Fiona Bowie
Encyclopedia
Fiona Bowie is a Vancouver-based Canadian
installation
artist. She uses film, video, photography and sculpture, and makes "immersive environments".
(BFA) in 1990 and from the School of Contemporary Art SFU
(MFA) in 1998.
1998 - 2000, Bowie was Co-curator, Western Front
Exhibitions Program , and was the editor of ~scope, exhibition catalogue Western Front Exhibitions Program, 2001.
.
False Creek is a short inlet in the heart of Vancouver. Once teeming with marine life, it was heavily industrialized in the early 20th century. Now starting to rebound, the inlet supports seabirds such as cormorants, ducks, herons, kingfishers. Herring and other sealife are now populating the inlet, though in comparatively small numbers.
The live documentary
is transmitted from a camera mounted underneath an Aquabus (a commuter ferry servicing Science World
, Yaletown
and Granville Island
) via a Wireless mesh network
to an LED screen mounted on the water side of Ocean Concrete, one of the last industrial businesses still operating on False Creek. The live video stream of surface is broadcast via the mesh network online at www.surfacer.ca, allowing remote viewing and enabling visitors to False Creek to watch the stream on their smart phones as the Aquabus passes by.
The artist emphasizes that Surface is meant to reflect the current state of the underwater flora and fauna, rather than serve as entertainment typical of glass bottom boats in Marine Park
s or the collections of public aquariums
. Bowie chose this body of water for Surface to serve as an analogy of environmental pressures affecting marine life, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
in the North Pacific Gyre
.
“Surface will evolve over time, reflecting the health of marine life as evidence of our collective activity: the future of the work and what is manifest, is wholly dependent on us."- Fiona Bowie
Flow, produced by Bowie with Sidney Fels, a UBC
Computer Scientist
, was commissioned by the City of Vancouver. Rebecca Belmore
, initially part of the artist team, could not participate in the project due to time constraints.
This was the first permanent installation of timebased photo and media work in the City of Vancouver. Flow is a continually changing Mise en scène
that uses open source
software to access a library of images shot by Bowie over a period of four years. Made up of hundreds of portraits and landscapes, the work has been programmed so that 'figures shot at different times appear as if they simultaneously present, with a core group of these figures or actors recurring in a manner that implicitly suggests they're part of a larger narrative'.
The special glass projection material, Smart glass, causes portions of the imagery to disappear as the projection surface switches from translucent to clear, fragmenting the image and frustrating it's coherence.
"Flow" also has an interactive web component
where visitors are encouraged to add dialogue to images captured from a live feed of the work. The dialogue consists of phrases penned by Bowie and bands such as the New Pornographers and The Residents
. Once images and dialogue are captured by visitors to the site, these are preserved as stills in the websites archive
Exhibitions Program in Vancouver and exhibited in November 2007 at Open Space in Victoria. Hopkins said, "Sliphost plays with conventions of media, narrative, and scale and draws on the reciprocities between two disparate worlds to reconsider notions of consciousness, consumption, beauty and oblivion." According to Bowie:
Bowie has several works that are created and added to over periods of time, such as Phenotypes (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004). 'Conceptually, the work is an ongoing installation. Each year, another narrative aspect is added to the visual record to mirror the flux of an individual dwelling or neighbourhood over time. Each time it is exhibited, the artist chooses which particular years(or chapters) of activity are represented.'
, Subsequent exhibitions of the work in 2004 in Vancouver and 2007 in Whitehorse presented entirely different sets of narratives set within the same Cul-de-sac
setting.
In 2001, Bowie created "Faltering Repetition", a synchronous multichannel
photo-video based narrative work that used a 360 degree projector to create the backdrop setting for the work. This work, portraying a chance conversation between two strangers at a traffic intersection, used separate, non-diegetic
sound feeds to represent the setting and the dialogue of the characters. Fiona Bowie has created several works using this template including 'deliverance' (1998), 'Phenotypes'(ongoing), Nature Morte (2005) and 'Sliphost' (2006).
SLickerslacker debuted at Light Bar, a series of art and music events curated by the Canadian collective Instant Coffee, featuring contemporary visual artists.
Bowie was bass player, songwriter and singer for the Vancouver three piece Chopper from 2000 to 2007. Absence, a commissioned soundtrack composition was performed live at Songroom in June 2006, by Jim Peers (Free Radicals), Stephen Taylor (trike).
Bowie is Assistant Professor, Media Arts, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
, teaching in both the undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
artist. She uses film, video, photography and sculpture, and makes "immersive environments".
Life and work
Fiona Bowie graduated from UBCUniversity of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(BFA) in 1990 and from the School of Contemporary Art SFU
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
(MFA) in 1998.
1998 - 2000, Bowie was Co-curator, Western Front
Western Front Society
The Western Front is an artist-run centre located in Vancouver, Canada. It was founded in 1973 by a multidisciplinary group of artists who purchased the former Knights of Pythias lodge hall in which the centre still resides....
Exhibitions Program , and was the editor of ~scope, exhibition catalogue Western Front Exhibitions Program, 2001.
Surface
In 2010, Bowie created Surface, an ongoing live documentary of the underwater life of False CreekFalse Creek
False Creek is a short inlet in the heart of Vancouver. It separates downtown from the rest of the city. It was named by George Henry Richards during his Hydrographic survey of 1856-63. Science World is located at its eastern end and the Burrard Street Bridge crosses its western end. False Creek is...
.
False Creek is a short inlet in the heart of Vancouver. Once teeming with marine life, it was heavily industrialized in the early 20th century. Now starting to rebound, the inlet supports seabirds such as cormorants, ducks, herons, kingfishers. Herring and other sealife are now populating the inlet, though in comparatively small numbers.
The live documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
is transmitted from a camera mounted underneath an Aquabus (a commuter ferry servicing Science World
Science World
Science World may refer to:*Science World , a magazine for children grades 6–10 published by Scholastic Corporation*ScienceWorld, a science website*Science World at Telus World of Science, a science centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada...
, Yaletown
Yaletown
Yaletown is an area of Downtown Vancouver approximately bordered by False Creek, Robson, and Homer Streets. Formerly a heavy industrial area dominated by warehouses and rail yards, since the Expo 86, it has been transformed into one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in the city...
and Granville Island
Granville Island
Granville Island is a peninsula and shopping district in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located in False Creek directly across from Downtown Vancouver's peninsula, under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge....
) via a Wireless mesh network
Wireless mesh network
A wireless mesh network is a communications network made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology. Wireless mesh networks often consist of mesh clients, mesh routers and gateways.The mesh clients are often laptops, cell phones and other wireless devices while the mesh routers forward traffic...
to an LED screen mounted on the water side of Ocean Concrete, one of the last industrial businesses still operating on False Creek. The live video stream of surface is broadcast via the mesh network online at www.surfacer.ca, allowing remote viewing and enabling visitors to False Creek to watch the stream on their smart phones as the Aquabus passes by.
The artist emphasizes that Surface is meant to reflect the current state of the underwater flora and fauna, rather than serve as entertainment typical of glass bottom boats in Marine Park
Marine Park
Marine Park is a neighborhood located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, that lies between Mill Basin and Gerritsen Beach. The neighborhood is mostly squared off in area by Gerritsen Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Avenue U and Kings Highway. It partly surrounds the eponymous park. The neighborhood...
s or the collections of public aquariums
Public aquarium
A public aquarium is the aquatic counterpart of a zoo, housing living aquatic species for viewing. Most public aquariums feature tanks larger than those kept by home aquarists, as well as smaller tanks. Since the first public aquariums were built in the mid-19th century, they have become popular...
. Bowie chose this body of water for Surface to serve as an analogy of environmental pressures affecting marine life, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N...
in the North Pacific Gyre
North Pacific Gyre
The North Pacific Gyre, located in the northern Pacific Ocean, is one of the five major oceanic gyres. This gyre comprises most of the northern Pacific Ocean. It is the largest ecosystem on our planet...
.
“Surface will evolve over time, reflecting the health of marine life as evidence of our collective activity: the future of the work and what is manifest, is wholly dependent on us."- Fiona Bowie
Flow
In 2009, Fiona Bowie's "Flow" opened at the Civic Centre at 1 Kingsway. Vancouver's first video/photography-based permanent public art installation.Flow, produced by Bowie with Sidney Fels, a UBC
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
Computer Scientist
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, was commissioned by the City of Vancouver. Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore is a Anishinaabe-Canadian artist based in Vancouver. Her work addresses history, voice and voicelessness, place, and identity through the media of sculpture, installation, video and performance.-Life:...
, initially part of the artist team, could not participate in the project due to time constraints.
This was the first permanent installation of timebased photo and media work in the City of Vancouver. Flow is a continually changing Mise en scène
Mise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
that uses open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software to access a library of images shot by Bowie over a period of four years. Made up of hundreds of portraits and landscapes, the work has been programmed so that 'figures shot at different times appear as if they simultaneously present, with a core group of these figures or actors recurring in a manner that implicitly suggests they're part of a larger narrative'.
The special glass projection material, Smart glass, causes portions of the imagery to disappear as the projection surface switches from translucent to clear, fragmenting the image and frustrating it's coherence.
"Flow" also has an interactive web component
Internet art
Internet art is a form of digital artwork distributed via the Internet. This form of art has circumvented the traditional dominance of the gallery and museum system, delivering aesthetic experiences via the Internet. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work...
where visitors are encouraged to add dialogue to images captured from a live feed of the work. The dialogue consists of phrases penned by Bowie and bands such as the New Pornographers and The Residents
The Residents
The Residents is an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1972, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs....
. Once images and dialogue are captured by visitors to the site, these are preserved as stills in the websites archive
Gallery Art Works
In March 2007, Sliphost (2006), curated by Candice Hopkins, was exhibited at the Western Front SocietyWestern Front
Western Front was a term used during the First and Second World Wars to describe the contested armed frontier between lands controlled by Germany to the east and the Allies to the west...
Exhibitions Program in Vancouver and exhibited in November 2007 at Open Space in Victoria. Hopkins said, "Sliphost plays with conventions of media, narrative, and scale and draws on the reciprocities between two disparate worlds to reconsider notions of consciousness, consumption, beauty and oblivion." According to Bowie:
Bowie has several works that are created and added to over periods of time, such as Phenotypes (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004). 'Conceptually, the work is an ongoing installation. Each year, another narrative aspect is added to the visual record to mirror the flux of an individual dwelling or neighbourhood over time. Each time it is exhibited, the artist chooses which particular years(or chapters) of activity are represented.'
, Subsequent exhibitions of the work in 2004 in Vancouver and 2007 in Whitehorse presented entirely different sets of narratives set within the same Cul-de-sac
Cul-de-sac
A cul-de-sac is a word of French origin referring to a dead end, close, no through road or court meaning dead-end street with only one inlet/outlet...
setting.
In 2001, Bowie created "Faltering Repetition", a synchronous multichannel
Multichannel
Multichannel may refer to:*Multichannel audio, i.e.**Stereophonic sound, namely two channel audio**Surround sound, more than two channels though still technically stereo**Ambisonics, a studio or live way of recording with many channels...
photo-video based narrative work that used a 360 degree projector to create the backdrop setting for the work. This work, portraying a chance conversation between two strangers at a traffic intersection, used separate, non-diegetic
Diegesis
Diegesis is a style of representation in fiction and is:# the world in which the situations and events narrated occur; and# telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.In diegesis the narrator tells the story...
sound feeds to represent the setting and the dialogue of the characters. Fiona Bowie has created several works using this template including 'deliverance' (1998), 'Phenotypes'(ongoing), Nature Morte (2005) and 'Sliphost' (2006).
Music
In 2008, Fiona Bowie formed SLickerslacker with ex-Chopper bandmate Jim Peers.SLickerslacker debuted at Light Bar, a series of art and music events curated by the Canadian collective Instant Coffee, featuring contemporary visual artists.
Bowie was bass player, songwriter and singer for the Vancouver three piece Chopper from 2000 to 2007. Absence, a commissioned soundtrack composition was performed live at Songroom in June 2006, by Jim Peers (Free Radicals), Stephen Taylor (trike).
Bowie is Assistant Professor, Media Arts, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
Emily Carr University of Art and Design is a public post-secondary University located on Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, Canada...
, teaching in both the undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
Exhibitions
Bowie's work has been exhibited at:- Yukon Arts Centre Museum (2007),
- Western FrontWestern Front SocietyThe Western Front is an artist-run centre located in Vancouver, Canada. It was founded in 1973 by a multidisciplinary group of artists who purchased the former Knights of Pythias lodge hall in which the centre still resides....
(2007) - Belkin Satellite (2006),
- Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver (2006)
- New Media Symposium (2004)
- New Forms Festival (2004)
- Consolidated Works, Seattle, Washington (2002)
- Presentation House Gallery (2001)
- The Vancouver Art GalleryVancouver Art GalleryThe Vancouver Art Gallery is the fifth-largest art gallery in Canada and the largest in Western Canada. It is located at 750 Hornby Street in Vancouver, British Columbia...
(2001) - A Prior Video-Salon. VandeVelde, Brussels, Belgium (2000)
- Or GalleryOr GalleryThe Or Gallery is a non-profit artist run centre based in Vancouver, Canada. The gallery is run by a paid Director/Curator and a voluntary Board of Directors. The Director/Curator of the Or is an appointed working artist who is hired for a limited time...
(1998) - grunt galleryGrunt galleryGrunt gallery is an artist-run centre located in Vancouver, BC, with a vision to be an internationally renowned artist-run centre furthering contemporary art practice. Through the exploration of diverse Canadian cultural identity, grunt has built strong links with the Aboriginal community...
(1996) - A major installation as part of Tamto Misto - Five Vancouver Artists. Galerie Mladych u Recickych, Prague,Czech Republic (1995).
Publications and reviews
- Mullen, Sean with Hsieh, Esther. Radio Interview of Fiona Bowie on Public Artwork Flow, 2009. Live radio interview December 2009, released for podcast on Rabble.ca, 2010 : http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/redeye/2010/01/flow-permanent-media-art-exhibit
- Keenlyside, Sarah. Surface, Documentary film on Fiona Bowie's Surface, 2009. released for broadcast on Knowledge Network, Air Canada, City of Vancouver
- Hiebert, Ted. "Fifth Iteration: Digital Dreams and Delusions", from Behind the Screen: Installation from the Interactive Future, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.ISSN1865-0929 (Print) 1865-0937 (Online)http://www.tedhiebert.net/site/downloads/writings/behind.pdf
- Randy Adams, Steve Gibson, Stefan Muller, eds. Transcisciplinary Digital Art. Sound, Vision and the New Screen Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.
- Cutler, Randy Lee. Vancouver Singular Plural Vancouver Art and Economies, Arsenal Pulp PressArsenal Pulp PressArsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, and is noted for founding the annual Three-Day Novel Contest .Authors who have been published by Arsenal Pulp ...
, 2007. - Burnham, Clint. Vancouver, Akimbo, March 29, 2007.
- Burnham, Clint. "Compelling Look at how Artists use Video". Vancouver Sun, June 29, 2006.
- New Forms,exhibition catalogue, 2004.
- Devuono, Frances. "Binocular Parallax at Consolidated Works," in Artweek, December, 2002.
- Hall, Emily. "A Tale of Two Cities." The Stranger, Seattle, September 26, 2002.
- Hackett, Regina. "Binocular Parallax." Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 20, 2002.
- Turner,Micheal. "These Days". Art/Text, No. 75.,2001-2.
- Roy, Marina. "These Days". Last Call Fall issue. Morris and Helen Belkin Art GalleryMorris and Helen Belkin Art GalleryThe Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia....
Publication. - Turner, Michael. "These Days". Mix magazine 26.1 Fall, 2001.
- O'Brien, Melanie. "Mis.Com.". Last Call Summer issue,2001 . Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Publication.
- Henry, Karen. "Mis.Com.". Presentation House Exhibition Monograph, 2001.
- Green, Bethany. "Killing the Commute". ARTSCULTURE, 2000. Brock University Press.
- Mix magazine 26.1 summer 2000.
- Achong, Deanne."deliverance", OR Gallery Monograph. 1998
- Sawyer, Carol. "swell". grunt Publication Monograph.1996 ISBN 1-895329-27-2