Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems

A breakdown of an architectural pattern reveals how a small, seemingly insignificant change can dramatically alter a final outcome.

Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Graduated 1991 

Photography/Painting/New Media 

I had spent 5 seasons planting trees all over British Columbia and did a series of artworks which attempted to mimic the extraction and processing of timbers. Later I did a similar series of works which mimiced the constuction industry. 

I have an art Studio in Vancouver. 

Website:

Viewpoints is a series of videos that examine the invasive roll media and technology plays in shaping our understanding of the world.

is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Port Moody, BC. He holds a BFA from NSCAD University, MSc from the University of Toronto and a BSc from the University of New Brunswick. Chris has spent the past decade working in non-profit arts organizations, as a professional printmaker and as an educator. His diverse interests include landscapes, human movement, socio-political satire and the social effects of technology. 

The installation, Moose are Life speaks to the effects of the colonial inheritance of Indigenous peoples, and the invasive systems of capitalism, colonialism, and non-resident hunters in Tahltan Territory.

 is a mixed race Tahltan and inland Tlingit sound artist, songwriter and composer. Her songs are an incarnation of her family’s ancient tradition of storytelling; realized by designing sound through vintage and current audio recordings, electronic instruments and the voice. Edzi’u has a degree in music composition from Vancouver Community College, with a minor in classical voice. Her body of work, Kime Ani, samples audio from recordings of three generations of her matriarchs and grandmothers stories. Edzi’us songs are vessels of history, tradition, and adaptation; a sonic commentary of her world view and life experience through a contemporary Indigenous lens. 

“Invasion.” Technological waste woven and twisted into organic forms burst forth from an abandoned desktop computer, imagining it evolving to support a second life.

is a Canadian artist investigating the wonders of nature and the idea of electronic technologies gone awry. She uses the materials and imagery of discarded electronic technologies to create whimsical and worrisome sculptures, drawings, and installations that propose hybrids of technological structures and living organisms. From Treaty 4 Territory of the Saskatchewan prairies, Twyla now lives and plays in the forest of Northern British Columbia on the traditional, unceeded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. 

As you watch a robot create abstract paintings, consider how AI created artwork will affect how we value human creativity?

is an artist who uses technology to automate the process of fine art painting. In her latest work she uses a robotic arm and Artificial Intelligence. Joanne has been consistently painting for the past 15 years creating cityscapes and landscapes of the places she sees and travels to. In the past two years, Joanne has merged her education as a Mechanical Engineer and brought it into her artist process. She taught herself to write Python code and started to write code for a robotic arm to paint using her style. 

In her latest work she uses the software to create colorful abstracts and then uses Machine Learning and AI to curate and title them. Through these projects Joanne is automating the creative process of painting including the ideation, curation and creation of the art. 

Reconstructions of native, cultivated and invasive plants into new hybrid flowers, or Frankenflora, demonstrate how hybridization can lead to invasive-ness in particular environments.

is an artist, writer, and editor. Learning from literature, botany, herbaria and ikebana, she makes flowers from dried or pressed plants and calls them Frankenflora. She currently writes about sciart as a subject editor at Science Borealis, a Canadian science blog, and edits in full-time and freelance capacities. She is also the creator of Seagery Zine, a small annual print publication that explores the overlap between art, science and literature.