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Clint Burnham
Electronic billboard explores language in public space
April 1, 2011
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By Dixon Tam
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 SFU 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,” explains Burnham. “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.”
“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.
Six messages for the billboard come from workshops with Aboriginal youth at the Native Education Centre.
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.
“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,” says Burnham.
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.
Digital Natives, which runs from April 4-30, is a public art project curated by Vancouver artist Lorna Brown and SFU 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,” explains Burnham. “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.”
“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.
Six messages for the billboard come from workshops with Aboriginal youth at the Native Education Centre.
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.
“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,” says Burnham.
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.
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