Preview
CYBERPOWWOW ’04: UNNATURAL RESOURCES
Runs May 1 and 2
www.cyberpowwow.net
An ancient aboriginal tradition once again takes a leap into the digital age with the fourth CyberPowWow at The Banff Centre.
Ryan Johnston, one of the technical organizers and participants in this year’s event, calls it an "online multi-user community" where people from around the world can log in and participate.
What they will find when they get there, according to Johnston, are "eight artists who have set up their own rooms" using video, graphics and sound to complete the experience.
CyberPowWow is much more than just another online community. Inspired by the ancient tradition of powwow, where aboriginal people still gather to sing, dance and simply affirm who they are, this digital version will be more encompassing than anything one could have imagined millennia ago.
Conceived in 1996, the event, which happens once every two years, is a combination website and "palace" (interconnected chat rooms). The other sites involved in this year’s project include centres in Halifax, Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto, in addition to Calgary’s EMMedia.
In a fashion, CyberPowWow stays true to its non-digital predecessor by extending an invitation to anyone with a computer, Internet access and a modicum of curiosity. Like many First Nations communities that welcomed outsiders, so too does CyberPowWow in the form of "inter-tribalism."
Welcoming visitors will be such artists and writers as Archer Pechawis and Skawennati Tricia Fragnito. Pechawis is a Vancouver-based new-media artist and writer who explores Cree culture through digital technologies. He is also known for solo performances that include Talking to My Horse and Public Spaces/Private Places.
Fragnito, a self-described content developer, is the creator and founder of CyberPowWow. She developed the idea while she was a board member at Oboro, an artist-run centre based in Montreal. While there she co-founded Nation to Nation, a First Nations artist collective that brings together aboriginals and non-aboriginals using digital media to create new works.
During the two-day "gathering," the chatroom-website will be open from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. and, for the first time in its young existence, CyberPowWow is completely online and remote. |
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