Author: MK

Twice now, I have been approached by anglophones (one who lives here in Montréal, one who lives in Toronto) asking me if I know where they can get some of those hip Québec separatist t-shirts and whatnot. I think it’s quite amusing, that people are (a) asking me, a fellow anglophone, where to find this stuff; (b) that anglophones think this stuff is somehow “funny” or “cute”, or perhaps more accurately, something that you can wear with a suitable air of hipster irony. Shirts with the FLQ Manifesto on them are the new Von Dutch, I guess. Considering how serious the situation was at one point, I think this change in attitude is fascinating.

I own two separatist items: One is a hoodie emblazoned with an image depicting Papineau. Sadly, I don’t think this item would have the effect my pals who asked for my fashion advice are looking for, since few seem to know who he is, particularly anglophones. I receive no reaction when I wear this hoodie. Why do I wear it, you ask? I wouldn’t wear it if I didn’t have more information on Papineau, so it forced me to do some research. Also, it serves as a reminder that violent unrest has occurred in Canada, something that we tend to forget, since currently we mostly act as peacekeepers in the world and keep our noses out of things like the war in Iraq.

The other item I own is a button that says “Je suis souverainiste” (I am a sovereigntist.) This was given to me as kind of a gag gift from a francophone, but the person who gave it to me picked it up at UQAM, where I currently go to school. I joke that this pin gets me better service in restaurants and to the front of queues, but really it just serves as another reminder, like the Papineau hoodie. The Papineau hoodie reminds me of the past and what happened at one time, historical facts that I should be mindful of; and the pin reminds me that to some extent, though “separatist chic” may exist, to the point where it’s funny and ironic for anglophones to wear items emblazoned with their logos and slogans, the dream of an independent Québec still exists and is all around me, at my school, in my largely francophone neighbourhood, and in the minds of some of the people I call friends.

Since moving here, I’ve been forced to observe that the reality of Canada as a bilingual nation may only exist in Montréal and Ottawa, and it’s a disappointment. One of my angriest moments since living here came when I passed on to my classmates a call for submissions from a gallery in Manitoba (a province that is home to a large francophone community, I might add) and had to apologetically introduce this call by saying the gallery would only accept their applications in English. I find this unacceptable from an institution that receives federal funding through the Canada Council, funding from a federal government that is supposed to ensure that linguistic equality is acheived throughout Canada. It becomes clear very quickly why culture from Québec is not properly circulated throughout Canada; it is our fault, not theirs. We don’t make it easy. Our country was founded by both the French and English and so we have adopted a dual-language policy; however there are many small, nearly invisible barriers, preventing us from understanding and appreciating each other.

Though the current young generation in Québec might insist to me privately that “…the separatist dream is over, because if it was going to happen, it would have happened back then [referring to past referendums and revolutions]”, I see why that dream remains alluring, given the massive cultural differences witnessed here (not only linguistic). I wear my hoodie and pin not because this is the next fashion wave (which, franchement!, I never would have been able to predict!) but because it’s important for me to remember the events that shaped the place where I’m living, and what it means for me to be an anglophone trying to “pass” in their culture. I’m still a guest here, for now, and I’m being treated very well, but maybe it’s because I wiped my feet before I came in. To tell the truth, I could still use some refining of my manners, I could still try harder, but in my own way I’m working on it. And frankly, we all could use a bit of charm school, or else history is doomed to repeat itself. Je me souviens.

Montréal is full of treasures and after a year and a half of living here, I feel that my list of favourite things about this lovely city is growing to a respectable length. This is as close to a love song about a city that I get, Montréal, and I have to tell you that I’m tickled with delight when I …

hear the “dah-dah-daaaah” as the Métro leaves the station, or hear the woman’s voice saying “Prochaine station, Berri-UQAM”; use one of the many Île Sans Fil free wireless internet hotspots in the city; eat a burger at La Paryse; visit the Expo ’67 relics on Île Saint-Hélène; see people sunning themselves in Parc La Fontaine, on a day that might not be considered a great suntanning day in most other cities; feel the incredible weight of a take-out poutine in my hand as I walk down the street; speak my slowly-evolving French to a stranger; stand on an escalator and realize that no one is abiding by the “stand right, walk left” rule; hang out in my studio at UQAM; drink a double mojito in charming company at Barraca; people-watch on the Main, maybe through the windows of Schwartz’s or Laika; hear some terrific local band in a complete dive (like the Arcade Fire last autumn in some forgettable place on Saint-Laurent); wander around Olympic Stadium with a bad coffee in my hand; have a smoke or three in a bar (my barfly habits will never be the same in smoke-free Toronto and New York, sadly); catch a glimpse of Mont-Royal at night with the cross lit up; drink a microbrew poured by an anarchist in a tiny bar; enjoy the company of one or many wonderful Montréalers anywhere in the city.

Sorry, this is a pretty sappy post – but that’s what happens when you’re in love.

I received a kind offer to go hang out with a family in a suburb of Montréal to watch the Superbowl. I am never invited to these kinds of things, mostly because people presume I won’t be into it, but really, I am up for anything, even Major Televised Sports Events, as long as the company is good. The company was top-notch, so I accepted in a heartbeat.

I don’t know much about football, and never really cared about the Superbowl, but knew I would get something out of the game itself, and besides, there was the travel to this new and exciting suburb of Montréal to look forward to (Longueuil, for the curious) and the whole niceness of hanging out with a family, etc etc.

The food preparation was very intense. The barbecue was sparked up. Potato skins were made from scratch. Three big boxes of chicken wings went into the oven. Then the game began, and I have two major observations about it that I will share with you.

One – All the whooshing noises and fancy graphics were really impressive. There was this sense of grandeur that the television network obviously wanted to convey, and that big shiny graphic of the Superbowl logo with the accompanying “whooooosh” sound did the trick. Also, I was super impressed by the way they put digital images on the field, telling you what direction play was going and who had the ball and stuff. Very helpful for people like me who otherwise might not know what the heck is going on.

Two – The little “performative touches” by the players and all the back stories on them. The commentators were talking about how one poor guy had lost his grandma just a little while before this big game. These details really add to the drama. There were more whooshing sounds and fancy graphics and they would profile one individual player. This was also pretty cool because each player would try to personalize this profile moment, by winking or making some gesture. But the most interesting moment perhaps was when the New England Patriots would score. After the touchdown, they mocked the other team (the Philadelphia Eagles) by making wing-flapping gestures in the end zone, as part of their end zone dance. This was the sort of gesture that the Eagles would normally do when they scored. Of course, once it became a mocking gesture, the Eagles stopped doing it. Very effective.

Truly, sport is well-packaged performance art that is marketed to everyone. Sport inspires artists sometimes too – witness the formations on the field of Bronco Stadium in Cremaster 1, as well as earlier physical endurance work by Matthew Barney. I also have to admit to exploiting the pomp and circumstance of a large sport event for my Meta-Parade Grey Cup performance. There’s potential for artists to be inspired by sport, because at bottom it is a type of performance, involving skill and spectacle.

The myth of Sisyphus tells the story of the gods punishing Sisyphus by charging him to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of a mountain, at which point the rock would fall back of its own weight. In “The Myth of Sisyphus” Albert Camus writes: “A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself. I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks towards the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.”

I’ve always been intrigued by this myth and wish to apply it and all its noble despair to the problematics of performance, and in particular my performance with voice recognition technology. American theorist Jon McKenzie’s ideas of “organizational performance” and “technological performance” (which I’ve mentioned here before) directly correspond to our expectations for computerized processing of human speech with voice recognition software. “Organizational performance” refers to the expectations that we place on ourselves to function in society – our performance at our jobs and lives. “Technological performance” refers to the ways we model our technologies to “perform” more efficiently than we do, and the unreasonable faith we place in them as a result. We trust that software and hardware consistently understand our input, whether it is speech or text. The anticipated technological performance of voice recognition software in turn allows for a higher expected level of organizational performance – we can generally speak faster than we can type, raising the level of efficiency at our jobs, and allowing those who are unable to type to input text with their voices.

McKenzie’s idea of “organizational performance” also applies to the expectations that lie in wait for performance artists. Audiences expect them to perform perfectly, executing their actions, often many times, in exactly the same way each time.

In a way, achieving a perfect performance, and striving for it through endless repetition is the same as Sisyphus’ task. McKenzie’s theories of organizational performance require Sisyphus to dedicate himself wholly to his task; his theories of technological performance require the rock to perform as exactly as expected each time.

And so this failure of technological performance in the case of errors resulting when using voice recognition software might mean that actually, the rock rolls when you don’t expect it to, and that it might roll very suddenly far away from the base of the mountain.