To position my work, you may find my self-location here.

FYI – as graphic novels go, this video is pretty graphic.

For this bog entry, I was fixated on the visual story of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (Hill, 2010) and the auditory story  of A Tribe Called Red‘s The Virus (2016). I thought this blog was the perfect opportunity to create a visual and auditory remix of these two forms of art to create a story to exemplify screen sovereignty through the use of mixed media. This was my attempt to avoid writing an academic paper, however, I’ve since chosen to write a post to put this video into the context of screen sovereignty.

Dowell (2013) describes visual sovereignty as “the articulation of Aboriginal people’s distinct cultural traditions, political status, and collective identities through aesthetic and cinematic means” (p. 2)

In my view, screen sovereignty is the right to self representation in a digital space through multiple mediums and forms of communication. For myself, screen sovereignty happens through diverse digital spaces, including this blog where you will find my self-location linked at the top of the page. I always include a link to my self-location with my blog posts to allow the reader to understand my worldview, “as there is no singular Aboriginal media aesthetic” (Dowell, p. 2). I find this is an effective tool that allows me to define my own image as a Tsimshian person through media, rather than to have it dictated to me or ascribed on my being. Screen sovereignty can also be exemplified on social media, like Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope and Vine, where the content creator has control over what is being produced (I also wonder which of these mediums will be outdated in the next five years). There are a number of avenues for self-representation in a digital space, but the key to screen sovereignty is having control over what your image is that is put forward.

For this blog, I explored a combination of graphic art and music to create a narrative on the screen. I believe my own screen sovereignty is happening through the video I created above, remixing the visual component of Hill’s book The 500 Years Of Resistance Comic Book (2010) with A Tribe Called Red’s song The Virus (2016). I read Hill (2010) at the same time that A Tribe Called Red’s latest concept album came out – We Are The Halluci Nation (2016). The visual imagery of the comic book fit so perfectly in my mind with the song The Virus that I felt compelled to re-mix the two into a unique new combination for others to experience. The song, and the entire album, captured my attention and created an emotional response for me, as I’m sure it has for many others. Recollet (2016) reflects on the concept of decolonial love, as described by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, in media as “Indigenous forms of holding spaces for each other through, within, and despite the rupturous inter-stices of settler colonialism.” (p. 96). Thus, in my immediate admiration (lets be honest, it’s an obsession) with the A Tribe Called Red album, I too am engaging in radical decolonial love for this art form.  As I was making the film, I felt more and more satisfied with the outcome, and once it was complete I felt proud of what I had created. As Recollet describes, at that “moment of decolonization” (p. 96) there is “an unclean break from a colonial condition” (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 20). 

Recollet (2016) describes the purpose of modern Indigenous remix as to “reconfigure space to produce the protocol of urban spaces” allowing the viewer to time travel remixing past, present, and future (p. 94).

I created this re-mix of visual and auditory components as a representation of connecting past atrocities of colonization and re-presenting them through modern mediums. The act of finding new and creative ways of presenting Indigenous information “resist[s] and intervene[s] in the hyper-representational mode of describing Indigeneity and Indigenous world(s) as anachronistic and stuck in the primordial past.” (Recollet, 2016, p. 95). The act of creating something in the present depicting the past projects a new way of understanding into the future (2016). 

Dowell (2013) describes Aboriginal sovereignty as a political act, and one of a process. Both The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (2010) and The Virus (2016) have political messages, and combined into this video, the message is amplified. While this video only required myself and my laptop to produce, the work of Gord Hill and A Tribe Called Red required multiple people and countless hours of research, editing and creating to bring their work together. This video is a continuation of the process of creation that Hill and A Tribe Called Red started. Through this video, I aim to challenge unequal power dynamics using accessible media for the masses (ie. Youtube).

As I was making this video I was unsure whether or not the piece I was creating was something that embodied screen sovereignty. I could not decide whether the song should tell the story of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (2010), or whether the comic book should illustrate the story of The Virus (2016). Ultimately, I could not justify either of these two scenarios as I did not want to use one to tell the other. I felt this would undermine these separate but related pieces and may do a disservice to either of the artists who allowed me to use their work for this project. I cannot conclude that this is an example of screen sovereignty of either Hill or A Tribe Called Red, and until they tell me otherwise, I cannot assume that this is a true and accurate representation of their messages as the parties have only given me expressed written consent to use their content for this purpose of creating this video. Ultimately, this video is a representation of my own thoughts that have been percolating about these two forms of art. The video is my re-presentation of these two storytelling methods, and depicts the storyline that I attempted to convey by pairing the images of the comic with the lyrics of the song. 

It was also a fine line to walk as to whether or not I would be representing these artists in a good way. As I set out my shot list, I questioned whether or not to include or remove the text in the comic book strip. I decided I would leave the text in as much as possible, as it’s an integral part of the original artwork from Hill (2010), and I did not want to take the images out of context for fear of misrepresenting the authors’ message. I do not intend for the viewer to read every slide, as the imagery was the main part that moved me to make this video.  However, I did remove the text of a few slides for continuity as I felt the images matched the context of the story I was trying to tell, but the text did not line up with the message at the particular point that I was emphasizing. I also altered the audio to include clips from Joseph Boyden that appear elsewhere in We Are The Halluci Nation (2016), as I wanted to incorporate my favourite quotes into this piece.

Hope you enjoy the video!

 

References:

Boyden, J. (2016). BEFORE [Recorded by A Tribe Called Red]. On We Are The Halluci Nation [mp3]. Radicalized Records. (2016, September 16).

Boyden, J. (2016). SOON [Recorded by A Tribe Called Red]. On We Are The Halluci Nation [mp3]. Radicalized Records. (2016, September 16).

Dowell, K. (2013). Sovereign Screens: Aboriginal Media on the Canadian West Coast. University of Nebraska Press.

Hill, G. (2010). The 500 years of resistance comic book. Arsenal Pulp Press.

Recollet, K. (2016). Gesturing Indigenous futurities through the remix. Dance Research Journal, 48(1), 91-105. doi:10.1017/S0149767715000492

Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indignity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1-40.

Williams, S, Black Bear. (2016). The Virus [Recorded by A Tribe Called Red]. On We Are The Halluci Nation [mp3]. Radicalized Records. (2016, September 16).