{"id":28525,"date":"2026-10-12T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T16:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=28525"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:59:18","slug":"camosun-visual-arts-lab-technologist-screens-film-at-antimatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2026\/10\/12\/camosun-visual-arts-lab-technologist-screens-film-at-antimatter\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun Visual Arts lab technologist screens film at Antimatter"},"content":{"rendered":"

As October begins, Victoria prepares for its 29th annual Antimatter [media art] festival, during which 21 programs of short films and experimental videography pieces by 136 artists from 31 countries will be displayed to the public. (The films will also be streamed online for free for 24 hours after they screen at the festival.)<\/p>\n

Included this year is Camosun College Visual Arts lab technologist Mike Andrew McLean, with his short film below the ghost forest – volume I<\/i>. In this piece, McLean puts together some of his long-term documentation of a personally inspiring landscape: an industrial logging site he came across between Port Renfrew and Lake Cowichan. The plot had been damaged by a fire previous to its first clearcut, leaving behind a ground of only rock, \u201cblackened stumps of old-growth trees,\u201d and bleached-white dead trees looming up above: \u201cit looked like a ghost forest,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A screenshot from Camosun\u2019s Mike Andrew McLean\u2019s below the ghost forest – volume I<\/em>, which is screening at this year’s Antimatter (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was a really compromised place, but there was also a really strange beauty to it,\u201d says McLean. \u201cSomething about it really captured my imagination, and I just wanted to know it a little bit better so\u2026 I started to explore and to photograph this place and I\u2019ve been doing it ever since, so this video artwork that I\u2019ve made is kind of a culmination of that exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLean has been able to capture many sides to the forest he has come to know through this project, visiting regularly \u201cnot only through a calendar year, but also through 24 hours of a day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a realization that I was only seeing it when the sun is up and there was a whole other side to the life of that forest that I was not familiar with, and that was when it was dark\u2026 and so I thought, \u2018Well, this is probably something that I should investigate.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Emphasizing the importance of challenging oneself and inspired by those who continuously evolve their creations to become unlike their previous, McLean recognizes this artwork as being a new endeavour in his artistic practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a visual artist I never want to do the same thing twice,\u201d he explains, \u201cbecause then I think that really sort of short circuits the potential to learn something new\u2026 You\u2019re not challenging yourself as an artist, nor as a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite it being a new medium for him, the process of finally piecing together a section of his long-standing art project gave McLean enough confidence in his film to enter it into the Antimatter festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like something where I just kept collecting footage,\u201d admits McLean. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know if it was any good\u2026 I wanted to take a risk and this film festival is quite renowned\u2026 I was kind of nervous, I was sort of scared about that, but that was a good place to be. I\u2019ve never made a film, I\u2019ve never really shown a video artwork before, so I wanted to take that risk and I sent it in and I was so excited when I heard back that it was going to be part of the festival\u2026 It just confirmed that it was a good decision. It puts a period at the end of the sentence. You can be an artist and work on a particular piece or a series for a long time and you can keep going almost indefinitely, but when you have the opportunity to maybe show your work in an exhibition, or group show, or a film festival, it kind of takes that sentence and it puts a punctuation mark at the end of it and it makes it somehow a little bit more tangible, it makes it somehow a little bit more whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLean places importance on learning and growth in art and life, and this new direction for him proves his commitment to these principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of it is just me learning about this place, and for me art-making is about learning,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a learning process, so I want to be committed to that learning process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antimatter [media art]
\nVarious times, Thursday, October 15 to Sunday, October 25
\nVarious prices and venues
\nantimatter.squarespace.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As October begins, Victoria prepares for its 29th annual Antimatter [media art] festival, during which 21 programs of short films and experimental videography pieces by 136 artists from 31 countries will be displayed to the public. (The films will also be streamed online for free for 24 hours after they screen at the festival.) Included […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-october-7-2026","category-arts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t