Notes From:
INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUES 2009/2010 – WHAT IS RESEARCH?

Session II
Research, Ethics, Politics
February 12, 2010, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., LB 646 Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Ouest

Presentations by:

Josh Schwebel: Escaping ‘What’ and ‘Is’: research beyond subject(s)

Ioana Radu: Doing research with aboriginal people: the role of knowledge mobilization, engaged scholarship and sharing authority

Eric Ronis: Every Story Needs a Villain (or Does It?): Framing Social Protest Research in 2010

Devora Neumark: Art and Ethics Within and Outside of the Academy

Discussant: Joel McKim (Concordia, Communication Studies)

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Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace’s learning initiative “Future First Nations: Native Storytelling through Virtual World Building” made it into MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition, but we need your help to win. Read the rest of this entry »

Concordia University’s Career and Placement Services hosted a panel discussion, ‘Careers in the Gaming Industry’, on Wednesday, November 11, 2009.   Six Concordia Alumni from Computer Science and Software Engineering discussed what it takes to get into the industry and their personal experiences throughout their careers in gaming.  There was much valuable insight shared with a room of approximately 2oo Concordia students who are eager to break into the industry (of which approximately 10 were women, no suprise there … I just like to keep track of these details).  I will summarize what I took from the panel. Read the rest of this entry »

Steven Loft at the IARC Speaker SeriesSteven Loft at the IARC Speaker Series

Indians in Space: Curating Media Art by Indigenous Artists

Steven Loft, Aboriginal Curator-in-Residence, National Gallery of Canada; Former Director, Urban Shaman Gallery

IARC Speaker Series, SAR Boardroom

October 29, 2009, 5:30–6:30 pm

The development of an artistic discipline based on electronic technologies is an articulation of creative and cultural space foregoing the territorialized domains of cultural and artistic canons. We get beyond the notion of simple mediation and enter the realm of translation, exploring how media refashions the logic of communication strategies to encompass a broader understanding of contemporary cultural phenomena. As curator Catherine Mattes has noted, “translation can loosely be defined as the act of expressing the sense of one language into another parlance or form of representation. When applied to visual languages, translation can transcend the boundaries of specific movements and discourses and does not bind artists by locating them in (or up against) a particular realm.” I interpret this to define a certain absolute and contiguous relationship to the technology available, and to its ability to transform our perception, existing as shape shifter, neither inherently benign nor malevolent, but always acting and active, changing, transformative, giving effect to and affecting the world. The term “language of intercession,” coined by Victor Masayesva, refers to this idea. In his essay “Indigenous Experimentalism,” Masayesva writes, “the Indigenous aesthetic, like each tribal language, is not a profane practice, a basic human protocol, or merely a polite form of etiquette and transaction, but rather, it is the way in which we are heard and commune with the Ancients.”    (From http://sarweb.org/index.php?iarc_lecture_steven_loft-p:2009_2010_iarc_speaker_series)

Listen to the talk at http://sarweb.org/index.php?iarc_lecture_steven_loft-p:2009_2010_iarc_speaker_series

Skawennati won Best New Media at the imagineNative Festival in Toronto last weekend for the TimeTraveller™ website. Congratulations to the whole TimeTraveller™ team and cast of thousands.

At this year’s 1oth annual imagineNATIVE AbTeC-ers Jason E. Lewis and Skawennati Tricia Fragnito will present works in the New Media Show at A Space Gallery (401 Richmond St W, Toronto, ON).

We hope to see you all there!

Steven Loft: A curator with chutzpah

By Jennifer Dales | September 15, 2009
Steven Loft has a lot of chutzpah. This Mohawk-Jewish curator, writer and media artist is the first to hold the two-year position of curator-in-residence, Indigenous art, at the National Gallery of Canada. His overall career goal is impressively ambitious: “I want to change the way mainstream Canada thinks about Aboriginal art.”

Read the rest of this article: http://rabble.ca/news/2009/09/steven-loft-curator-chutzpah

As we recolonize cyberspace and re-envision technology for Aboriginal means, I am brought back to the Steampunk genre time and time again. For those unaware, steampunk, simply put, is a genre of fiction that re-imagines a past with steam-based technology. (Notably, steampunk has become a fashion and an aesthetic.) However, most steampunk, despite being based in Victorian or Western times, overlooks Native (Native American, First Nations, Aboriginal, Indigenous) representations and forms of technology and aesthetics that did exist.

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