Imagining Drumbytes and Logging in Powwows: Exploring the Production of Community in Canadian-Based Aboriginal New Media Art

This paper explores Canadian-based Aboriginal new media art‟s production of community. Aboriginal new media art is a network of artists, practices and institutions involved in the making and distribution of online artworks. Drawing on Howard Becker‟s notion of “art world” and Raymond Williams‟ concept of “lived form,” I develop a theoretical frame to study the production of community within and beyond the artwork. This framework is not only useful to map an almost unknown chapter in the history of Aboriginal art in Canada, but serves to investigate the relationship between sociocultural identities before and after cultural production. To this end, I will focus on two moments of over sixteen years of Aboriginal new media art production in Canada: the imagination of the Native Net and the launch and development of CyberPowWow