“You are going to project your own manufacture in public space, and when you do, it will be seen.” - Mike Hoolboom (Notes on Attention, Projection, Foreplay and the Second Encounter)
Oxidize is a 3 Channel Super 8mm film with live audio and performance that speaks to the ways that imperialism circulates within Canada. An extension of a 3 act performance titled The Queen’s Punishment, exhibited at Access Gallery in Vancouver (October 2012), Oxidize extends Bamboat’s concept of Canada’s imperial and settler history by (re) enacting labour, consumption and the reproduction of colonial acts. Employing the now defunct 1cent Canadian penny, Bamboat performs producer & re-producer of image and colonial history in Canada.
In the first channel, Bamboat performs the labourious task of mining histories of colonialism in Canada. Adorned as Queen Elizabeth II, this channel serves as performance documentation from The Queen’s Punishment. Imperfection and irony have rendered the image as a semblance of; the remnants of an empire – the marks of which exist within the shadows behind layers of petroleum, mining, oil, bleach, and various other chemicals.
The second channel literally speaks to the consumption of Canada’s imperial legacy, which remains steadfast, as is seen through the events of the Queen’s Jubilee ceremony, and the Royal Wedding. Eating 154 pennies, Bamboat reflects on the 154 years of the circulation of the Canadian 1 cent coin (1858 – 2012).
The final channel reenacts the process through which Bamboat reproduces the image, laying bare the hand-processing technique of developing celluloid.
Oxidize serves as a critique of Canada’s imperial history, as well as the complicated nature of celluloid production & reproduction; and finally the consumption of the image; literally, figuratively – eat it.
Artist’s Note:
All 3 channels consist of a live audio performance. One performer will be sitting in front of each screen on a stool, backing the audience and perform the soundtrack, corresponding to each image. The soundtrack on the digitized version of the video is taken from the initial screening of Oxidize at 8Fest, Toronto, February 2013.
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