Still from Timetraveller
Still from Timetraveller
 

TimeTraveller™

by Skawennati
This project re-orients the subjectivity of indigenous lived experience & fantasy through movie-making in a virtual environment.
2013  ·  1h15m  ·  Canada
English
About the Film
TimeTraveller™ is a multiplatform project that features a nine-episode machinima (machine+cinema) series that tells the cyberpunk tale of Hunter, a young Mohawk man of the 22nd century who looks to his past to figure out what his future will be. Despite his impressive range of traditional skills as a warrior, Hunter is unable to find his way in an overcrowded, hyperconsumerist, technologized world. In an act of desperate clarity, he has decided to use his edutainment system—his TimeTraveller™—to learn more about his heritage, in the hopes of finding his path in life. TimeTraveller™ immerses him in historical events significant to First Nations and Native Americans, such as the Dakota Sioux Uprising (1852), the Oka Crisis (1990) and the occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969). Along the way, he meets Karahkwenhawi, a young Mohawk woman from our time, who, through a bizarre glitch in the system, also gets a pair of TimeTraveller™ glasses. Together they criss-cross time and Turtle Island, discovering the complexity of history and the meaning of success.
Upcoming Screenings

Stay tuned for upcoming screenings!

Festivals and Awards
2013
imagineNATIVE Film, Media, Arts Festival, Toronto, Winner: Best New Media
About the Director

Skawennati

Skawennati makes art that addresses history, the future, and change. Her pioneering new media projects include the online gallery/chat-space and mixed-reality event,  CyberPowWow (1997-2004); a paper doll/time-travel journal, Imagining Indians in the 25th Century (2001); and TimeTraveller™(2008-2013), a multi-platform project featuring nine machinima episodes. These have been widely presented across North America in major exhibitions such as “Now? Now!” at the Biennale of the Americas; and “Looking Forward (L’Avenir)” at the Montreal Biennale. She has been honored to win imagineNative’s 2009 Best New Media Award as well as a 2011 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship. Her work in is included in both public and private collections.
Born in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Skawennati holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, where she is based. She is Co-Director, with Jason E. Lewis, of Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research network of artists, academics and technologists investigating, creating and critiquing Indigenous virtual environments. She also co-directs their workshops in Aboriginal Storytelling and Digital Media. Skins, This year, AbTeC launched IIF, the Initiative for Indigenous Futures; Skawennati is its Partnership Coordinator.

 

Share

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
Pocket
Telegram
Email