0:14

my name is Liz Barron I’m currently at Kennedy Council for the Arts and they’re

0:20

creating knowing sharing section so we operate a little differently than the rest of council and we allow in the

0:29

cultural practices and traditional art practices as well

0:35

we have Jackson two bears with us today and Suzanne Pike

0:40

and I’m going to do a little intro first and then do their introductions and we’ll continue on

0:47

so as Ryan was saying yesterday we had a little gathering of you know the group

0:53

of artists and moderators that are here and it was a really interesting conversation on language and what the

1:01

language is within Ai and how it works when Ryan had first invited me to be a

1:07

moderator the language that I went to was science fiction and then how from yesterday’s

1:15

conversation to come back from science fiction and go into the machine learning

1:21

piece so a little history about how indigenous

1:27

arts and Contemporary Arts across the country has evolved over time I was one

1:32

of the founders of urban Shaman and urban Shaman is in treaty one territory and it’s Winnipeg Manitoba and part of

1:41

urban Shaman being a contemporary space for exhibition presentation

1:46

dissemination we were also one of the hosts of cyber

1:52

powwow and so this is in 1996 all the way through 2004. it was online Gathering space

2:01

and I don’t know if you’re familiar with powwows but a powwow is a gathering and

2:09

we dance we share stories we meet up with friends we make new friends and

2:14

have conversation and so how about the Cyber powwow worked was they set up a

2:21

palace Works were created specifically for in that Palace and artists run

2:26

centers across the country not just Urban Shaman and tribe which at the time were you know the the two larger of the

2:34

indigenous contemporary spaces but also obero and and other galleries across the

2:39

country hosted a space to create this Urban powwow style environment where

2:47

in the 90s at Urban we only had two computers

2:52

and so you had to take turns going into they were in the office

2:57

but this group of people to come into the office to engage with all of the

3:03

other artists across the country and and those that were gathering in these spaces and switch out and you know we

3:10

had food and music and conversations so that crossover that language of powwow

3:18

cultural powwow and then bring it into a cyberspace and then the works that were

3:23

created within that cyberspace and so Suzanne is working with

3:30

scavenotti and Jason Lewis and skawanati and Ryan rice were one of the original

3:35

developers of cyber powwow you can still find the information online I’m not sure

3:43

if you can talk to anybody anymore but but the palace is still there and some of the works are still there

3:54

one of the other artists I was talking with previously about this idea of AI

4:00

and where does it fit into our indigenous cosmology was Jason Berg and

4:05

Jason Berg does a lot of work with artificial intelligence and digital media and New Media and one of the

4:12

comments he had said is that the machine is like a paintbrush for us it’s just

4:19

another tool to be able to share and tell our stories and so I kind of

4:25

envisioned that space in creating designing and dissemination using the

4:31

machine much like

4:37

yeah so Cosmos that was part of the

4:44

cyber Powwow so as we you know from the 90s through

4:51

2000 we’ve had several Gatherings at the Bounce Center for the Arts in looking at creating and the design of early

4:59

technology using web-based programs and so ahasu

5:06

a square I don’t know if I can say his name out loud I’m sorry

5:11

to his past was one of the forerunners for drum beats and so drum beats was another

5:18

online forum for the Nations across the country to be able to come in dialogue

5:24

about work and art and where that work and art is coming from

5:30

most recently here actually it saw downstairs we had the exhibition Initiative for indigenous Futures and so

5:38

that was looking at the year 2167 and that featured a VR virtual reality works

5:45

by Dennis Goulet Kent monkman Scott benison

5:50

benden and post commodity and what was really interesting about

5:56

those virtual reality spaces that they created was they still brought the

6:01

traditional culture within it so it was new ways of hunting new ways of gathering new ways of looking at

6:09

navigating through the Stars but in 150 years using virtual reality

6:16

and I just find it interesting underlay that the works of the contemporary

6:22

artists are still you know have that cultural identity with them

6:30

so when setting all of this up by the overarching question I’d like you to think about not just with our panel but

6:37

throughout the day is what are the narratives that you’re collecting through the cosmology of AI and machine

6:44

learning one of the machine learning pieces

6:50

is that idea again of language and translation and what that language is

6:57

the there’s First Nations customary artists that are in BC that are using

7:03

technology to carve doors

7:08

um and it’s for the Art Market which is a whole different stream of

7:13

Partnerships so this partnership is with UBC forestry Professor Chris Gaston and

7:20

Emily Carr’s Brendan Crabtree they created the BC Coast Aboriginal doors

7:25

program and it’s supported by the first people’s Innovations which is a non-profit group that supports

7:32

scientific research and Technology transfer in forestry so we’re looking at

7:38

the forestry engineers and then customary

7:45

Carvers and so what they did is they created this four-week intensive program

7:50

where six traditional customary Carvers came in they carved a door and used that

7:59

door then to go through a CNC machine and out the other end came another door

8:04

and then the artists finish it traditionally when they carved the doors

8:09

it takes them between four to six months to do one door and they can then sell

8:15

that door for twenty odd thousand dollars when they take that one door pattern and

8:21

they use that new technology of that CNC machine and out comes their replica they

8:29

can sell that door for four thousand dollars and it takes three hours

8:34

so that idea of that machine that machine learning and that Crossover with

8:40

forestry and art and traditional works and creating a new market a new

8:49

Financial market so that economic growth idea so again these are some of the

8:56

narratives that are being collected within the indigenous art practices

9:03

so I’m going to introduce Jackson to bear

9:11

Jackson tuber is a mohawk with a multimedia installation performance

9:16

artist and a cultural theorist from Six Nations who’s currently based in Lethbridge Alberta

9:23

two bears holds the ba in art and art history from the University of Toronto an MFA from the University of Victoria

9:30

and a PhD in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Victoria he is

9:37

currently assistant professor of Studio Art and Native American studio art at

9:42

the University of Lethbridge in Alberta and had an opening in Alberta last night

9:48

where he skyped in so Jackson yeah do I need to use this mic

9:55

here oh okay [Music]

10:02

it’s kind of glued in there

10:08

uh hello uh single it’s gonna go again

10:15

which one is sucks and two bears stay here foreign

10:24

[Music]

10:33

thanks everybody my name is Jackson tubers and um

10:39

Mohawk multimedia artist from Six Nations I’m currently living in

10:45

Blackfoot territory at 37 in Lethbridge Alberta where I teach at the University

10:50

there that’s sort of a new move for me I’ve been there for the last three years

10:56

still kind of getting very just getting familiar with the territory but before that I was in laguanan territory

11:02

actually as was set out in Victoria BC and I did have an art opening last night

11:09

which is why I missed dinner so I apologize when I escaping in to say hello to people in the open that happens

11:15

to me more often than you’d think actually I have double bookings at the same time and then nothing for many

11:21

months it’s really um anyways I’m happy to be here thank you so much

11:26

um so uh I’ve been I I’ve sort of Rewritten this presentation based on the

11:33

conversations for yesterday which were just absolutely fantastic and um give me

11:38

a lot more to think about and I’ve uh instead of instead of giving a

11:44

traditional sort of presentation I’d like to in a way kind of give you or

11:51

suggest a framework for thinking about the topics of this panel which have to

11:57

do with uh thinking you know cosmologically about technology and culture and Society

12:03

so um let me just Begin by saying that uh I or sort of a beginning uh

12:11

perspective really comes from you know this idea in many of our

12:17

traditional teachings this idea that we you know we’ve heard many times before that stories are written on the

12:23

landscape at the the landscape itself is a you know an animate and that it’s uh

12:29

you know an embodied living living archive

12:34

um so from that perspective and also uh kind of framing this

12:40

presentation is um is this concept that I borrow from

12:48

a philosopher by the name of Vaughn deloria Jr particularly found in his two books one is called for this land and

12:54

the other one entitled God is red and it’s a particular

12:59

[Music] theory he puts across between time and space and his suggestion is that really

13:08

the increments abilities between Western thought and what he calls tribal

13:15

spirituality really come from the fact that the first is based in time there’s

13:21

a kind of sense of there’s a philosophy that is very uh into temporality that everything happens

13:28

in a very linear fashion history unfolds in a certain kind of way you know to

13:34

this he adds you know this idea of manifest destiny and this idea of the uh

13:40

you know of things unfolding in this particular kind of fashion for a particular kind of people this sort of

13:45

idea of temporality is really ingrained in the philosophy of the West he argues

13:50

I also to his estimation that tribal spirituality is based in space that you

13:57

know he’s referring of course to this idea of our stories being written on the landscape uh that he says you know our our thought

14:04

our our philosophy our cosmology is really based uh is a spatial philosophy

14:09

that it uh it’s not just um uh durational but it’s also dimensional and you know uh I was just I

14:18

mean just as my own kind of I was only recently you know re-reminded of this uh when I moved to uh when I moved to

14:25

Lethbridge I was I got the great Fortune to and I have been have a great Fortune to work with uh Leroy Little Bear

14:32

who a few some of you may know Leroy uh and if you’re fortunate enough to you know if you hang around him long enough

14:38

he’ll start telling time stories that’s how he kind of communicates these uh you

14:44

know these eventually giant philosophical ideas you don’t really realize it until it’s kind of he’s just a brilliant Storyteller

14:51

um but if you’re fortunate to hang out with him long enough you know you’ll start to notice that he’ll say things

14:56

like well I have this great story I can tell you but you know we really have to go to uh the belly Buttes I can tell it

15:04

to you with flu go there or you know I can tell you this other thing but we that’s kind of a story those are stories

15:09

that are part of Chief mountain or something these are you know landmarks or important uh spaces for the for the

15:15

black foot you know where they have their Sundance uh in the Valley View six Etc so he’ll tell you it’s really connected to these

15:22

space and you have to go to these locations to hear these particular stories and just a reminder to me of uh

15:28

you know how ingrained that kind of idea is that there’s a kind of space there’s a kind of embodiment of story that is

15:33

particularly important to uh how you experience it you have to kind of be immersed in it you don’t uh you don’t

15:39

hear it in the same kind of way that maybe you’re used to so uh this kind of framework that I’m

15:46

talking about or I want to propose today is uh you know really animated by that thought but also uh by vondeloria’s idea

15:54

but also Again by Leroy little bear who talks a lot about uh interconnectivity and talks a lot about

16:01

um you know the ways in which you know that there’s uh not much difference really conceptually spiritually between

16:07

human landscape and and these kind of you know binary opposites and people

16:13

that are familiar with you know so in Academia people familiar with post-structuralist Theory this is like

16:18

really it’s like uh it’s it’s like listening to daredev or something this idea of kind of breaking down these uh distinctions

16:25

between you know Mind Body uh any of these kind of binary kind of dualisms

16:31

Let’s uh strikingly similar um so and I understand I should talk

16:38

just you know I don’t want to talk too long about my I know it’s not an artist talk but I want to talk a little bit about my practice because that is mostly

16:44

what I do I mostly am an artist I’m a maker I produce things I work in installation performance and I asked to

16:52

have this one slide up which is um just an illustration of a sorry photograph and that’s been altered that’s part of

16:59

an installation um and I just want to talk really quickly about two different projects the first is entitled uh it’s a series

17:06

entitled for this land which is borrowed from of course fine deloria for this

17:11

land series is a part of a collaborative project between myself and genyagahaga

17:17

Mohawk poet um and artists and performance artist Janet Rogers and we’ve been working

17:24

together for the last uh I guess four almost five years now uh

17:30

we met each other actually on the west coast in Lebanon territory and uh we we

17:36

kind of felt uh it was interesting because both of us sort of simultaneously uh I’ve been living in

17:42

Victoria BC for about 14 years and she had been living there for about 20 years and we both had simultaneously come to

17:47

this point in our lives and our careers that um the idea of Home became really important the idea of six and eight

17:53

she’s from Six Nations too I should say the idea of Home became really important this idea of doing site-specific

17:59

installation this idea of of land and communicating with land and this whole notion started to come I just sort of

18:05

you know became important to both of us and we kind of decided to do a series of projects that brought us back to uh six

18:12

nations the first was a short experimental documentary we made followed by a number of these projects

18:18

in this series that had us go into different locations on our home uh res to do uh do Prada it

18:26

was really inspired by this idea that the first one we did was at chiefswood which is a heritage site in in Six

18:32

Nations it’s the birthplace of Pauline Johnson famous Mohawk poet so we went to

18:39

this location and Janet had this idea that you know Pauline had left stories for us there on the landscape and the

18:45

site and so we just literally spent a couple weeks there on location recording doing any number of different actions

18:52

making things from the materials we found the landscape doing sound recordings and that became uh you know

18:58

kind of our our aesthetic interpretations became the installation piece that we were doing

19:06

um so that’s one that’s one work I wanted to talk about the second one was um this the one this image is from which

19:13

is from a piece that I did in Kelowna which was part of a gathering there two

19:18

years ago at the ubco in Okanagan uh and the reason I mentioned this is because I think this also kind of frames

19:24

my some of this idea that I want to present today um and uh and and that is we were

19:30

invited to go to this uh this residency which was several a few months long I was only able to be there for a couple

19:36

weeks and the idea was that um was introduced that we start thinking

19:42

about how to do uh not just social practice social relational practice uh

19:48

which always seems to in some way involve engagement with you know uh you

19:54

know with our social spaces which is really interesting but this project was all about trying to engage with other

19:59

non-human uh so you know uh and non-human Society so you know as we talk

20:04

sometimes in Mohawk we’ll talk about uh you know animal societies bird societies

20:09

the uh these other kind of you know or societies of the tree the sky this kind

20:15

of thing this idea of doing performance and work and media uh for those uh societies rather than just you know just

20:21

sort of this idea of decentering the human within side of that kind of concept

20:27

um so today am I how am I doing for time okay oh good oh good okay good I have no

20:35

concept of time so all right spatial it’s all spatials

20:40

uh so this framework I want to talk about and we had great discussions yesterday and uh part of this is framed

20:47

again in the space shuttle and the temporal uh but it struck me too as we talked more and more about technology

20:53

and more and more about our understanding of Technology it struck me these are actual these are cosmological

20:58

questions they’re theological questions they’re much older questions and I kind of split my uh this kind of

21:05

framework into two different sections and the first um is kind of this idea of technological

21:10

determinism which is it’s an older term but it’s an idea really of uh really to

21:16

kind of get at the technological imperative in Canada on in Turtle Island and this kind of different kind of scope

21:22

and optic that we have towards technological technological society and the other is this uh concept I’m just

21:28

condo developing inspired by our talks yesterday it’s about technological dimensionalism

21:35

that’s kind of the other side or flip side of that kind of coin so uh

21:41

what I’ve been really thinking about the last year so I was invited to the Canada Council for the Arts digital Summit last

21:48

year and I was really asked there to to kind of speak to

21:53

um you know how you know funding in the Arts and and technology and the technological funding in the Arts sector

22:00

would kind of benefits or um but it struck me that I had to ask several questions kind of leading up to

22:06

that um uh which ended up kind of coming across as something like warnings but

22:12

really we’re just sort of meant to be um you know again these kinds of Frameworks to think about uh really when

22:17

we’re asking about the question of technology and what that actually means and so when I was thinking about that of

22:23

course the first thing that came to mind and that always comes to mind um and where I’m leading to is this

22:29

question really between the relationship between technology and power uh itself and and they are really you know think

22:35

about the question of Technology uh and technological determinism um is really to think about you know the

22:42

story of Technology as destiny and it seems to me that’s what really animates

22:47

you know our our kind of our dialogue’s really about uh when it comes to

22:52

technology and culture and really this idea um really fatally I believe to some extent

22:59

really has to do with technology that becomes in a lot of ways to controlling logic of our cultural destiny

23:07

and so on the one hand um trying to think uh you know not too

23:13

fatalistically about this kind of what maybe somebody like Arthur croker uh some theorists in the area of

23:20

technology and culture what he might call maybe a welded technology uh with inside of a culture that is deeply

23:26

nihilistic but uh on the other hand a kind of way of thinking about uh

23:32

technology that rehearses in a lot of ways these kind of um uh in its worst Sense Technology that

23:39

is it’s pure in its purest form of kind of sublimation and domination and these kinds of Technologies of colonialism and

23:46

all these other sort of things that are attached to that and then the relationship between technology and

23:51

power itself so um

23:58

in thinking about this you know I was doing a lot of research just last year and it’s still really

24:04

important to me this idea about um how how technological Society technology itself really inherits

24:12

um and this is again following Arthur Arthur croker and this idea but how it inherits at a really fundamental level

24:17

uh Traditions Western cultural Traditions Western Colonial cultural traditions and

24:24

um again these at the end of the day all relate back to these ideas of Technology of power technology of Erasure this

24:31

enfranchisement you know Colonial Technologies of power itself

24:36

um and these are you know extremely troubling to me again when thinking about these kind of two different

24:42

um you know relationships and uh last year when I was doing just starting some

24:47

of this research for myself and I have to admit too I’m not a um a computer scientist nor do I

24:52

understand uh things particularly at the Deep level of of I like to I like to

24:57

think that um because I do some programming I like to think I speak nerd just a little bit but I don’t no I’m not

25:03

fully fluent yeah um but uh Jason Lewis who many of you

25:08

know came and did a brilliant talk at the University of Lethbridge last year as part of our crossing boundaries

25:14

series and I said a few things that were just so uh completely striking to me I

25:19

guess that I hadn’t really considered before and they had everything to do with this idea of inherent biases really

25:25

at the level of code and I had been understanding you know from a cultural studies perspective and from an artist

25:30

perspective these kinds of more social critiques about relationships of power and technology that I was very familiar

25:36

with talking about but what I hadn’t really understand was again really the nitty-gritty of technological systems

25:41

themselves and of the nature of the code and I I just wrote down hopefully I can read my own writing a quote from Jason

25:48

Lewis which I think is which is incredibly important and really gets at what I’m what I’m trying to uh trying to

25:55

talk about in this framework and it’s just this is the quote technologists really acknowledge that biases Infuse

26:03

every layer there are some images of biases that reify the imagination of their creators into executable code this

26:10

does not receive nearly as much attention as it should how firmly our computational systems embed a certain

26:16

world view a certain set of assumptions about how humans operate in the world that we for instance separate reasoning

26:23

from emoting the human from the animal that our goal is always to dominate the

26:29

world rather than to live within it president called so

26:36

uh following from this I had to come to the conclusion that this kind of concept

26:41

of technology and of course in a way at the level of code you know everything

26:46

that really animates our entire technological world if it inherits a particular worldview from a particular

26:53

culture a world view that we must be suspicious of because it is one that has

26:58

in the past uh sought to you know erase and uh it’s not incompatible with

27:05

indigenous culture but you know is one that I actively sought to disappear it right it actively sought to dominated

27:11

her erase it so what is at stake really uh when thinking uh from that

27:16

perspective about um about the about our technological Destiny uh if it is one again that’s

27:23

animated by these um these kinds of ideologies that I’ve saw in the past two

27:28

um you know erase indigenous peoples

27:34

um one minute holy hell okay so this last part was really to talk about on the

27:40

other hand the dimensionality of of uh of technology or this kind of other kind

27:46

of concept and I wanted to and maybe we can loop back to this and I wanted to I’ve been thinking about this one thing for at least uh six or seven years and

27:54

it’s a first virtual reality piece made by an indigenous artist by Lawrence Paul was made at the vamp Center in 1992 or

28:02

three I think uh it was a virtual reality work you know with the old school with the giant headset you had to

28:08

kind of put on and immerse yourself in a spiritual space and to me it was really

28:13

to start thinking about a different way of thinking about technological spaces one of course at this space that he

28:19

immersed you in was a coast sailor’s Longhouse the Sacred Space that you were allowed to enter virtually and I wanted

28:27

to meditate on that a little bit I wanted to meditate a little bit on Loretta Todd who wrote at that time and

28:33

has written since about Lawrence Lawrence Paul’s work about how it kind of upsets what she

28:40

called the ontology of cyberspace you know using a term from the from the early 90s

28:46

you know inverts the ontology of cyberspace and one that doesn’t rehearse against some of these usual Western

28:52

codes of uh that from her point of view that rehearse Western codes of

28:58

transcendence or any of these other kinds of uh of Notions of separation of body and place body land

29:05

this kind of thing um I will wrap up though because I don’t want to be uh what you’re doing uh

29:13

calling but just to say uh two last points about that uh the other element of this kind of framework that I’m

29:19

developing uh with uh on the one hand with Loretta Todd who’s talking about these kinds of uh uh Western Traditions

29:26

but also on the other side I think a very uh important critique was levied by uh a philosopher by the name of

29:32

Catherine Hales who wrote this really important book called How we became post-human and her analysis I think is

29:38

just really spot on about the history of cybernetics he talks about Hans moravac

29:43

and Norbert wiener these ideas of uh you know in the night I guess late 19 1930s

29:48

and early 1940s about these histories of cybernetics and really how it really in frames uh you know talking about its

29:57

technological future at the time I think is spot on with how we how we understand some of these uh these Concepts too but

30:03

you know again some of these ideas between separating uh information from uh materiality you know equating things

30:11

like the thinking conscious human mind with information how these things you

30:16

know how even saying things like Consciousness is similar to that of a machine in these kinds of ways all these sorts of analogies that were made at

30:22

these early days of cyber nights and how they really do animate our technology or their

30:29

technological Destiny which is our technological present but also you know really exemplifies how uh you know that

30:37

coding and all this stuff is not neutral that it really does inherit um you know it’s uh something from its

30:44

its cultural context um yeah so um I think that’s it I think I’ll end there

30:50

uh no end now in a Goa and I’m happy to loop back to any of these things and thanks for bearing with me this is all

30:55

brand new thought that’s really been uh inspired by our conversations yesterday so thanks for bearing with me as I

31:01

stumbled my way through thank you [Applause]

31:09

thank you Jackson uh we will be doing questions after so hopefully you’ll have

31:14

some questions ready for us now I’d like to introduce you to Susan kite Susan is a a lella

31:21

[Music] oh glala Lakota performance and visual

31:27

artist and composer from Los Angeles uh Suzanne has a BFA music composition MFA

31:35

from Baird College Baird College Moulton Avery graduate

31:41

school and a PhD candidate at Concordia University she’s been developing a body

31:48

interface for movement performance with using carbon fiber sculpture

31:53

and an immersive video oh sorry immersive video and sound installations

31:58

and has recently launched the experimental electronic imprint unheard

32:03

records welcome Suzanne

32:09

[Music] it was worried for a second I’d have to

32:14

run between the computer all right

32:21

um I realized I put the wrong title card in there but um that’s the name of another piece it’s not just a

32:27

proclamation about myself um so I my name is Suzanne kite and I make

32:34

work under my last name kite um I want to say first that I’m not an

32:40

expert in machine learning or artificial intelligence or anything like that but um nor in cultural ways of knowing

32:48

especially in Lakota information I’m still learning I was born in Los Angeles

32:53

and grew up in California and um the ogallalakota live in South Dakota

33:00

so my fam that part of my family still lives in South Dakota

33:06

um what I am expert in is making art with technology the best I can as a diaspora Lakota person

33:13

um so and right now I live in Montreal

33:20

all right so I just kind of I mean I didn’t want to do an artist talk but I do want to

33:26

talk about the way I work with technology and the work that I’m doing

33:31

now the research I’m doing now and kind of the trajectory uh through the artwork I have made

33:37

um so first I started as a violinist a classical violinist and then I really wanted to be a klezmer violinist like my

33:44

aunt and uh at some point I decided that um I didn’t I didn’t want to do that

33:49

anymore I wanted to compose but what I was desperate for and I’m still desperate for and I don’t think I found

33:55

it yet is um the feeling that when you’re playing a concerto and I only had this feeling

34:01

twice on stage ever where you know it so well and it’s so deeply ingrained in your in your hands and your mind and

34:07

your being you just you’re gone you’re off the planet I you know wherever you go and um so that is still uh kind of

34:15

the impetus for my um the way I compose and compose with the body and Technology

34:23

um so what I first started doing uh using Tech more was when I wanted to

34:28

learn data sonification and and I studied with Marcus schmickler um who uh was teaching at calarts at the

34:36

time and I um wanted to make work about

34:41

um the phenomenon of like feeling Infinity of tipping over into Infinity of counting uh losing count and the

34:48

point where you you realize you stopped counting or last night we were we were having a conversation about when you’re writing uh sometimes when I write I just

34:55

forget I just stop and realized I’m staring off in space for 20 minutes and I thought I was just was right

35:01

um uh so for example I’m going to play a little clip um when we hear many tones

35:06

at around 80 tones um uh within the human hearing range we

35:11

start to hear white noise um and

35:17

the human brain finds it hard to hear the difference between a bandwidth of what with 80 tones and white noise which

35:24

is uh theoretically all tones at once

35:57

I’m gonna be playing videos on and off so you don’t need to lower them all the way every time because I’ll I’m gonna

36:03

play a bunch of them um so that led me uh I I that was the piece

36:09

uh this piece called rocks which is part of a larger piece called Omega um that uh I decided that physically

36:16

placing the rocks on the ground and I had an accelerometer that you know triggered each sound uh was what I

36:23

wanted to do I wanted to experience the building of sound in time with the body

36:29

um so I I decided I wanted to really

36:34

focus on the body so I was doing sonification which is where you take data and you make it into sound uh

36:40

visualization where you take uh data and turn it into visuals but then I was like what does it mean to listen to data see

36:48

data and then try to do it with the body so so I said that was tacticalization and so my goal um has been to put these

36:56

into communication with each other uh and involve the body

37:04

um so then I built uh with my friend James hurwitz at Cal Arts I built my first body interface and uh this is the

37:11

original version of it and it really hasn’t changed that much I’m very committed to Simplicity and

37:17

um it’s a great tool even though the parts in it are like 10 years old by now

37:22

um uh and these are the casings for various carbon fiber

37:30

and this is uh the first version of what it did this is all open source software

37:37

foreign ER it’s uh I usually have maybe I’ll

37:43

have buttons click buttons um for sensitive resistors and uh it’s wearable in many ways

37:51

there’s James so the first big piece I did with this

37:56

was called people you must look at me um and this was this piece was about

38:02

compositionally unfolding a death that experienced my family in a cocoon of

38:07

tactile storytelling um and the storytelling itself has I

38:13

the storytelling I’ve always sought to make circular so this was a this is a chiastic composition so there’s one

38:21

thing in the middle and it’s cocooned um and my goal with this was to be entwined physically intertwined with

38:27

listening where listening as the driver the body moves and and the sound moves around the room and in Quad and I follow

38:34

the sound my body’s trying to follow and listen to the sound but no matter what I do it keeps moving

38:39

um so that I wanted to build indirect relationships um with the with listening and with the

38:46

body um and in that piece the as it goes on

38:51

it gets more and more direct and so here’s a short sample um and I think this also has some of the

38:57

other interfaces that I built

39:02

[Music]

39:12

[Music]

39:21

[Applause] foreign [Music]

39:42

[Music]

39:57

foreign

40:08

[Music] people came to the gallery could come wear them and see the six streams of

40:14

data per per wearable um on the screen um so my last my piece last year that I

40:21

made which was called everything I say is true um I wanted to I I did it at Bard College

40:28

and one of the professors there is Leticia sonami and she was she’s amazing

40:34

and she had made the first hand controller which is called the Ladies glove and

40:40

um she recently got really into machine learning and she saw she saw the piece that I was doing and the way I was

40:46

trying to fit in technology and she was like no more direct relationships like

40:52

never again uh you got to do something different so I decided to jump in

40:57

um but uh and do machine learning after this one um but this piece was important to me

41:03

because I took all the tech out and uh I did this piece to I mean there’s some so

41:09

many parts of this really long um to sketch the outline of our desire um my desire is a native person and the

41:16

audience often the non-native audience’s desire um to see magic uh technological magic

41:22

and what does it mean to set up the expectation of control the body controlling technology and uh doing

41:29

magic doing magic and I and I often equivalent um I think it’s equivalent to a coin trick

41:37

um you know and sometimes a coin trick is simpler uh I’m just gonna play it

42:04

so that was just one of the some of these more control in everything

42:10

I say is true but I wanted to talk about uh this is

42:16

some of the art uh a visual kind of stills from the

42:23

from that piece everything I say is true so in this piece I wanted to talk about um I’m really into mapping I mean it’s

42:29

hard not to be obsessed with mapping of the land as a native person um you know it’s like it’s an obsession

42:35

and I’m and I’m obsessed with a specific Hill where um my my grandmother and mother are

42:42

buried in South Dakota and Kyle and I wanted to

42:47

rethink time and mapping through Lakota

42:52

language and Lakota epistemologies so these are some of the results you know this is a this is stitched onto a dress

42:59

that I didn’t put the dress in here in the center are is the event as the structure of the piece itself and then

43:06

out and out are events that happened or maybe not happened conspiracies even that have happened around that land

43:14

um yeah so

43:20

this is a representation to representation of minkowski’s light cone

43:26

um I won’t go far and that’s a whole other talk um these forms of mapping time space events in history are

43:33

Communications of data and the transformation of data into Visual and these are very entwined in my um wanting

43:39

to ask what the computer does with data when I am in in relationship with the computer on stage and mapping to me is a

43:47

clear example of Western epistemologies reshaping that which is mapped resource extraction writing of history and the

43:53

building of computers reflect an epistemological genealogy all right so um the actually I’m doing

44:01

the piece I’m making right now um at Concordia I’m going to perform it here first uh March 8th so really soon it’s a

44:09

better finish uh and in this piece I I wanted to

44:16

take what I’m learning about Lakota epistemology and Lakota ontology and and

44:22

apply it to an envisioning of the future and uh try my hand at machine learning

44:29

so this is my score right now it’s kind of total chaos but

44:35

um I wanted to commit to a spiral structure um in time and in the building of my

44:42

interface and the building of the computer structure that I’m going to be working with so I I wanted to be I

44:50

wanted to look for different narrative forms which also means looking for different narrative forms of time and it

44:56

also means asking that my communication with the computer be subtly different each time I go around an iteration of

45:03

the Spiral and this the spiral came out of conversation with Scott venison abandoned

45:11

so this is I think this is how it’s it’s working right now um in this piece uh I’m thinking of it

45:18

as a tightly very tightly round spiral where um

45:24

the thing that sets off the beginning of the system is what I’m imagining is like a vision or a prophecy

45:31

um which comes from you know how how do uh have my my people think about the

45:36

future um and so in this I tried to set up a

45:42

system where listening is is the core where I I say something

45:48

um and words is prophecy and then the computer listens

45:54

and then um I mean this is kind of it’s kind of because it can be rearranged uh

46:00

depending on how I organize so I say something goes into the sound and then I see a visual uh and then I move because

46:07

what if I of what I see but it can become so tight and so quick uh that

46:13

the areas of decision making get dissolved or at least they get blurred

46:20

um yeah so this brings me to the core of what I

46:28

wanted to talk about let’s see what time three more minutes which is my research into epistemology

46:36

um and what I guess we should I would like to call more often the good Red Road because if you ask if you ask my

46:41

grandfather what it is you gotta walk the good road um so a lot of This research comes from

46:48

Lee Hester and Jim Chaney’s uh text truth in Native American epistemology

46:53

where they say a ceremonial world in the fullest sense of the term is an actively constructive portrait of the world

47:00

intended to be responsibly true which means one which Rings true for everybody’s well-being

47:05

and this very much relates to what Jackson’s talking about is a world built on the basis of an ethical

47:11

epistemological orientation of attentiveness or as Native Americans tend to put it respect rather than

47:17

epistemology of control such ceremonial worlds built as they are

47:23

around the notion of responsible truth are not developed piecemeal but are synthetic Creations adjusted

47:29

holistically to all concerns that arise from a focus on responsible truth

47:36

so Jason Lewis is my my advisor at Concordia and I also loved that talk as new talk and I have

47:43

had the privilege of reading a chapter which is based off that talk which is uh forthcoming

47:50

um so at a recent Symposium talk Jason Lewis uh and the subject of his forthcoming chapter an orderly

47:57

assemblage of biases discusses the biases built into computational structures from small to massive scales

48:02

and in turn utilizing our indigenous epistemologies to see AI as relations

48:08

in a recent email he said to me the goal then is to develop relations that steer us away from enslavement and towards

48:14

reciprocity and respect and I also read a lot of deloria

48:20

and deloria says which I think is very relevant lacking a spiritual social and

48:25

political dimension in their scientific practice it is difficult to understand why Western peoples believe they are so

48:30

clever any damn fool can treat a living thing as if it were a machine in established conditions under which it is

48:36

required to perform certain functions all that is required is sufficient sufficient application of Brute Force

48:42

the result of brute force is slavery

48:50

so finally I kind of wanted to introduce um something that’s new in my research

48:57

um but I still have a fraud I mean all ethnography is very fraught to deal with but it is uh this is this was pretty

49:05

relevant and mind-blowing to me recently so um this is from I pulled this stuff out

49:10

of a text uh called all my relatives exploring 19th century Lakota ontology and belief by this man posthumous

49:18

and um so I take this with a grain of salt as most things but it’s very relevant um

49:25

these and other conversations so these conversations with with Scott and with Jason um have led me to see how Lakota

49:31

epistemologies are far better suited for creating relations with the non-human Lakota ideas of the spirit in the

49:38

non-human are influencing my hopes for working with machine learning and also rethinking the original ideas I had

49:44

about circular systems in this text posthumous analyzes Lakota ontology through what is called

49:50

discolian animism and I don’t really like the term animism but we’ve got to go with it which distinguishes between

49:56

two purposefully vague and inclusive Concepts interiority so that’s the soul the spirit the mind the will

50:02

subjectivity Consciousness intentionality and the outside physicality body materiality manifest

50:07

form habitus so this means that interiority is especially distinct from Western ontologies in the animism quote

50:15

allows for the extension of personhood and sociality to non-humans thus abolishing the Divide between nature and

50:20

culture and animus societies and this includes objects so um on this

50:27

I just want to wrap up by looking at these this chart um so this word at the top uh that

50:33

encompasses everything will come um that which makes an individual I I mean until recently I thought that just

50:40

meant holy just kind of a basic sacred holy term but actually it means it points towards

50:47

interiority so under this we’ve got life breath Spirit growth communication volition memory and um the spirit

50:56

see the elements of wakam um this chart I know it’s really tiny

51:01

words but just to point out that there’s a lot of detail there’s stuff to be uh be pulled out these are the elements of

51:07

Lakota interiority according to um posthumous so

51:14

um Nia and shiku life or Guardian spirit

51:19

are given by this outside force takushka who’s not like the Western God it is

51:26

he’s more complicated he’s fallible much of sci-fi talks of the magical moment

51:32

when AI becomes conscious or when man gives birth to AI like God giving life to man but takushka is not the same as

51:39

God and Spirits are taken from another place the stars and in this cosmology and most importantly they have separate

51:47

Guardians with them so there’s multiple Spirits involved most important to me is that this interiority is given by an

51:52

outside force we as humans can only find spirit in things to communicate and have relationship with them perhaps Spirits

51:59

are already inside computers even if I say the wind is not alive and has no agency that doesn’t mean it isn’t so

52:05

it’s not up to me so I just wanted to point out finally that um this chart spans two slides so

52:13

in this chart these three things the life’s uh Nia naji’s shiku they’re all

52:19

Wacom they’re holy or that and also also means which is awesome that anything

52:25

that can’t be understood that I don’t think like me not understanding coding the math the

52:30

council for Holiness but it’s okay um but these are the things that are not

52:36

considerable that are also part of interiority and those are the mind will intellect Consciousness the heart

52:42

feelings and emotions and strength and power um those come from other places which I

52:48

also I really thought that was interesting uh wrap up by saying um I feel that

52:56

there’s an essential misunderstanding between Western and Lakota epistemologies let alone the many that

53:02

many indigenous epistemologies that we um that I have not had the privilege of

53:08

diving into is the inability to comprehend the complexities of spirit Soul movement and agency and non-human

53:15

relations in colonial discourse the imagining of the indigenous relationship with animals and land is flattened and

53:21

therefore questions of agency and other objects is flattened along with them foreign

53:28

[Applause]

53:34

thank you both for that and some of the observations and I’m not

53:41

I don’t know if it’s I don’t want to be insular about it but when when we have

53:47

Gatherings of indigenous peoples and we all talk about our culture and in a very

53:53

contemporary way and how that translates to you know a larger non-indigenous art

53:59

audience and it’s interesting how um like Scott’s work his blueberry pie

54:07

and Mars and so that just showed a little while ago here at saw gallery or

54:13

saw video which is where your work will be in in March so you know promote saw

54:19

um but that idea um when using the technology it’s still about

54:26

culture it’s still about the language and trying to bring that language into

54:33

further Generations so eight years ago we had Close

54:39

Encounters the next 500 years which was the exhibition in Winnipeg and treaty

54:44

one territory that plug-in and it invited over 80 indigenous artists from around

54:51

the world to look at their Futures in 500 years and there is a you know a huge

54:59

publication that went with it and what it looked like and many

55:05

shared their traditional stories through a new form of work

55:13

but yet it was still that culture was still being brought forward so do you

55:20

want to can you talk about language in in your work Jackson

55:29

language in in my work or just in my general thought and just in a general kind of

55:36

process uh I’ll tell you what I was thinking just recently or at least overnight and

55:43

there’s because it’s uh it’s a huge huge question and I I am currently in the

55:51

process of recovering my language which I didn’t have

55:56

uh in fact our family lost our language when my grandfather and grandmother were

56:02

in residential school and came home with a new language and didn’t speak kanyakihaga to my my

56:10

parents and um who subsequently lost that and then of course I didn’t have it

56:16

and I’ve been thinking about you know language and meaning and because language you know language of course is

56:22

a whole different way of seeing and looking at the world right and

56:28

um I think maybe it’s probably an oversimplification to say that you know in indigenous languages

56:34

uh you know versus Western languages which are kind of you know noun based I

56:40

think indigenous languages are verb based or action-based I think that in some ways that’s a bit of an oversimplification but um I think

56:46

there’s some truth to that and there’s uh and just even even thinking differently about those kinds of

56:53

Concepts makes uh you know makes a huge difference about how one experiences uh

56:59

the world and I think too like um like language uh on in that kind of

57:04

capacity and speaking about it as um as I just was about how you know

57:10

grandfather goes to residential school comes back to the different language that’s an experience of language like it’s a recoding of the body I mean

57:16

essentially right it’s a decoding on the one hand of you know uh of of his

57:24

mohawkness and recoding with a different kind of language a language essentially that

57:30

um you know would essentially kind of fight against the body this is kind of this uh it would take me a little while

57:35

to recall all of this but there’s this brilliant piece by Franz Fanon who talks a lot about that about the invasion of a

57:40

foreign language inside the body and how the body kind of revolts against that um there’s a kind of sensibility I think

57:47

about about that and I I feel like going through and relearning my language or recovering that is kind of this act of

57:53

resistance uh and about recoding the body back to kind of some a different way of of being

57:59

and orienting oneself right um so I don’t I don’t know if I deal with language so much or I have dealt

58:06

with language so much really overtly in my in my art practice I mean my my art practice often has to do with um uh I

58:13

don’t know all kinds of all kinds of different uh things again interested in spatiality and land and those kinds of

58:19

uh issues but um I see now in this process of recovery that’s becoming a

58:24

huge part of who I am and who I will be and uh as process

58:31

um as recoding um so that’s what I’ve been thinking about since like overnight I was thinking about that and thinking about

58:37

uh you know how bodily and language are connected uh I mean there’s something there maybe to be made if I thought

58:43

about it more about what I just talked about uh maybe even thinking through Loretta Todd and Catherine Hales about

58:49

how these you know materiality and and material instantiation and its

58:54

relationship to or its kind of foreign separation to information and and data

58:59

that this kind of like strange Duality that comes uh from uh from a certain

59:06

particular kind of ideology um I don’t know for me for me I guess I’m

59:12

interested now um at this moment and thinking about it’s it’s bodily amplifications and and uh what language means and that kind of

59:20

and Suzanne so how was the traditional Lakota language in

59:26

enhancing is it developing for the technology language that are that’s in your work

59:33

um I’m not even sure yet I feel like I’m still I I’m signed up to go to the

59:39

Lakota language Consortium on this summer two weeks I get to I get to live

59:46

in the language for the first time um and you know relearning the language

59:51

has been fraught because I barely I barely want to start because I’m going to do it wrong and it’s really hard to unlearn new things

59:58

um and but so right now my relationship is either

1:00:03

just in ceremony so I know some ceremony songs and otherwise the relationship is

1:00:09

um with research with you know ethnographies that confuse me and but I I’m desperate for them you know I’m

1:00:16

thirsty and I mean this is like a you know something to drink and when it’s a

1:00:22

desert so um but I find

1:00:27

uh even in ethnographic texts even in text from like 1903 that I read a lot

1:00:34

they they still give me um the basis of

1:00:40

transforming or beginning to transform and be able to see start to see

1:00:46

differences in in possibilities for thinking so I’m

1:00:51

I mean I’m really attached to epistemology because I feel like it shows a very bottom layer of what

1:01:01

we’re building on what we’re building computer systems building compositions building politics building our

1:01:07

communities you know um and I’m and I’m not fixated on laws either because even though a lot of this

1:01:14

so some of this formal language formal Lakota language there’s levels of formality in Lakota it’s gone from let’s

1:01:21

say my family so I don’t you know but the more I read and reflect and remember

1:01:27

things my grandfather tells me I I realize that it’s all in there the beliefs are all there all the knowledge

1:01:33

is there the language is just slightly different so I’m very excited to learn

1:01:38

my language though so um I want to thank you all for being

1:01:44

here and thank you Jackson and thank you Suzanne

1:01:51

[Applause]

No results found