Stencil Tagger

You know, I’ve happenstanced upon a few subversive activities in my 9 Victoria years: squeaky license plates being stolen from a looted car; a needled woman fishing for veins in the neck of a man on the steps of a church; a fist in the shocked face of a cop from a masked woman that freed a silly arrest; and I’ve even opened the door of the Y’s steam room to witness some fellow getting his noogies nibbled. But never, not-even-once, have I stumbled upon somebody scribbling a tag. A tag: you know, all those billions of omnipresent signatures that are everywhere. Not even once...

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Darren Alexander and Max Sloan are long time media revolutionaries here in Lakwamen First Nation territory, known as Fernwood, Victoria, BC, Canada, Earth. As with most Media Activists and Guerrilla artists, an opportunity to plant a consciousness lifting seed into the mainstream media is prime ground.



This February the Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival has introduced the “My Victoria Video Competition.” Artists are instructed to show what affects them about downtown Victoria in one minute. Check out Darren & Max’s entry entitled “Greatest Canadian.” I wonder if Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe will cover his eyes and hum through the scary parts…

Objectification of Christina

In my first year of teaching Media Literacy at Victoria High School, one of my students brought in a VHS taped recording of the Christina Aguillera music video “Dirrty”. We had been discussing the objectification of women and the use of sex as a marketing tool and she wanted to show this video in class. We had just enough time in class to watch it once and then the bell rang. But something had caught my attention. It wasn’t so much a visual clue, as it was a sense. Later after school, I decided to go through the video with the SLOW button and watch it frame-by-frame.

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