Electronic billboard explores language in public space
Clint Burnham, SFU English, 604.817.0185; clint_burnham@sfu.ca
Dixon Tam, SFU media relations, 778.782.8742; dixont@sfu.ca
Messages from North American artists and writers, including Aboriginals, will start appearing next week on an electronic billboard adjacent to the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver as part of a public art project.
Digital Natives, which runs from April 4-30, is a public art project curated by Vancouver artist Lorna Brown and Simon Fraser University English literature associate professor Clint Burnham. Initially, 60 Twitter messages will be shown interspersed with regular advertising. Halfway through April, another 60 new messages will be added, including tweets from the public.
“I use Twitter – both on an everyday basis and in my teaching and research. I was out on a jog around False Creek in early 2009 and saw the billboard for the first time and then thought it would be cool to put messages up there as a public art project,” Burnham explains.
“I've collaborated with Lorna before so I talked to her about it. We then brought the idea to Other Sights for Artists Projects, which has a history of facilitating public art in Vancouver. The city liked the idea and commissioned the project for its 125th anniversary next month.”
Getting Aboriginal youths involved is a big part of Digital Natives. The project is in part about both the billboard’s location – it sits on Squamish Nation land – and Aboriginal languages. Burnham says First Nations languages are under threat today, dying out, as a result of “colonialism.” For example, Aboriginal youth were forbidden to speak their language in residential schools.
On a positive note, he is seeing new life with digital media, such as podcasts that preserve oral histories.
“We thought it was important to have First Nations participants but also to do outreach to urban Aboriginal youth,” Burnham says. “I've worked with many different communities in the past 15 years through teaching in the Lower Mainland, and I’ve also facilitated workshops with Aboriginal youth at the Native Education College. From these workshops we also generated six messages for the billboard.”
Coming up with the idea for the project’s name, Digital Natives, stems from American writer Marc Prensky’s idea of those who have grown up with digital and online media – older folks who are "digital immigrants" and Aboriginals (youth or not) who work with digital media.
Many of the messages that will be shown on the electronic billboard were translated into Kwak’wala and Squamish. Some also originated in Tahtlan, Thompson, French, and Chinook.
“We tried to give the messages an identifiable look so that they stand out from the advertising but have their own kind of uniformity,” says Burnham.
“We hope the public will start noticing the messages when crossing the bridge on the way to or from work, driving or on the bus, cycling or walking or running. Or even seeing this all online – another way to come across the project. And perhaps they will want to contribute messages of their own, to take part in the dialogue.
“What we would like to do is to spark a conversation – about public space (the billboard and bridge), about relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, and about the roles of language and media with respect to these issues.”
The public is invited to submit messages to be considered for broadcast on the billboard by sending tweets to @diginativ or through the Digital Natives website.
-- 30 --