By Jennifer Wilson
Shapeless blobs of colour, bright pink and electric blue, shift and float in and out of the screen. The colours dance in time to the music, a steady rhythm in the background.
Juxtaposed against these psychedelic images is the calm, soothing voice and quiet demeanor of Mr. Rogers, the endearing host of a popular children’s TV show, as he sits and ties his shoes.
This short video is called “Mr. Roger’s Vacation” by Jacob Hanna, a Gatineau artist and Ryan Stec.
A local filmmaker and video artist, Stec says he’s inspired by television.
“I like TV a lot. I’m not one of those artists that think TV is evil,” he says. “I think it’s about as absurd to say that TV is a problem as it is to say that books are a problem.”
Stec has been doing video mixing for seven years now, editing together different video images and sequences with music to create original works.
But his life almost took another career course.
“I started off in outdoor education at Lakehead (University),” he says with a laugh.
Stec came to Ottawa in 1996 and began a degree in communications at the University of Ottawa.
He says he was drawn to media studies because of his interest in political activism, especially animal rights.
“But by the time I left media studies, I was more interested in how you utilize the tools of media to create alternatives to what’s happening, what’s going on in the world,” he says.
Stec took this interest and, with his friend Anne Clarke, developed “Remix” in 2002. “Remix” is a video exhibition where artists are given TV footage and re-edit it to create their own short video piece. It shows how artists can take the same raw footage and create their own interpretation. Past remixes have included remixing a broadcast of CBC’s The National, footage from Much Music and the last period of game seven of last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
Clarke says “Remix” is a way for people to interact with television.
“Our culture is so driven by television,” she says. “We’re always absorbing images but we never get to share our interpretation of what we see because we normally watch television in private.”
“Ryan is really fun to work with,” Clarke adds. “He brings a lot of dedication to the project.”
The past three remixes have played at the SAW Gallery. Stec got his start at SAW Video, an artist-run media centre in Ottawa, in their youth video program in 1998.
Jason St-Laurent, co-ordinator for Club SAW, says Stec has produced a lot of work through SAW Video, and is very skilled and enthusiastic.
“When new members come to the centre, (Stec) is, in many ways, the perfect point person at SAW because he’s dynamic and has a larger outlook on video than a lot of people,” says St-Laurent.
After his training at SAW, Stec began his first big project, a documentary called “Jolly Fat Men” that chronicled shopping mall Santa Clauses during Christmas.
He says the documentary’s success helped establish him as an artist and allowed him to get funding for other projects.
Although Stec says he doesn’t have a favourite art form to work in, he really loves making documentaries.
“I think a lot of my work… is influenced by my love for the documentary form and wanting to push and expand that form,” he says.
Clarke says Stec’s work has a nice visual aesthetic, and that he brings a lot of creativity and energy to all his projects.
“I really like his documentary work,” she says. “I find it very creative, very personal and very inspiring.”
Stec says that despite his background, he doesn’t have a political message in his work. He says this is because he feels disillusioned from his activism experiences.
“I (wasn’t) having the success I wanted in talking about issues with people from the perspective of being aggressive and thinking you’re self-righteous enough to know how the world should change,” he says. “So I think a lot of my inspiration for documentary comes from being able to talk about things in a very broad sense.”
He says it would be easy for him to make documentaries that are critical or condemning, but says that approach is not useful in reaching an audience.
“It’s kind of the flip side to the Michael Moore approach,” says Stec. “I think he’s an amazing inspiration, but… he’s a cheerleader to those who already believe.
“He makes you laugh and pushes the envelope in terms of the truth… I do the opposite, I do something that I think a whole bunch of people will grab something very different out of and have a different experience.”
When asked what his favourite project has been, Stec says he doesn’t know.
“They’re kind of like your kids, in the sense that you can’t really have a favourite,” he says with a laugh.