MIT Indigenous Digital Delegation
Delegate Jackson 2Bears, a Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk) artist and cultural theorist, will bring his work-in-progress, Ne:Kahwistará:ken, a virtual Haudenosaunee longhouse, to workshop at the Indigenous Digital and Media Delegation at MIT.
Ten Indigenous media scholars and artists headed to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — virtually — for the inaugural Indigenous Digital Delegation at MIT. In a week-long series of gatherings, the delegation shared their current media and research works-in-progress with over 50 MIT scientists, staff, fellows and students. The theme of the gathering is Indigenous Knowledge, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Worlds.
Throughout the week of workshops, lab visits and pairings, delegates were matched with relevant labs and researchers across the university to brainstorm their current works, including significant art gallery and site-specific installations, a Sundance-backed documentary film, major research projects such as Indigenous Protocol-based Artificial Intelligence, and Indigenous-led emergent media laboratories and education programs.
MIT labs participating include Spoken Language Systems Group, Space Enabled Lab, CoLab, Game Lab, Media Lab’s Opera of the Future and Fluid Interfaces, and the CAST Visiting Artists Program, amongst others.
The Delegation ran November 3, 9-13, 2020, is organized by the Indigenous Screen Office (Canada) and is hosted by the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab (PI: William Uricchio, Lab Director: Sarah Wolozin), with support from Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, MacArthur Foundation, and Mozilla Foundation. The delegates will continue in relationship with MIT as ISO-MIT Co-Creation Fellows at Open Documentary Lab for the next year. A second, more international version, is being planned for 2021-22, on campus.
“Wisdom is not a topic that is taught or studied in the curriculum in our schools or universities, nor is it a practice in modern life,” said Ojibwe Elder, artist and scholar Dr. Duke Redbird, in the Delegation’s keynote public lecture, titled Dish with One Spoon, “Technology can put a man in space, or a nano-computer in every creature on Earth. Yet technology cannot answer this question, that should be asked of anything. And it is an Indigenous question. ‘Is it wise?’”
Delegate Lisa Jackson (Anishinaabe) is a filmmaker bringing to MIT her work-in-progress Wilfred Buck, a feature film which centres on a Cree elder who’s been called the Indiana Jones of Indigenous star knowledge. Weaving together his harrowing past and his present life with sky stories, we move between the gutter and the stars to explore colonization’s impact on Indigenous ways of knowing. (photo credit: GALAXY: FRANÇOIS GUINAUDEAU, PORTRAIT: CHRISTIE TAYLOR)
Public Talk - Dish with One Spoon
Indigenous Digital Delegation at ODL’s weekly virtual public lecture series
As part of the Inaugural Indigenous Digital Delegation at MIT, Elder Dr. Duke Redbird (Ojibway) will present a keynote talk titled “Dish with One Spoon”. The talk will begin with a poem by that name and will close with a poem and/or video called “The Power of the Land.” Dr. Redbird will frame his talk as follows: A BLINK OF AN EYE • A STROKE OF A PEN • A CLICK OF A MOUSE • SPEED OF LIGHT. Dr. Redbird’s keynote will be followed by a conversation with the ten delegates, all senior Indigenous media scholars and artists, who are virtually meeting with MIT to exchange with the MIT community on the theme of Indigenous Knowledge, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Worlds.
“This is an incredible opportunity for Indigenous scholars and creators to connect with folks working in our field of digital and new media, as our decolonial tools will allow for deep connections through practice and critical thinking transforming the field and the MIT campus. The knowledge with which we will return to our home environments and institutions will greatly impact our work moving forward into the future.”
— Dr. Julie Nagam (University of Winnipeg) and Kerry Swanson (Indigenous Screen Office), co-leads of the delegation
Throughout the week of workshops, lab visits and pairings, delegates were matched with relevant labs and researchers across the university to brainstorm their current works, including art gallery and site-specific installations, a Sundance-backed documentary film, research projects such as Indigenous Protocol-based Artificial Intelligence, and Indigenous-led emergent media laboratories and education programs.
In one workshop, a team explored building an Artificial Intelligence system based in Indigenous-protocols. Delegates Jason Lewis and Scott Benesiianaabandan met with MIT scholar Dr James Glass, of the Spoken Languages Systems Group, whose latest research interest involves supporting low-resourced languages. The delegate team shared aspects of Anishinaabe world-view, knowledge generation & dissemination protocol, to ask if “values might be articulated in a manner that retains their cultural integrity” rather than having algorithms rely on translation from a high-resourced language.
Redbird emphasized the importance of these exchanges. “It is imperative that the children of the 21st century have access to a worldview that celebrates the idea of a compassionate communion with all living things” he said. “We want the generation of the future to apply the traditional values and wisdom of our ancestors and uphold the sacred covenant to family community in nature. It is incumbent upon this speed of light generation, born after 1995 to explore an Indigenous worldview and use technologies to change negative patterns and rethink the manner in which we engage the environment.”
Other MIT labs participating included Space Enabled Lab, CoLab, Game Lab, Media Lab’s Opera of the Future and Fluid Interfaces, Sculpted Evolution Lab, and the CAST Visiting Artists Program, amongst others.
“The energy and enthusiasm across MIT for this gathering has been unparalleled,” said Kat Cizek, delegation event designer and Artistic Director at Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab. “There’s huge interest in learning from Indigenous scholars and artists, and together, transforming understandings and practices of science, arts and technologies.”
List of Delegates:
Dr. Duke Redbird, Elder for the Delegation
Kerry Swanson, Delegation Lead, Indigenous Screen Office
Dr. Julie Nagam, Delegation Lead, University of Winnipeg
Scott Benesiinaabandan, Delegate, Artist
Dr. Heather Igloliorte, Delegate, Concordia University
Nyla Innuksuk, Delegate, Artist
Lisa Jackson, Delegate, Artist
Jackson 2bears, Delegate, University of Lethbridge
Jason Edward Lewis, Delegate, Concordia University
Caroline Monnet, Delegate, Artist
L. Sarah Todd, Delegate, Simon Fraser University
Kat Cizek, delegation event designer and Artistic Director at Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab