Collaborators

Skawennati is an artist who has been working in New Media since 1996, beginning with the pioneering on-line exhibition and chat space, CyberPowWow. Her artwork addresses history, the future, and change. Imagining Indians in the 25th Century; Thanksgiving Address: Greetings to the Technological World; and 80 Minutes, 80 Movies, 80s Music, have been widely exhibited. Her current production, TimeTraveller™, is a multi-platform project featuring a machinima series, website (www.TimeTravellerTM.com) and a few other fun spin-offs. Her awards include imagineNative’s 2010 Best New Media Award and a 2011 Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art. Skawennati currently co-directs, with Jason E. Lewis, Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (www.AbTeC.org) a research network of artists, academics and technologists who are exploring, creating and critiquing Aboriginal virtual environments.

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Jason E. Lewis is Program Director and Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University. He is a digital media artist, writer and software designer. He founded Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media, where he directs research/creation projectsdevising new means of creating and reading digital texts, developing systems for creative use of mobile technology, designing alternative interfaces for live performance and using virtual environments to assist Aboriginal communities in preserving, interpreting and communicating cultural histories. He co-founded and co-directs the Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace research network that is investigating how Aboriginal people can participate in the shaping of our digital media future, and co-directs Skins, a series of workshop on combining traditional stories from the Native community with video-game design. Otsi:!, the game created in the first Skins workshop, won the Best New Media Award at the imagineNative Film + Media Festival 2010. Lewis’ creative work has been featured at Ars Electronica, Mobilefest, Urban Screens, ISEA, SIGGRAPH, and FILE, among other venues, and his writing about new media has been presented in books, journals, conferences, festivals and exhibitions on four continents. Lewis is currently working on his third solo exhibition, to be held at Edward Day Gallery in Toronto in the fall of 2011. www.obxlabs.net

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Owisokon P. Lahache
Having taught visual arts for 26 years at the Kahnawake Survival School and several art courses for McGill University’s Office of First Nations and Inuit Education, I have come to realize that our story must be created by us, no one can tell a story the way we can tell it ourselves. I create art that focuses on our stories and on our material culture using a wide variety of media. My art has exhibited worldwide; it is in several collections and in museums.
I am a deeply spiritual person and know the real power of my Haudenosaunee Heritage, of Ceremony, of our place within history; I believe my art is a window revealing who we are. “There is a sort of magic that happens when creativity, paint and culture meet. I paint to teach others about who we are, to tell our story, to create a path to follow, back toward the heart within the Tree of Peace.” It is important to tell our own story using new media and to open the window for others to see through; to keep our culture alive for our grandchildren and theirs too.

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Teyowisonte Thomas Deer
After graduating from the Illustration & Design Program at Dawson College in 2000, Thomas began working as a graphic artist at the Mohawk Language Curriculum Center in Kahnawake. During that time, Thomas underwent training as a comic book colorist and illustrator Dreamwave Productions in Toronto. In 2005, Thomas moved over to the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center, once again working as a graphic artist in the development of culturally-based language curriculum. Since 2006, Thomas has been freelancing as a comic book colorist and illustrator for companies such as Fun Publications, Mega Bloks, and IDW Publishing – primarily working on Hasbro’s Transformers and G.I.Joe titles.

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Beth Aileen Lameman is an Irish, Anishinaabe, and Métis writer whose work addresses Indigenous determination in media such as games, films, animation, and web comics. She is Ph.D. (ABD) in Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the writer of the alternate reality game for Skawennati Fragnito’s TimeTraveller™, which won Best New Media at imagineNATIVE 2009. Her web comic The West Was Lost (2008) was shown at imagineNATIVE 2010. She contributed writing and consultation for the transmedia property Animism (2011). She is also a member of the Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace research network. Most recently, she is focusing on her dissertation, which looks at traditional Indigenous oral storytelling to inform the design of digital games.

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Nancy Elizabeth Townsend is, first and foremost, a geek. She loves playing and dissecting video games with the same careful and critical eye as a surgeon. Having graduated with as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Computation Arts and an in-progress minor in Business Administration, she continues her work with the AbTeC team as a 3D artist and team coordinator.
http://netownsend.net

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Sahar Homami has been a research assistant at Obx Labs since May 2010. She received her B.F.A in Specialization in Computation Arts from Concordia University in June 2011. Prior to that, she was getting an Engineering degree in her hometown of Tehran, Iran, but she quit in the last year of her studies to pursue her wishes and desires. For several years, she has been specializing in 3D design and digital video creation. Her passion is everything about 3D, video games and animations. Currently, she is participating in a number of projects to create video games and digital videos, out of which one is the TimeTraveller™ machinima project at Obx labs.

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Charlotte Fisher recently received a BFA from Concordia University, Specializing in Computation Arts and Minoring in Music. She comes from a traditional Fine Arts background, and has found her way onto a non-traditional path, leading her towards virtual worlds and video games. She is especially interested in closing the gap between the level at which we emotionally connect to film, and to games. In addition to the opportunity to teach at the Skins Summer Institute, working for Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace has given her a taste of something entirely new to her, which involves a hybridization of those media: machinima.
cargocollective.com/charlottefisher

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Tehoniehtathe Delisle graduated from Kahnawake Survival School and is currently a student at Champlain College St. Lambert, in the Film/Video/Communications program. He was involved in the first Skins workshop as Lead Designer, where the video game “Otsi: Rise of the Kanien’kehá:ka” was developed. He currently works at Obx Labs further developing “Otsi: Rise of the Kanien’kehá:ka”. Has experience with storytelling, video editing, many computer programs like Blender, UDK, Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, Unity, Final Cut, and iMovie.

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Vincent Villemaire is currently finishing a BFA at Concordia in Computation Arts after having graduated with an AEC from Centre NAD in Special Effects for Film and Television. His passion for 3D character animation led him to participate in the creation of several short films and a video game, Rust Assured, for Ipad. This interest for narrative-oriented projects and digital productions comes from his enthusiasm for video games, cinema, and comic books. He is presently working freelance as a 3D artist in Montreal.

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Daria Khomyakova has an Informational Design background. She received her Bachelor Degree in State Polytechnical University of St. Petersburg, Russia. Recently graduated from Concordia University, Montreal, where studied Digital Technologies in Design Art Practice. Has a broad range of interests in the design sphere, starting from 2D graphic design and photography, and continuing with creating video games. Overall, has a strong interest to life itself and all the processes, which happen within and around. Currently works as a research assistant at Obx Labs, participating in the Skins 4.0 Workshop project.

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