Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace—a research network of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, technologists, and designers interested in Indigenous self-determination in cyberspace—has continued encouraging Mohawk youth in Quebec to learn and use skills in game development to adapt and pass on traditional stories. Skahion:ati: Rise of the Kanien’kehá:ka Legends is a 3D third-person adventure game that was created in the Skins 2.0 Workshop at Concordia University. Skahion:ati was made using Unity and Blender with the support of a robust team, which included visits from Ubisoft employees (based in Montreal, Quebec), showing that the company cares about the Indigenous community.

Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed III, a historically-science-fictional third-person stabby game set around the American Revolutionary War that features a Kanien’kehá:ka mixed blood hero. Ratonhnhaké:ton, who is later renamed Connor to assimilate into the city, is a dynamic character who is impassioned to protect his peoples’ lands and ultimately kill his own non-Indigenous Templar father Haytham Kenway, his associates, and historical baddies.

The game remedies several typical missteps of past Indigenous representations in videogames:

Collaboration: Most importantly, UbiSoft collaborated with Indigenous peoples. The development team took steps to involve Mohawk peoples in the development of Assassin’s Creed III at the design and production stages. Thomas Deer, a cultural liaison officer at the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center, directly consulted with Ubisoft on Iroquois traditional knowledge to inform game assets like buildings, music, and non-player character behavior.

Language: Ubisoft also involved language consultants and hired Kanien’kehá speakers. Although the actor behind Connor, Noah Watts, is Crow and Blackfeet, he worked with language speakers directly as well.

Feminine Strength: Kaniehti:io (Connor’s Kanien’kehá:ka mother) is an intelligent, suspicious, and tactical woman who helps to free enslaved “Natives,” arranges alliances across Indigenous nations, and saves the life of Haytham Kenway (by being totally badass and strong herself).

Ubisoft does still occasionally get iffy, like the Clan Mother who gets too close to the “Mystic Savage” trope in her shamanistic powers and tone. However, given the Assassin’s Creed series’ science fiction time traveling storyline, the elder’s knowledge of the “portal” adds an element to the growing recognition of Indigenous science fiction.

The game generally has an anti-colonialist tone. Kaniehti:io rightfully doesn’t trust Haytham. Even the non-player characters question their role, such as a British soldier who comments about the expedition: “Slap a fancy name on something and all is excused.” Interestingly, the game is mindful of (what to the Anishinaabe is known as) Weendigo nature of the colonizers—Weendigo being a spirit of endless consumption that can enter someone prone to that way of being and mount to cannibal nature. As a youth, Connor predicts of westward expansion: “In time they will swallow us whole.” Haytham, being self-reflective, states, “We’re cruel and desperate creatures, set in our conquering ways” and acknowledges his own “desire for more, and more, and more.” Kaniehti:io worries about the “same dark hunger” being passed down in her son.

Overall, the game balances the bloodiness necessary for a game about assassination with Indigenous ways of knowing, such as when Connor points out when hunting, “We must return nature’s kindness with our own.”

Props to Ubisoft and Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace for these strides. I’m writing a more in-depth academic journal article on this topic that will be out soon, and until then, you can check out the short vid here.

Here’s to looking forward to the future with a model for other commercial game companies to follow and hope for independent game companies to be inspired by.

Miigwetch,

- Beth

P. S. What’s up with Mohawks and time travel?

When it comes right down to it, I’d much rather focus my efforts on putting out new representations in games rather than revisiting old ones. This is my final nod to the past as I look ahead to the future of Native representations in digital games. Right, by finishing that dissertation in Indigenous game design!

And just because, as many representations as I did mention, the list is still incomplete…

For the Princess and the Vixen, we also have Shawnee from Outlaw Volleyball.

For the Reimagined, there is Venture Arctic from Pocketwatch Games, which I wrote and consulted for. Indigenous peoples never appear in the game, but the art style is adapted from Inuit carvings. Overall, it’s an environmental simulation game that respects the changes inherent in seasons and the power of weather. It draws mechanics from nature.

- Beth

SSI is based on the curriculum of the Skins 1.0 pilot, which resulted in the imagineNATIVE award-winning Otsi!: Rise of the Kanien’kehá:ka Legends. Whereas Skins 1.0 used the Unreal game engine, we’re excited to use UNITY this time because of the wider range of possibilities and the immense user support out there.

We’re glad to bring back Nacho Nyak Dun storyteller Louise Profeit-LeBlanc and Mohawk artist Owisokon Lahache, who were both invaluable to the success of Skins 1.0. We will also have Anishinaabe photographer Scott Benesiinaabandan, artist Tommy Deer, Secwepemc animator Mathew McNeill, sound designer Shawn Mullen, and sound artist Darwin Frost. From game industry, we’re excited to have Morgan Kennedy from Ubisoft and Ruben Farrus from Minority.

Look out for a new curriculum packet after we recover from the intensity of running the workshop. We’ll have a number of publications coming out based on the curriculum, structure, and student experience thanks to working on assessment with Jen Jenson, Amanda Williams, and Shanly Dixon. We’ll also share the games that come out of the workshop similarly to Otsi!.

If you are interested in following the students as the workshop progresses, feel free to visit the Skins Summer Institute blog that will be launched soon.

I make jewelry such as chokers, necklaces, and earrings. This unfortunately dropped away in the mix of life (mamahood, work, dissertation). I just couldn’t justify spending the time on anything other than what I saw as absolute necessity, but as I grow, I’ve come to realize that these parts of life are the necessity. Without that elation of creation, my perception of life simply isn’t as beautiful as it can be. There are certain creative triggers that I can’t resist, including stories and music. I am thankful for these that have guided my personal breakthrough recently.

The Path Without End, Scene 1

The Path Without End is a story that has been with me since childhood. It tells an Anishinaabe story of the Moon People, and namely, brings into play a mixed child (that is, Anishinaabe and Moon Person). These stories are not my own, but everyone’s, told and kept by our elders for generations.

Cris Derksen, a part Cree cellist, has several amazing tracks that make my mind spin off into other worlds. I ardently believe that much of her music fits the Native Steampunk aesthetic. She merges the cello with Native tones and builds layers using a loop station and effect pedals. It is raw and digital all at once.

Namely, Derksen’s track “Prosperity” kept bringing me back to The Path Without End. I couldn’t get over the visuals in my mind to try to adapt them to a short story. Words. English. It just doesn’t work. Working with photos of raw materials and my best friend Photoshop, I created an experimental animation that is raw and digital, one and the same.

The Path Without End, Scene 7

The Path Without End ended up being a 05:55 experimental animation that took 1,376 JPG exports by hand. Okay, yes, I’m crazy, and yes, I realize there’s an easier way to animate than move layers pixel by pixel. Since I wasn’t working with body part movements for this one, it worked. I had absolute control over every element.

Hopefully it will be in festival distribution in the near future. Without a doubt, this is just the beginning.

- Beth Aileen Lameman

To find out more about the show, please visit http://plugin.org/

Seen here are co-directors Skawennati Fragnito and Jason E. Lewis accepting the award at the closing awards ceremony. For more information of the project, please visit the website http://otsi.abtec.org/ .

Animism

Animism tells the story of age-old treachery around the Sacred Site of Gods’ Lake, which was fictionalized as an alternate reality, but is based on Kevin Lee Burton’s interpretation of our sacred indigenous lands.

The themes are very timely, especially as we face the daunting impacts of mining and resource extraction in communities such as the Tsilhqot’in First Nation and Fort Chipewyan First Nation. Thankfully, a recent legal battle protected Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) from mining, a relief for Tsilhqot’in people such as filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown. Similar cases are taking hold, including the Beaver Lake Cree Nation case against the federal government and Alberta provincial government to halt tar sands development. Maybe a shift really is happening, as Animism suggests…

It has always been important to me to be involved in projects that not only move me forward as a writer, but that I stand by in belief. It has been an interesting and rewarding experience as story editor for Animism and cultural consultant for The Gods’ Lake ARG. For Animism, I had the opportunity to see elements of myself in a collaboration and realize the possibilities of animation for my own writing. I’m bubbling over with images in my mind that can actually be done via animation. It’s a breakthrough that I am hoping will result in tangible animations or at least good ol’ cut scenes in a game, since my writing style calls for the visual but live action Aboriginal steampunk isn’t exactly in the budget (yet). For the ARG, I had the pleasure of working with Nis Bojin, the designer and writer. It’s rare to see an ARG that is in-depth but also welcomes in people of various ARG playing experience (from nil onward).

I’m also surrounded by interesting people in Portland who are new to me, like Tess Martin, whose backlit tissue paper animations are unique and inspiring. I have a few short, short stories that are waiting for adaptation to animation. I just need to get set up with Photoshop again, and I’ll be ready to roll.

Onward to the next project and loving life,

- Beth

Through the Looking Glass Self: Group Identity and Avatar Design in Second Life

Colorado State University/ Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Paper presented by Rosa Mikeal Martey and Mia Consalvo

Approaching the podium is a woman with bright pink streaks in her hair, dressed fully in black and with the brisk walk of someone possessing the cool sort of confidence. Automatically, through just her physical appearance and the spotlight setting, we label her as artistic, intelligent, and possibly Goth.  She speaks.  No accent proves a North American upbringing. Closer inspection brings piercings to light, extra layers of eyeliner, and the superior quality of her shirt’s fabric. A rebel? An intellectual? Upper-middle class? We make guesses without even realizing we are doing it. Her statements are digested with certain awareness, a new twist, based on accessories and hair choices and even her title, giving more weight to her speech than the written word alone could ever hope to convey.

It is unfair, biased, and yet completely typical.

Judgment is a default (emphasis on the fault) of human nature; seeing someone and auto-placing them into a series of general categories. People who wear suit and ties are considered either successful or society’s sheep, depending on the viewer. Those covered in tattoos are either expressive or reckless (more commonly: future regretters).  Men and women who wear glasses are, modern-historically speaking, either brainy or high school outcasts. Sometimes both. And so on…

Our appearance, both what we choose to wear and what our genes choose for us, cannot help but project certain clues to not only our tastes and ethnicity, but our personality, our sexual orientation, our social class, our upbringing, our education, even our  hangouts. Though these generalizations are often inappropriate, especially in the rather liberal society of the Americas, this habit of ours is best put to use when people wish to be recognized for their preferences. Whether by a turban, a designer handbag or a cat-eared hoodie, connections are instantly forged when two people share such uncommon markings.

In the world of Second Life, anything is possible. Upon sign in, users can manipulate their default human avatars to be anything from a leggy super model to a “flying spaghetti monster” (as Rosa Mikeal Martey, our presenter, commonly used as an extreme example). Despite this ability, the same phenomenon occurs within this virtual realm: people put themselves into categories. Different than real world ones, but categories none the less. The race of flying spaghetti monsters is, regrettably, a one-of-a-kind breed. However Pseudo-human fox women with giant breasts can be found en mass.

Martey and Consalvo’s study of Second Life society first began with wishing to test the capabilities of the medium by creating a simple point-and-click adventure game. But as avatars began arriving and playing through the level, the point of interest became not the ability of strangers to work as a team, but primarily how they looked while doing so. On the doorstep of their island arrived animals, robots, elves, werewolves, vampires and even a few recognizable celebrity or fictional character skins. The usual standards of humans no longer applied. Variations of species were more common than skin color.

Despite this preference for the strange, avatars more often than not had a clear choice of gender. And usually that gender was female, though the creators were careful to have 50-50 male and female user participation. Another interesting decision that many users made was their clothing. Knowing they were about to participate in a game taking place in Victorian/Steam-Punk style city, many of the seasoned users purchased or made costumes to match.  Outfits were also provided for those who hadn’t had the time.

Still, in this virtual world where changing clothes is as easily as the click of a mouse, users were strangely attached to their style and, knowing they were being documented, many insisted on keeping their usual outfits for the sake of identification. If they were members of a popular Western simulation, they wouldn’t dare take off the cowboy hat in online public. Much like a diva can never have a bad hair on the red carpet, it would be considered disrespectful of an ever so carefully crafted personae or image.

The world of Second Life, despite its assets of anonymity and un-restrained creative options, has sadly become, in majority, nothing more than a distorted mirror of the real world. The goal of most avatars is to be noticed, as either part of a strange society or as a fantastically attractive version of their real selves. As the Madness Machine Study has discovered through their social experiments; it is more a medium of enhancement than creation, of belonging rather than innovating. And, as with most applications that are driven by user content, its primary business is adult entertainment.

But we shall not fret. As long as there exists at least one flying spaghetti monster in-world, we have hope for imagination.

Madness Machine Study (Colorado State): http://scribes.colostate.edu/

I was hit that a major piece of myself was missing when Shauna Baker talked me into a photoshoot before I moved to Alberta for production on a documentary. She got me out of my shell enough to get some amazing shots, but it left me wondering: Why am I in such a shell?

The shell became a stone fortress during the summer in Alberta. Fashion? Forget it. No time for it. Everything stayed packed. Why bother? It’s only now that we are nearing our co-location between Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Alberta and Portland, Oregon, I’m re-emerging–pulling out my old pieces, making new pieces, and finding new pieces in glorious Portland.

On a place-hunting trip, I came upon REDUX on Burnside and left with a quirky scarf, an enchanting resin necklace with a little story of gears inside, and a dark brown recycled leather purse. My first purse ever. I’ve never gotten so much at once. Femininity is returning to me, the more my aesthetic is out and about. Unfortunately for me, Hattie’s Vintage Clothing was closed, but I plan to go back. The windows were filled with museum-like displays. I also have yet to visit Keen Garage. The list goes on.

This weekend, I’m planning on attending the Time Travelers’ Marketplace and Ball, a benefit to support the Hillsboro Historical Society, in Hillsboro, Oregon. They reference the preservation of Native history as part of the purpose of forming the non-profit.

Portland, by far, is more than I could have dreamed.

I am reinvigorated to return to where I belong. And, indeed, I do belong. It’s a comforting feeling. It’s time to dig out my hide and my beads, and create.

Ekosi, as Myron would say,

- Beth Aileen Lameman