Visual sovereignty is a crucial part of self-representation for Indigenous peoples. Kristen Dowell defines visual sovereignty as, “the articulation of Aboriginal peoples’ distinctive cultural traditions, political status, and collective identities through aesthetic and cinematic means. I locate Aboriginal visual sovereignty as an act of production… and self-representation.” (Dowell, 2013, p. 2). Additionally, Dowell contests that, “the consideration of an Aboriginal audience for Aboriginal media also expresses visual sovereignty” (Dowell, 2013, p. 3), and that understanding Indigenous media “within a framework of broader Aboriginal political movements” is integral to what Dana Claxton explains as “self-government” (Dowell, 2013, p. 19). Aboriginal visual sovereignty has led to the growth of what is called “screen sovereignty” in cyberspace. I define Screen Sovereignty as Indigenous people decolonizing cyberspace through naming Aboriginal territory in cyberspace. It is about challenging the colonized digital “utopia” where ‘democratic’ thought runs free, by highlighting that equitable democratic thought on the internet cannot be possible when there is still a large digital divide in Canada (Gaertner, 2015, p. 60). It is about resisting the European settler’s entitlement to consumption of any and all information. Whether screen sovereignty is created by Indigenous peoples to share cultural traditions such as dances (like CyberPowWow) as the result of Indigenous peoples having been systematically forced off reserves and into urban centres by the Indian Act (Dowell, 2013, p. 5), or screen sovereignty as a way for Indigenous peoples or to situate outsiders from a reserve as guests (such as God’s Lake Narrows), it is ultimately about Indigenous people translating tradition, title, culture and survivance onto the screen. To illustrate, I will use the example of the God’s Lake Narrows interactive online experience created by Kevin Lee Burton as an excellent example of screen sovereignty. Burton demonstrates self-determination by repainting the image that is often stereotyped of his home and inviting guests to become visitors in the reality of his space, which he does through the use of soundscape, timed sequences, employing an inverted gaze, and designing a webbed network of knowledge which all lead to the de-centralization of digital knowledge.

Burton first manages to disrupt the settler experience of navigating a website by situating the visitor of this domain of cyberspace as a guest on the reserve through sound. As a guest at God’s Lake Narrows reserve cyberspace and as a White settler, I had the startling realization that I was not in control as I first accessed the website by the sounds the came with the loading map of reserves in Canada. Then came the soundscape of daily home life and the ringing of dial-ups, where suddenly it is made clear that the conversations are being had without you. The presence of screen sovereignty is felt clearly and loudly by the music that is so unique and unlike music heard on mainstream radio stations. The music changes to a more uplifting rhythm and beat as the text moves from a discussion surrounding a lack of funding for reserves to images inside a home, where the audience is made to feel as an invited guest in their presence. This disrupts the settler dominance of entering spaces when we wish and demonstrates Burton’s capacity for screen sovereignty.

Further, the timed sequence of slides are designed so that the guest cannot rush through the story of God’s Lake Narrows. The timing requires the visitor to slow down and absorb all parts of what they are viewing. The timing is decided by Burton, an example of how the sovereign space of the God’s Lake Narrows website dismisses the settler need for quick consumption in order to move on to the next thing. I found that when I was experiencing the site for the first time and an IOS update popped up in the corner of my screen, I found myself feeling angry at Apple for intruding on God Lake Narrow’s hospitality and pacing. Additionally, the inverted gaze from both the families of God’s Lake Narrows reserve and Kevin Burton himself looking back at the viewer place the observer as the outsider to the reserve. When clicking “about God’s Lake Narrows” one can deduce from observing Burton’s moving picture and narrative that he governs how God’s Lake Narrows is represented in this space by detailing his lived experience.

To further illustrate God’s Lake Narrows as an example of screen sovereignty, Haas describes the value of, “nonhierarchical content linked in a hypertext and the capacity for hypertexts to have multiple layers of meaning.. to subvert the traditional hierarchy of information” (Haas, 2007, p. 87). God’s Lake Narrow’s website does not necessarily have a clear end or start, and each slide is a story in and of itself, which forms the webbed network of knowledge that Haas discusses in Wampum as Hypertext (Haas, 2007, 86). God’s Lake Narrows website exists as a sovereign space with different networks of knowledge outside the colonial dimensions of the internet.

To conclude, Burton discusses in his narrative that when one googles images of God’s Lake, pictures and of pristine forests and carefree teenagers often pop up (Gaertner, 2015, p. 71). Gaertner analyzes this as when he states, “focusing on the ‘pristine’ landscapes and the ‘savage’ Indian, these casual representations of the community reinforce colonial stereotypes” (Gaertner, 2015, p. 71). I decided to google these images for myself (which I now realize upon reflection that this is an example of how the settler in me was trying to consume knowledge through ‘evidence’) I found buried underneath the images of pristine forests to be a picture of God’s Lake Narrows fishing lodge, as pictured below. When I even scrolled further, I found an image of a young girl named Krystal Andrews, and as I explored more I found the news article of how she was murdered last year on God’s Lake Narrow reserve. I felt angry as I began to question why an image advertising a fishing lodge has been given more priority in this domain of the internet than the picture of a murdered Indigenous woman? This situation is one example of why self-representation, screen sovereignty and Aboriginal territory in cyberspace are vitally important. In the current state of Canadian society where community members often don’t have any say over how their community is represented or what makes it into the media and what does not, screen sovereignty in Aboriginally defined territory in cyberspace is an important method of resistance. By Burton showing what God’s Lake Narrows looks like to the people inside it, he succeeds in making advertisements for a fishing lodge look irrelevant and ridiculous.

References:

Dowell, Kristen. “Vancouver’s Aboriginal Media World”. Sovereign Screens: Aboriginal Media on the Canadian West Coast, pp. 1-20.

Gaertner, David. “Indigenous in Cyberspace: CyberPowWow, God’s Lake Narrows, and the Contours of Online Indigenous Territory”. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 39(4), pp. 55-78.

Burton, Kevin. God’s Lake Narrows. Retrieved from: http://godslake.nfb.ca/#/godslake

Haas, Angela M. “Wampum as Hypertext: An American Indian Intellectual Tradition of Multimedia Theory and Practice”. Studies in American Indian Literature, 19(4), pp. 77-100.