Rural Industrialization

After returning to Hyder and Stewart, I felt the drive to start filming what had happened.  Feeling these changes were important, I also interviewed our friends George and Dro to document their thoughts on what was happening.  Not having an idea of how this would fit together, I continued to film throughout the duration of the summer.



I completed this project through a documentary making workshop at Media Net in Victoria.  After visiting other developing areas, I knew I would like to connect the development around Stewart and Hyder to what was happening in Western Canada as a whole.  I wanted to travel to Fort St John, The Peace River Valley, and to the Tarsands after becoming more aware of development issues during my previous year. 

Working on this project gave me much more appreciation for the spectrum between documentary and more artistic video projects.

During this time I also began to take environmental studies classes as well.  I became much more interested in media projects to present digestible arguments about the realities and problems we face in the future. 

An Echo: Petroleum Infrastructure

This is a music video for An Echo, a song of the high school band I was a part of, Mang.  This video was created with footage I took over the summer of 2012 during my travels from Prince Rupert, BC to Fort McMurry, to Montana, Colorado, Texas and Lewesiana.  This video is kind of monotonous, and was created largely to show this footage, but also because I had some associations between this material and this song..



I went to these places because I knew them as centers of activity for various industrial development, and I felt like I wanted to explore these issues further.  A lot of my experiences filming in these places was pretty wreckless, and I had no idea what I was doing in these areas.  I definitely learned a lot about the scale various industries, and had a lot of drive to use this material and continue this crusade of media activism.. . 

How much it mattered that I took detours to visit these places I am not sure, some times I feel like I have not fully processed the significance seeing these places-  It still feels like a dream, but having this material has helped to feel like I am contributing to something, but more so like a step continuing some long journey of activism.

Victoria Deer Cull

This video is definitely an issue based activism project, but more targeted at the longer term implications of how we define our relationship with natural forces.  Being more concerned with an evolutionary perspective on species to species relationships, I have come to view the deer population in Victoria as a mutually beneficial. 



Though of course I also come from Helena, Montana, which was one of the first cities to initiate urban deer culls.  I have had a few extremely powerful interactions with the deer in the forest which I grew up in, but I still am comfortable hunting them and eating deer meat as communication  with the forest and that species. 

I feel very differently about management depending on where I am at, and the deer around Helena and Victoria are actually different species, and have significantly different relationships with the corresponding human populations.  Though in both places, I feel that the deer deserve more respect, care, tolerance and awareness on our part.

Confiction

This flash animation was tediously created for a digital media class, for a self portrait project.  Much of my reference material is used directly from footage shot in the Natural Industrialism project, and was a further attempt to rationalize my place in a world being torn apart by industrial forces.




This project was also created at a time of internal conflict and reflection.  Alone in shifting awareness, I spent a lot of time thinking about my self and the importance of my natural roots.  Here I flushed out and ran with my conception of Fenris Felidae and Rascine Cervidae.  Feeling torn between different homes, torn between lives and values linked tied in BC and Montana.  Though I have come to terms with this division now much more unified confidence, I still use these names to distinguish tone, mindset and context for media projects. 

Natural Industrialism

Coming back to Montana after my first year tree planting, I was inspired to make a video project based off of a fictional narrative showing how technological development shifted our values and relationships to our environment from settlement to the present.  This project was shot and written primarily around the Helena and Butte areas. 

This project seems to be an effort for me to rationalize and make sense of my place withing this world, and the balance between human and natural forces.  I am not exactly sure of my inspiration, but this project initiated a long path of environmental activism and focus.

Montana Tunnels

This project was a response after visiting the abandoned Montana Tunnels Mine site.  I saw the disturbance from maps, and I wanted to check it out while getting footage for a different project...  I was able to navigate some forest roads around the barbed and electric wire surrounding the site, there was an area near the top of a near by ridge where there was no fencing..  crossing over a grassy hilltop, I saw this giant hole in the ground.

After getting this footage, I was inspired to research the project.  Primarily I am concerned with the fact that there are not plans for complete reclamation, this seems like an example of a mining company that has lost funding and will not be held accountable for reclamation. 

This is the first activism or public media (non visual art) project I have made.  Now I feel like the tone hits over the head pretty hard and is pretty biased, but the dialog of continuing to rely on mining is even more relevent now in light of plans for further development in the powder river basin. 

Mourning Glory: Ween Music Video

This was one of the first serious video projects I have created.  Completed for a high school art project, this music video tells the story that this song conveyed.  Though now this project seems to be more of a self portrait.



I really appreciate this piece and recognize how this project captures my early internal struggles between humanity and nature. This piece is especially meaningful as much of this forest was logged the following year to mitigate pine beetle damage.  This forest still is the place I feel is home, "the forest".  Each time I return to the place in which I grew up, I find it damaged more and more by climate change.