squared
AI will eventually surpass the human brain but getting jokes ... that could take time. (Geoffrey Hinton)
Exploring A/I Artistic Intelligence
Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humour and serious play. It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method,
one I would like to see more honoured within socialist-feminism. (Donna Haraway)
Project title Streaming Life: Storying the 94.
A site-specific truth-activation on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto.
A restory-ation of University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies (SGS).
WHEN: Oct.13, 2021. 8.30pm EDT.
WHERE: YouTube and 63 St.George St., Toronto.
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members of the working group Native Performance Culture and the Rhythm of (Re) Conciliation: Remembering Ourselves in Deep Time with Sto:Loh author, educator and Knowledge Keeper Lee Maracle and
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the Digital Dramaturgy Lab_squared.
Project description:
A site-specific truth-activation on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto.
A restory-ation of University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies (SGS).
This performative intervention is the first of a series of site-specific truth-activations on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto.
Each intervention re-presences a seemingly neutral plot of "Terra Nullius" upon which an institutional edifice has been erected, marking it as a place where destructive power was exerted—a force that continues to reverberate through Indigenous blood, bone and memory today.
To mark the sun's autumnal passage across the equator, members of Native Performance Culture and the Rhythm of (Re) Conciliation: Remembering Ourselves in Deep Time with Sto:Loh author, educator and Knowledge Keeper Lee Maracle and the Digital Dramaturgy Lab [squared] activate a restory-ation of University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies (SGS).
The SGS house is the house that Sir John A. Macdonald occupied in the year he revised and signed the 1876 Indian Act into legislation. In 1879, one year after leaving this house, Macdonald commissioned Nicolas Flood Davin to research and publish the report that would constitute the foundation of Canada's residential school system.
This live streamed intervention is a project, which draws awareness to this history while speaking back to the tangled saga of research adventures that storied into being the exclusion of Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems from this campus, environmental missteps, and eugenics policies and praxis—all of which are inextricably woven into the DNA of this important institution.
Text: Jill Carter
"What fears nest in the walls of this house—this pleasant home in which Canada’s first leader
crafted his Indian Act and signed it into legislation? What fears did he carry out of this house when he sought advice from Nicholas (the) FLOOD , the FLOOD, the FLOOD , the FLOOD Davin on the most effective plan to swallow the future of Indigenous nations?"
63 St.George St., Toronto.
Writer-Devisors: Sherry Bie, Antje Budde, Julia Campbell-Such, Jill Carter, Evadne Kelly, Sara McDowell, Maria Meindl, Trina Moyan, Natasha Rojas-Cisneros, Gabriele Simmons, Sheilah Madonna Salvador.
Performers: Sherry Bie, Evadne Kelly, Andrew Kesik, Myrto Koumarianos, Sara Mcdowell, Trina Moyan, Natasha Rojas-Cisneros, Sheilah Madonna Salvador, Gabriele Simmons, Brenda Wastasecoot
Orator (Story of Double-Headed Serpent): Lee Maracle
Land-based Dramaturg: Jill Carter
Digital Dramaturg: Antje Budde
Directors: Antje Budde (digital performance), Jill Carter (physical performance)
Music:
Opening: Sisters. By Wolf Saga/Chippewa Travellers/ David R. Maracle
License provided by Nagamo Publishing
Closing: Determination. By Justin Delorme/Chippewa Travellers
License provided by Nagamo Publishing
Animations (serpent, hell mouth): Jenny Blackbird
Text animations: Nicole Eun-Ju Bell
Video projection content management and stage manager: Nicole Eun-Ju Bell
Live video projection interface design and live streaming projection operation: Dave Kemp
Computational art, live-streaming interface design and operation: Don Sinclair
Recording videographer: Antje Budde (moving camera) and Don Sinclair (stationary camera)
Lighting: Antje Budde and Don Sinclair, Dave Kemp
Video editors: Antje Budde and Jill Carter
Sound/ mics for performers/ video recordings: Nicole Eun-Ju Bell and Don Sinclair
Sound/mics for live performance: Nicole Eun-Ju Bell
Live videographers: Antje Budde (moving camera/ close ups) and Dave Kemp (stationary camera - total shot)
Streaming Life: Storying the 94 (SGS) has been made possible through the generous support of
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Hart House, Hart House Theatre (funding),
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The Emerging Projects Fund in Critical Digital Humanities (Digital Humanities Network),
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The Jackman Humanities Institute, (WG funding)
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Professor Susan Hill and The Centre for Indigenous Studies. (funding)
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Our thanks to the Computational Arts Program (York U.) and Integrated Digital Option Program/The Creative School, (X University*, formerly Ryerson) for in-kind contributions
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Our thanks to School of Graduate Studies (SGS), U of T, for on-site support
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Our thanks to the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (CDTPS), U of T for PR support and storage space for our lab equipment)
We send greetings and thanks to:
Michelle Brownrigg, Doug Floyd, Natasha Naveau, Shannon Simpson, and Brenda Wastasecoot (for her Railway Animation), James Hyett and MAria Meindl (for being helping hands when we really needed them) and Uri Livne-Bar (for audio water sound), Brian Desrosiers-Tam and Joshua Barker (SGS), Tara Maher (PR at CDTPS) .
Miigwetch! Miigwetch! Miigwetch! Miigwetch!