Cultural Engineering Book Launch and Panel Discussion

On September 29th, SAW Video is celebrating the launch of its new publication, Cultural Engineering, a limited edition art book which both documents and reflects upon the ongoing, long-term project of the same name. I have been excited to be involved not only as the project coordinator but also the publication coordinator, and I am happy to see this come to fruition. Since early 2015, Ottawa-based artists have been responding both critically and artistically to the Arts Court Redevelopment Project as it unfolds from 2015-2017, engaging the community in an open public dialogue and exchange of ideas. To date, six distinct issues have been published online, each featuring original media art produced by the artists with an accompanying essay by yours truly.

Cultural Engineering. Ottawa: SAW Video, 2016.

The launch event also marks the online publication of the project’s seventh issue. Meredith Snider and Tim I. Smith (the project’s resident artists) gave presentations on their work to date, and the guest artists for the seventh issue, Adam Brown and Genevieve Cloutier, also gave presentations on their work. After these presentations, I moderated a panel discussion with the artists, which was followed by a Q+A period.

The Cultural Engineering publication, designed by Simon Guibord, is an art book that features images and texts that engage with the project from a variety of vantage points. The publication includes an essay by me as well as engaging contributions by artist and writer Tom Sherman, writer Zoe Todd, a visual poem by poet Vera Wabegijig, images and texts by participating artists Tim I. Smith and Meredith Snider, and an introduction by SAW Video director Penny McCann.

The publication is available to purchase through SAW Video. An excerpt of the publication, including my essay, is available online here.