Spirit/Digital World

The digital world is perhaps a place of infinite potential. It is a place where all things digital may be created and all things may be altered or 'changed'. A place where all is malleable.
In historical North West Coast Indigenous Culture, there was a portion of the socio-psychological structure that had, as one of its pillars, a belief in what has been labelled, 'The Spirit World'. In this world, anything was possible. The rationale of everyday reality did not always apply. In this world, 'shape shifting,' and physical transformation from a given form to another given form, was accepted as part of the underlying and basic reality of all things.
As such, the historical Northwest Coast Indigenous 'Spirit World' and the present day 'Digital World' share somewhat of a inherent commonality.
This area of commonality is at present in the midst of a eye opening developmental stage. A cross-section of the Northwest Coast community of artists presently find themselves, to varying degrees, and in various fashion, involved in digital activity.
Indigenous writers work their magic on keyboards of blue-tooth laptop computers. Singers, drummers, and dancers, can be viewed displaying their cultural expression via digital television. Multi-media artists of the latest 'tuned-in' generation, using the latest versions of such software programs as Photoshop CS4, and Corel Draw X4, meticulously shape their digital creations on duo core high end desktops and laptops.
Where a historic clash of cultures, has in the past, left Indigenous Culture and Western Culture at divergent odds, these two cultures now share a increasingly happy union in the digital world.
Greg Robinson
May 05, 2009