritually arresting projects. His fifteen-plus years of creative contribution, which included collaboration with professional dancers, musicians and actors, as equally as children and untrained participants, carries in it a resolute investment in the search for self hood, an embracing of life’s gifts, and a penetrating curiosity about human mortality.

His artist website still hosts an old, perhaps never completed, collaborative project called The Days of the Week. It is a set of instructions to be performed by anyone, anywhere; one for every day of the week: On a Thursday morning at 10:30 a.m. go to the nearest f lower shop and purchase a bouquet of f lowers. Follow your instinct and lay the f lowers at the entrance of a commercial business where you suspect an employee has recently died.

18

On a Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. go visit the nearest place of religious worship. Once inside, think of someone who has died in your family and contemplate how they lived their life.

Other invitations, or permissions, are playful opportunities for sharing stories and making connections with strangers.

One who is so aware of the preciousness of life, however, cannot help but consider its departure. These mutually constitutive elements were fundamental to Kenny’s work.

Opus 18: Immortal Misbegotten (2005), his grad piece as an MFA student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, is a re-working of Ludwig van Beethoven’s first six string quartets. It existed as a live performance by a chamber ensemble, and as a gallery installation. In the latter, four speakers representing the quartet are centered around a vertical column of f luorescent lights suspended from the ceiling. He said about the piece, “My reworking of the Opus 18 quartets is not so much a critique as it is an homage to Beethoven, to the moments when another suffers; and to the experience of empathy that these open in me.”

Another re-working, The Hell After High (2005), channels one of Bach’s virtuosic violin concertos into the more familiar aural realm of reverb and loud fuzz.

Transposed for heavy metal guitar, the piece blasts through giant amps in a black-lit room where BACH is spelled out in psychedelic, f laming neon typeface. This is Bach for headbangers.

Beethoven, Bach and other composers surmounted their time on earth through their music, but not without virtuosos like Kenny who keep it alive through their passion and powers of translation. Kenny’s was an ability to maintain and represent a personal connection with the core of the art, while destabilizing its meaning and playfully altering its form.

In addition to his musical translations, Kenny transcribed and reworked the spoken word in his videos and digital operas. Audiences are challenged by Brothers Grimm stories, gypsy folk tales, Japanese pop lyrics, mediaeval confessions, royal addresses and other voices distanced by time or geography, situated within updated technologies and contemporary contexts.

Your High Imperial (2000) is a jagged, hysterical recomposition of three texts about desire, within and without stateimposed control. The project is a digital opera that comprises video projection, live instrumentation and digital accompaniment.

In the video component, two sopranos sing a hybrid libretto, developed by Christina Willings, that borrows from the Old Testament’s Songs of Songs, A Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism by George Bernard Shaw, and Malleus Maleficarum, a text for the prosecution of witches during the middle ages.

One soprano has black lips, heavy eye makeup and a black fur hat. She acts

the part of someone extraordinary while the camera shows her in the mundane setting of a recording studio. The other woman singer wavers between an indoor pool, an outdoor garden and the concrete of a sidewalk as the video projection cuts between clips. She shrills and exclaims along to the music digitally re-composed from Bach’s sacred organ music and Tartini’s The Devil’s Trill.

The ecstatic nature of the production is achieved through various recording technologies that allow a confusion of simultaneous perspectives. The digital universe at the artist’s disposal broadens the reach of our senses, allowing us to see from the micro world of pores and eyelashes to the TV frame within a video frame.

Kenny saw technology “not just as a tool, but as an active performer interpreting a vision, and in the case of some of my work, creating non-linear narratives.”2 In Your High Imperial, technology creates a vision of the complex and contradictory subjectivities of women, a vision that overthrows any patriarchal reduction or control.

Kenny’s translations are two-way streets - intertextual. As audiences, we are translated into new people when unfamiliar languages become accessible through visual cues such as costume, lighting, set design and simultaneous texts, contributing to a synaesthetic recognition of the universal in stories. The old becomes new while retaining some of itself, making his work both timely and timeless.

In his artist statements, Kenny’s voice is honest and disarming, especially when his work delves into difficult territory. Where other artists may be misinterpreted as exploitative or derogatory, Kenny’s work speaks to “weirdness.” It inhabits the sometimes uncomfortable or uncharted boundaries between cultures and people, 19

and breaks them down with humour, an unshakable respect for others, and an openness to the many facets and peculiarities of human nature.

Kenny’s gesumptkunstwerk - his total artwork - is the composing and orchestrating of different talents and subjectivities into a space of intimate approach.

A video from 2007, Dead Bird-Man, is an uncompromising sensual experience of a fistfight between two young men in a black room. They stare at each other for a tense thirty-second prologue, then naturally and gracefully push the weight of one another until aggression builds.

For an audience accustomed to polished punches and simulated violence, the almost tender sounds of raw punches are somehow shocking. The brawl dissolves and the pair succumbs to a binding stare that brings them so physically close that they share the same breath. The piece calls into question the difference between combat and intimate contact, and examines the negotiation of physical boundaries.

At times, it is Kenny’s camera that allows the physical boundaries separating us from each other to dissolve. His video installation Crusading (2009), brings us as close as we might ever come to a child’s face and voice as she sings meandering quotations to a video camera. Kenny often worked with children. They perform without the self-consciousness that we, as adults struggle to leave behind.

Somewhere between the exhilarating f lush of a new experience, and a loosening grip on the task at hand, the eight-year old slips back and forth between performing and daydreaming. As she reads Dr. Luigi Di Bella’s personal remarks on a controversial cancer treatment he developed in the late eighties - “It’s noble to end a pain…” - we ache for a time when suffering and death were just words, easily sung.

20

Getting to know Kenny Doren through his art, as I knew him in life, I realize that for him, to watch something was to love something, and vice versa. On his blog, a month into living in Gaborone, Africa, he asks, “Do you ever wish you could just stay in one place for a very long time without needing anything, just so you could see the world unfold?” A talent for translation goes hand in hand with an empathetic disposition. Endless relationships between oneself and others can be opened up when we keep in mind Kenny’s disposition before life.

Andrea Williamson was born and raised in Calgary and this is where she maintains her art and critical writing practice. She graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in 2007 with a double major in Fine Arts and Media Arts.

Her current practice involves methods of display, which bring together the results of various processes such as print media, text work, sculpture and painting, under a specific body of questions surrounding empathy and the dissolution of the self.

Kenny Doren was her teacher for a course he developed called Experimental Music.

After the course, as he did with most, if not all of his students, Doren continued to be a mentor and friend. Kenny Doren passed away on September 22, 2012, at home, with his wife Gayle Schroeder by his side. His artistic legacy is documented at www.digitalopera.org.

1 anamnesis, n. The recalling of things past; recollection, reminiscence. 1657 - J. Smith Myst. Rhet. 249 Anamnesis is a figure whereby the speaker calling to mind matters past, whether of sorrow, joy, &c. doth make recital of them. 1876 - tr. Wagner's Gen. Path. 11 Diagnosis from the Anamnesis, that is, from the story which the patient tells of his illness. 1876 - C.M. Davies Unorth. Lond. 22 The doctrine of anamnesis, in Plato, according to which the soul had pre-existed in a purer state, and there gained its ideas. (Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989) 2 Kenny Doren, application letter for graduate studies at Simon Fraser University (from correspondence with colleagues, date unknown).

21