Since the pandemic began, the limited (and privileged) pathways of information and resource distribution, that so much of cultural production relies on, have been exposed. Physically out of touch with institutional spaces and fed by great social upheaval, more people have begun questioning the relevance of old institutions and the privileged knowledge they house.
Perhaps, in this moment, we have the capacity to imagine what new futures could exist. Perhaps, once imagined, we can work toward making them a reality. This is what performance artist, composer, and Digital Economies Lab participant, Suzanne Kite, is doing with An Artist’s Almanac. The project is a digital tool that can aid artists without homogenizing their needs, aspirations, or technologies of knowledge. Drawing upon Oglála Lakȟóta technologies of time and dreaming and Afrofuturist practices around gathering and rest, Kite aims to have An Artist’s Almanac decentralize the value system that currently positions all ‘other’ creation in opposition to the institutional assimilation of commodifying art. By doing so, Kite aims to provide a tool that fosters artistic agency, solidarity and prosperity. That prosperity is not solely for this lifespan but so that artists may be agents of prosperity for generations to come by contextualizing the actions they take today within the looming framework of tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow.
Dive into this discussion with us and pay close attention to the abstract technologies of time keeping and dreaming Kite describes and consider imagining, with us, what future you are willing to work toward.
Check Out More by Suzanne Kite:
Gain Context through these Resources:
Initiative for Indigenous Futures
Take a Peek at Kite’s Collaborators:
See Who Has Participated:
Produced by the Artengine Stream Team:
Mikke Gordon aka Seiiizi https://twitter.com/s3iiizi
Ryan Stec
Kimberly Sunstrum https://www.kmbrlysnstrm.com/
Editorial Assistant
Erin Galt
Production Design Consultation
Leslie Marshall/MAVNetwork http://mavnetwork.com/
Post-Production Support: Chris Ikonomopoulos
DEL Theme Music by Mikki Gordon aka Seiiizi
Artengine’s Digital Economies Lab brought together a diverse group of artists, designers and other creatives to rethink the infrastructure of cultural production in the 21st century.
Funding for the Digital Economies Lab was received through the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Strategies Fund.
"I think that becomes clear when you ask people to really sit down and imagine a future where their needs are met. I ask people to go as far into the future as it takes for you to have those needs met. 10 years? 1,000 years? 10,000 years?"
Sound is inherently tied to space, it traverses. Once you start considering the possibility of a spaceless sound, you are delving into a realm of abstraction. Two types of re-encodings of sound that might be considered aspatial are the conversion of “vibrations moving through the air” to a digital signal and our memory of sonic events.
