Project Description
“Deportation” is a traveling interactive multi-arts installation project that integrates live music performance, sound experimentation, video/film projections and unconventional uses of consumer technologies.

“Deportation” is a traveling interactive multi-arts installation project that integrates live music performance, sound experimentation, video and film projections as well as unconventional uses of consumer technologies (cell phones, etc.) to make visceral the ways in which technological change and its implementation is blurring the boundaries between both the private and public realms and between security and vulnerability to create a material and social environment that will encourage participants to contribute to an ongoing discussion about a number of issues that we feel are becoming increasingly critical in the context of the current socio-political climate, including questions of freedom, security, surveillance, citizenship, and power.
This project is created as a new artistic practice called, ‘interference art’ put together by a group of emerging artists who have joined to create a collective for this project. ‘Interference Art’ is the idea of using art to create a dialogue around issues which effect communities globally and locally with the aim to counter mainstream ideas of what is best for us as a global community. It is an art form that uses education, combinations of different artistic mediums, and technology to interfere against what corporate and those with ‘privileged’ ideology would like us to believe. Interference Art is about deconstructing notions of left vs right wing sanctions and connecting the experiences of all to break down ideas of privilege and status. Interference Art is not about forcing an idea or particular political agenda on the public but giving access to alternative modes of thought and information using the communicative tool of art. Interference Art is based on the Anti-Oppression Perspective which recognizes power imbalances in individuals and society and works towards the promotion of change to redress the balance of power. AOP is a process of self-reflection, an understanding of power and oppression and one’s place in that oppression, and a constant evaluation of one’s relationships and behaviours (Larson, 2005). Interference Art must be accomplished by a group of diverse artists, who come from different art practices and communities but it must also attempt to attack a diverse group of audience members i.e. academics, artists, activists, working class communities, newly migrated communities, different religious backgrounds, sexual orientation etc. Discussion and /or audience participation is necessary in this art practice.

The Montreal Artistic Intercultural Arts Centre (MAI) has invited “Deportation,” to be debuted in their performance arts festival taking place on April 9th 2007. “Deportation,” will then be showcased in Toronto at the Harbourfront Centre in the summer of 2007.

The artists involved in this project are members of the Toronto based electronic band LAL (Rosina Kazi, Nicholas Murray, Ian de Souza, Santosh Naidu and Rakesh Tewari), Toronto video artist Melissa Goldstein, Toronto based multi-media artist Faisal Anwar, Montreal based projectionist and filmmaker, Jose Garcia and Montreal based

Dj/Producer/Sound Technician, Moonstarr. “Deportation,” is the name of the new album being released by LAL and the multi-arts project is based on its musical philosophy.
“Deportation” has grown out of the recognition of the paradoxical role that technology is playing today in the interconnected arenas of global politics and popular culture , and the diverse ways in which these tensions have been experienced and understood by the members of this collective.

The creation process is as follows:
As a group of artists, we want to address these unsettling positions that we find ourselves in on a daily bases, to increase awareness regarding the concept of being under surveillance, to think about what it means to live in a culture of fear, to raise questions about what is private and what is being made public and to plant a seed of personal exploration in terms our own individual freedoms.

It is in many ways an exercise in culture jamming, where we use the tools we are critical of to unsettle the normalcy of the tools as they are used and abused in our everyday lives and raise important questions about what we think of when we think of “terrorists,” who do we fear, and why, who do we trust and why, who do we allow access to our personal lives, what is private, what is public, what is too personal to be made public and why, who is the public, and what are you comfortable with having them have access to, freedom, who is watching us, and to what ends?

“Deportation” is the first creation of the Interference Arts practice. The Montreal Artistic Intercultural Arts Centre (MAI) has invited “Deportation,” to be debuted in their performance arts festival taking place on April 9th 2007. “Deportation,” will then be showcased in Toronto at the Harbourfront Centre in the summer of 2007. After these performances we hope to workshop/perform “Deportation” and take it on tour to Europe and across Canada.

Sound / Music
The band LAL has 5 new works (these new works have been funded by the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council For the Arts) that addresses subjects such as forced removal, surveillance, the loss of private space, and the human condition more generally. The band will perform for one hour with local guest musicians and experimental musician and soundman, Moonstarr. Through the performance, we wish to challenge the contested boundaries between “public” and “private” and “performer” and “audience” by having the band perform from the floor in the centre of the gallery space, positioned so that they are facing different directions, thereby encouraging the audience to walk around the room, become part of the performance, and explore different visual elements of the show. The sound system will also be set up in three-dimensional sound and Moonstar will be manipulating the sound to change as one circles the room in order for the audience to experience a different sound depending where they are located. Moonstarr will also sample the audience by using mics that will be strategically placed outside the art space and incorporate them into the sonics of the show.

Film / video
Jose Garcia will use 4-8 old reel-to-reel film projectors to create a visual story that conceptualizes surveillance, which will be projected onto the floors, and huge white wall block that will be situated throughout the space. Jose will be using super 8mm film and slides to create an overall ambience, in which to situate the other visual material and the musical performance. The material will contain images of the sky, clouds, radio antenna and satellite dishes, airport scenes, fast moving populated cities, buildings with no people, and other images with traces of flight and time, people moving and absent, and technology mediating. Melissa Goldstein will create visuals from images of web pages, web cams, GPS, and footage to create visual scapes. Faisal Anwar who will use surveillance technology to incorporate artists, audience members and digital footage to create an immediate audience connection (by using 2-4 surveillance cameras placed in and out of the MAI space and cellular phone technology for live captures of images).

Faisal Anwar will also make use of 2-Real-time video composites that include multiple projections of mixed pre-recorded video sequences, composites that include a live audience and music to create video effects referencing the theme, ‘deportation,’ and the mood of the music piece. These composites will be live and without a green screen. The pre-recorded videos will be will be extracts from: films, documentaries, science fiction films, surveillance cameras and recordings. There will also be a montage of "searched images/clips" from the web on the word "deportation."
For our performance in Toronto we will be including the following Toronto based aspiring youth artists; Video artists Jeff Bai, Clairandean Humphry and Photographer Jonathon Rothman to document this project via video and photography. We envision the inclusion of these artists as a form of mentorship as well as an opportunity for them to further expand their artistic craft.

Audience Involvement
We plan on conducting a post-performance discussion, and having a section in the gallery laid out with plain canvases for audience members to visually express their reactions to the performance (during the show) and in turn, the canvases will become incorporated as an art installation in the next showcase of the “Deportation” project.

We will be inviting local musicians/poets from the area to come and play with the band during the performance. We will encourage community engagement prior to the show and during the performance by having information available on local and global issues around ideals such as surveillance, deportation, migration, war etc. and will invite local organizations i.e. nooneisillegal, solidarities across borders etc. to set up information booths. We wish to create an interactive website that allows real-time access to audiences to see the live performance and also to post comments regarding their experiences, feedback, artwork and music that speaks to the issues.

What ideas do you want the participants to take away?
We want our audience to think about our privelege, class and the state of world when it comes to war, migration, environment etc. we do not want to bombard people with our own ideals but allow them to come to thier own conclusions.

How does your event connect to the USSF Crosscutting Themes?
it's what we are doing. music, film, spoken word, politics, migration, environment, war, displacement etc...

How will the participants be engaged?
they will have the option to explore this 3D sound and film show as well as having a disucssion afterwards.

What language will your activity be conducted in?
english, music, film (have some bengali, portuguese, spanish as well)

Will you provide oral interpretation? Will you provide equipment (headset and transmitter) for interpretation?
no
Will you provide handouts for attendees? In Spanish? In English? In another language (if so, state the language)? USSF will not copy handouts for you.
we can

What is the biggest challenge/adversary your movement/organization faces?
financial. getting this proejct off the ground has been difficult but we have. We are showing it in Montreal in April and Toronto in August. And hopefully in Pakistan in November . visa's at the border

What concrete alternative(s) do you propose?
we have access to grants and we will fundraise if we get in

What strategies do you propose to achieve these alternatives?

Any other special needs?
will need soudn and film gear