Coded Territories: Tracing Indigenous Pathways in New Media Art

A fascinating collection of essays that provide historical and contemporary context for the practice of Indigenous New Media Arts in Canada.

This collection of essays provides a historical and contemporary context for Indigenous new media arts practice in Canada. The writers are established artists, scholars, and curators who cover thematic concepts and underlying approaches to new media from a distinctly Indigenous perspective.

Through discourse and narrative analysis, the writers discuss a number of topics ranging from how Indigenous worldviews inform unique approaches to new media arts practice to their own work and specific contemporary works.

With Contributions By: Archer Pechawis, Jackson 2Bears, Jason Edward Lewis, Steven Foster, Candice Hopkins, and Cheryl L’Hirondelle

Steven Loft was recently the National Visiting Trudeau Fellow at Ryerson University. Previously, he was the Curator-in-Residence of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada and Director/Curator of the Urban Shaman Gallery in Winnipeg.

Kerry Swanson has worked in the Indigenous media arts sector for over a decade. She is the former Executive Director of the imagineNATIVE Fim + Media Arts Festival. She currently works for the Toronto Arts Council.

The book was created in partnership with ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival

Foreword

Donia Popescu

For Iktomi

Introduction: Decolonizing the Web

Steven Loft

1. My Post–Indian Technological Autobiography

Jackson 2 Bears

2. Indigenism: Aboriginal World Views as Global Protocol

Archer Pechawis

3. A Better Dance and Better Prayers: Systems, Structures, and the Future Imaginary in Aboriginal New Media

Jason Edward Lewis

4. Documentative: Inclusivity and the Ethics of Interactive Documentary in an Indigenous and Participatory Context

Stephen Foster

5. If History Moves at the Speed of Its Weapons…

Candice Hopkins

6. Codetalkers Recounting Signals of Survival

Cheryl L’Hirondelle

7. Mediacosmology

Steven Loft

Not to be missed!
—Centre for Imaginative Ethnography 

Coded Territores takes the reader on a journey through time, story and imagination that joins past, present and future. … Beautifully designed… powerful, absorbing and challenging.

—Terry Huffman, ALTERNATIVE

This book directs our attention to the ways of knowing, logics, beliefs and traditions that drive uniquely Indigenous visions… It offers important lessons to help us collectively navigate the evolving landscape of the network society.

—Rob McMahon, BC Studies