[This Particular footage is night-time live radio-mesh relayed video. Surface was created and installed at a time when this live underwater relay technology was developing and when standard resolution cameras were the norm for permanent 24-hour underwater applications, so stalls in the relay can be clearly seen in the form of lost or staggered frames.]
Surface (2010-13), was Bowie's three-year, 24/7 live documentary, broadcast onto local screens and a dedicated website of the undersea life of the sacred water of Sen̓ákw, later named False Creek. A tidal body of water, it once had an abundance of aquatic life and streams supporting Salmon, until it became industrialized after the colonial formation of the city of Vancouver. Over the ensuing decades, it became one of the most polluted waterways in Canada.
Commissioned and owned by the City of Vancouver, Surface made the hidden world of False Creek visually tangible to passersby.
Surface was part of Mapping and Marking, where artists submitted proposals for installing public artworks in places of their own choosing.
When Fiona pitched the project to the jury, she outlined the considerations of the environs, stating "what ever we see down there is a reflection of industrial settlement and our disregard for what lives(d) below. There may be a lot of 'dead air', but hopefully this work will encourage commuters passing by to consider what lies under the surface of our actions and inactions.
Considering this, the Surface cameras documented many unidentified minute organisms, species of fish, crustaceans as well as detritus (likely from anchored boats).
Bowie created several related works, one in Costa Rica Particles and gallery-based Eels, which was exhibited in Vancouver (curator Cate Rimmer) and in Bellingham (curator Lee Plested) and again at the Or (curated by Weiyi Chang). Fiona is also in planning stages to install another iteration of Surface in the environs of her next home, the Pyreynees-Orientale.
Day time Dock (2011)
Stickleback school passing Aquabus, feeding (2011)
As the Aquabus made its way from stop to stop (or alternatively when parked at its dock), live underwater images
were transmitted live to the internet from a camera mounted under the boat to surfacer.ca and also to a large LED
screen mounted on the side of a structure at Ocean Construction on Granville Island. There was also a small onboard
screen on the designated Aquabus and an additional screen at False Creek Community Centre in Vancouver.
This live 24/7 video documentary brought the underwater world of False Creek to the surface for all to see (for all water traffic, seawall and bridge traffic; and a website (surfacer.ca, no longer up).
In doing so, Bowie took the viewer beneath the surface to observe what is normally out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
Surface was installed at a time when live broadcasts were reserved for national or international sports or large awards events. In fact, live sports broadcaster Livecast, kindly donated their then huge bandwidth necessary to broadcast a 24/7 video feed from multiple points (Radio Relay) across the body of water.
Aquatic birds and sealife are slowly starting to make a comeback though still in comparably low numbers. This is reflected in the live stream that often functions as an abstract mix of colours and impressions, sometimes tiny organisms, or crustaceans or fish swim by.
Once teaming with aquatic life, this body of water is showing recovery with an influx of species, but at a time when our oceans are vulnerable to changes in temperature and oxygen levels.
The future of the underwater environment and what is manifest on the screen is wholly dependent on us:
our collective historic and present activities.
A Montreal company called Moment Factory (whom Bowie met after they designed the software and controlled the interactive systems for Nine Inch Nails live shows as well as many other events worldwide), produced the software system for Surface. See production partners Aquabus, Livecast, ECU, Ocean Concrete, Hymach Industries, Metro Mobile Radio, Trevor Gibbons and their links below; .
Surface is commissioned by the City of Vancouver, under the project section Marking and Mapping, through its Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program for 2010, where artists were invited to propose projects based on sites of their own choosing.
Many thanks for the generous support of Surface Project Partners:
Concept, art work, project manager: Fiona Bowie
Software and system integration:
Moment Factory. Special thanks Dominic Audet, Hugo Desmeules, Vincent Pasquier, Pierre-Luc Brunet
Surface is installed on: Aquabus. Special thanks to Jody Collins and Jeff Pratt who helped make this project possible.
Video Streaming: Livecast Special thanks to Trevor Whike and Tony Randall who helped make this project possible.
Internet service provider: Emily Carr University Special thanks to Chris Brougham and Ron Burnett
LED Screen location : Ocean Concrete Special thanks to Dave Faber
Camera Hardware Installation(special thanks): Hymach Industries
Radio mesh: Metro Mobile Radio Steve Shelley
Electrics: Trevor Gibbons
City of Vancouver Public Art Manager: Karen Henry (thank you)
2010 Fiona Bowie
all rights reserved/copyright fiona bowie 2009-2023
All images, sound and text are the exclusive copyright of the artist and may not be used or duplicated without
the expressed permission of the artist.
This work was created in K'emk'emeláy (colonially known as Vancouver BC.),
with gratitude and acknowledgement of our host's nationhood; of their unceded, ancestral and current territories:
the Musqueam, Squamish, and Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
