Hangouts: Brian Hunter

Brian Hunter

The DIS Summer Institute was full of learning and information (Thanks Marco + Plug In!). Brian was particularly impressed by the speakers and the way they approached complicated concepts about the direction of the future and how that manifested in their art practice.  After being introduced to Simon Denny's work about technologic and economic potentials of bitcoin and other blockchain currencies, Brian said he really felt like he had been living under a rock. (His words not mine :^0) The DIS Summer Institute had a strong focus about how economies would change as bitcoin and other blockchain currencies become a more common form of currency and how it will weaken the nation states; making their control on the value of goods and services less relevant.  Going into the residency, Brian wasn't to familiar with cryptocurrency so it was really wonderful to engage with programming that centred these technologies.  The predictions of how radical the effects of crypto currency will have on our lives over the next decade, Brian speculates it will be even more transformative than the internet.

The second idea that reoccured throughout the residency that Brian enjoyed was the role of the artist within new economies. Within his own practice, he was interested in exploring areas where artists were rarely found. When he applied to the residency, Brian proposed a concept about belonging in a rootless "networked world". Brian proposes that a networked world allows people with similar interests to connect and share ideas. He is also speculating that sharing interests and ideas creates more polarized society where communities are built on people having the same interests and ideas rather than engaging and working with uncomfortable and opposing ones. In 2016 Brian made the choice to join the Winnipeg Police Service in order to disrupt the social expectations of what an artist or police officer should be according to him. Brian's goal for the artist residency was to explore what it would mean for to be a police officer participating in an artist residency. Brian is a junior officer and learning how to express criticism or challenging ideas while being a representative of a large organization. Brian's project took on the role of a diary that was used in order to catalog and make sense of concepts explored during the programming.

Sun Sign: hard to find in the database (interview notes!), perhaps the aloofness with information points to scorpio or taurus?