This is the submission page for rencontes internationales paris/berlin by Fiona Bowie for I'm A Believer
Note: this is a privately accessed webpage for the sole adjudication by the assessors of rencontes internationales paris/berlin.
(It can not be seen by anyone accessing fionabowie.org other than those given access through the applicaton process).
Contact information:
Fiona Bowie, K'emk'emeláỷ (colonially known as Vancouver BC.) fionabowiestudio@gmail.com (1)236-516-6023.
You can scroll this page to see the synopsis, biography and lyrics; and click the link here for my CV.
I'm A Believer (Category: Experimental documentary, short-form)
If accepted for consideration for Recontres progams, and there are screenings with ATMOS surround sound capabilities,
a 4k version with your prefered codec can be delivered with the Dolby ATMOS, for an immersive and dynamic sound experience.
In the meantime, you can experience the ATMOS mix here (on Apple Music):
Below is a 4K UHDversion, I can deliver other codec options as requested, including a DCP if required.
I'm a Believer(2025): Synopsis
At the onset of I'm A Believer, what may seem like an expose of the fervent hubris of the Alt-right, unfolds into an interveaving of entrenched wonts
that implicate us all.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to create a video for Rat Silo, for their new song, I'm A Believer. I was familiar with the song and its lyrical
content, as I had sung backing vocals for their album in January. More importantly, our practices align along issues confronting our planet. I'm A Believer is a largely internet-sourced, collective Flash documentary, reflecting our online live-fed broadcast of the
nefarious legacy of hegemony - and the response to it.
It's a high-speed melange of posted photos and video clips by others and photos, videos, and media artworks of my own.
The film is additionally injected with my intertitles, layers, and text overlays.
It may suit being screened amongst other short-form films or before a subject-related feature-length film or in an online context.
This video is a temporal and formal departure for me in relation to my gallery installation and public art practice, which typically take
more than a year to produce and are temporally slow. (See entry #2, immersive video, sound, and text installation, If your eyes could zoom,
that I am currently readying for installation).
While I created this work with close attention to both the content and frenetic flow of the song, I chose to expand
the lyrical connections between fanaticism, fascism, and polarized socio-political issues to include implications of blind market investing,
consumer choices, colonization, social devaluation, deforestation, and climate change - issues that have catalyzed my artworks for decades.
(Yes, all of it in 2 minutes 26 seconds!).
The final 24-second sequence, entitled Exit Strategies, is my contrasting injection representing activities and activism
that address all of the above issues.
Permissions and Licences of media in 'I'm A Believer':
(I am happy to forward emailed permissions from Anthony Crider, Elver Barnes and Max Galka, who'd contributed multiple documentary photos)
Rat Silo has also given me free range to submit this work to art, film and media festivals of which, rencontes internationales paris/berlin,
is the only one I have applied to. It would be the exclusive venue in France and Germany.
The image or video clips contributions have permissions and credits for the maker's media; and in the case of CC, Public Domain and Fair Use images, they have been given proper credits under licence type,
as well as their names/sources embedded in text in each and every still or moving image.
The work includes fab photography by the wonderful astrophysicist Anthony Crider, and also Elvert Barnes among others.
I've also embedded each image/video with the name of the maker, even if it's only visible for milliseconds, enabling viewers
to stop the video anywhere in the timeline to see (and then search) the author and context of the image.
Fiona Bowie,(we/they/us) Bio:
I am an interdisciplinary artist, musician/songwriter. I was born, live and work in K'emk'emeláỷ (colonially known as Vancouver BC.).
situated on the stolen, unceded, ancestral and current territories
of the əəθkʷə̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵw̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and sə̓lil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
With respect and acknowledgement of their aeons-long nationhood, cultures,knowledge, languages and all relations.
I have a widely varied practice that includes photography, film, video, text, google earth
interventions and sound composition. I create immersive gallery installations, evolving public art and web-based projects.
My practice includes activism and the pursuit of biodynamic garden and land restoration projects.
Motivated by compassion (and lifelong interests in physics and nature), I identify as a multi-spēcial, intermolecular being,
to normalize that, on a subatomic scale, there is structurally no separation between us and everything else in existence.
Respecting that all beings experience existence in their own way, my work centres on interconnectivity with other life forms
and social equity with them, therefore suggesting alternative ways of understanding oneself in contrast to ubiquitous hierarchical
narratives.
I am motivated to blur and defy old framing habits of commercially available technology and so I frequently design and build
unique image systems such as 360 degree/omni-directional projectors for my omni-directional gallery-based works (such as Swell,
faltering repetition, SlipHost,)
and system design for evolving public artworks (Flow). Writing, archiving practice,
and web-based forms of outreach factor into many of my artworks to increase public access to and visibility of the subjects
therein.
I have also acted as a curator, and from 2014 to 2021 facilitated collaborations, projects, and research by artists, writers,
and curators at my former Órbitas studio/residency in Costa Rica.
Jim Newton, Lyrics:
I'm A Believer
It's all about ME
I wanna be, I wanna be, I WANNA BE
Looking for a life
and I'm looking for a reason
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer
If you don't step in line,
it's an act of treason
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer
I vote like my daddy
and my daddy before him
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer
The truth is out there
but you choose to ignore it
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer
chorus:
I'm a Believer
I'm a Believer
I'm a Believer
I'm a Believer
(bridge)
Sit back down
if you don't think like us
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer
if you think we're scared
well, why don't you try us
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer
(chorus:)
I'm a Believer
I'm a Believer, I'm a Believer I'm a Believer
I'm a Believer
I'm a Believer
Don't read the news and don't watch TV
Q-anon's the only one allowed to speak freely
don't wear a mask and don't live in fear
don't stop and think about how we got here
