Multimedia artist Jason Baerg’s oeuvre is firmly rooted in the real world with his passionate pursuit as a painter, infatuated with form and texture. Building upon eight years of investigation of form and iconography, The Plain Truth represents a new chapter in his work. With his recent foray, Baerg seeks to colonize the increasingly tangible cyber-universe with a Native presence. The Plain Truth is a hybrid arts space incorporating the virtual reality of online communities, such as Second Life™, with the basic cyber “galleries” that proliferate across the web. Although the interactivity of the site is limited—one traverses the environment without an avatar but mostly from a first-person perspective—Baerg has created an environment which itself comments on an aboriginal understanding of place and time.

Upon arriving at the portal to The Plain Truth, the visitor gazes through a window where wispy clouds drift in a bright blue sky. The rivets surrounding the window establish the viewer’s position as a traveller, a tourist, or explorer, sitting inside some mode of airborne transportation such as an airplane or spaceship. As soon as the journey is initiated, we are given a brief, long view of the ship dropping from the sky, near a long pole (an umbilicus, perhaps?), down to the plains below. At first the continent is unrecognizable, and appears as a large island. Baerg has reoriented this “map” viewed from above, inverting the standard Western perspective with north at the top of the screen. The continent is, in fact, Turtle Island, and the aircraft modeled after the shape of a turtle as well. After this quick trip down, the “turtle-ship” arcs back up to a hovering land mass. The viewpoint then immediately shifts to one of navigator, steering the ship with the aide of a mechanical map; the map also reveals the turtle shape reflected again in the constructed environment.

We have now entered an alternate universe. This turtle island is a partially mechanized creation that we navigate with the aide of a fixed rail-like path (our vehicle is parked in the center). Yet the surface of this island is shrouded in grasses and dotted with trees and the soundscape indicates the presence of unseen life-forms. Aesthetically this environment nods to fantasy games such as the Myst™ series or, more recently, the first person-shooter game God of War™. The soothing, other-worldly soundtrack, composed by Macroform, with its occasional drumbeat and recurring bird calls, enhances the perception of an altered reality. This island invites visitors to explore utilizing a fixed path with the “continue” button, or hopping directly to one of four pods through the use of the map.

After arriving at each pod, the visitor faces one of four screens, displayed on a monitor-shaped rock outcropping. Each screen, sixteen in all, contains a digital composition by Baerg. With the preponderant use of red, black, yellow and white, he invokes the primary colors of the medicine wheel, indicating each of the four directions and, he explains “the four races of humanity.” The drawings are graphically bold, and though the use of color reflects the influence of Canadian painter and abstractionist Guido Molinari, they are infused with Baerg’s interest in symbology and social commentary. Each composition contains multiple icons, 22 in all, drawn from his Metroscope Project (2001-present), and represent his ongoing meditation on the urban experience.[1]

The compositions collectively build on Baerg’s cogent assessment of the contemporary Native experience. Some symbols such as the computer network diagram and a small group of suitcases (“Quality Luggage”) have clear connotations to urbanity and the challenges of retaining connectivity to Native community and tradition, but they also engage us in a more complex dialogue. The computer network can remind us of isolation, mechanization and anonymity, but they are also portals to enormous online communities, popular among Native youth, using platforms such as Facebook™ and MySpace™. The birds circling in one drawing echo the airplanes circling in another; each an airborne entity with significance to contemporary culture. The military helicopter has become a repeating motif in recent Native art, appearing as a menacing bird of prey in light of the Western world’s embroilment in the Iraq war, particularly in the paintings of Robert Houle and digital work of Jason Lujan in particular. For Baerg, the helicopter also represents what he refers to as “the ultimate in leg room” – the continued wish for luxury and space among urban-dwellers. Baerg’s digital drawings invite the visitor to explore, finding hidden imagery to reflect upon their own experiences. Interestingly, though these abstract land/skyscapes exist as digital media, the artist has recreated a number of them in real space as actual oil paintings for exhibition.

The idea of creating virtual indigenous space has been percolating for many years, most notably with the launch in 1997 of the CyberPowWow by Mohawk artist Skawennati. This interactive space includes art galleries, writing, and events in real time. More recently, virtual communities for Native Americans have been created in Second Life™, albeit with numerous interest groups created for curiosity-seekers and members who want to “play” Indian. The technological virtuosity of the holographic reality experienced in science fiction such as Star Trek™ has not yet been achieved, but the yearning for virtual communities remains unabated. The Plain Truth represents a new expression of this desire. While still in its first iteration as a prototype virtual community, Baerg plans to continue investigating alternate options for enhancing and expanding the visitor experience. For Baerg, The Plain Truth represents his efforts to reach new audiences and initiate discourse on a global platform.

Kathleen Ash-Milby