BRAD NECYK
Necyk and Joynes have been collaborating on several projects, including Joshua Tree and Avatar’s Dream, the audio-video installation and virtual reality film Kingdom of Illumination, two collaborative dance films with Van Grimde Corps Secrets The End of the World // The Birth of the World, and have developed and staged an original dance performance with Brian Webb Dance Company in 2023. Most recently they have produced the film Of Dreaming.
Their current work is producing Artificial Intelligence dance films and interactive installations for an upcoming exhibition at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG) in 2025.
Of Dreaming
Brad Necyk – Video and AI Programming
Gary James Joynes – Original Music & Sound Design Score
Of Dreaming is an artificial intelligence dance film about an old-growth forest dreaming. It is a meditation on an old-growth forest on Vancouver Island called Avatar Grove.
The End of the World
Brad Necyk – Video
Gary James Joynes – Original Music & Sound Design Score
The End of the World is a journey from our current moment at the beginning of the visible effects of climate change—loss of biodiversity, extreme weather events, and loss on loss. It begins full of life and living, in a lush natural world as two humans express themselves at the end of the world.
The Birth of the World
Brad Necyk – Video
Gary James Joynes – Original Music & Sound Design Score
The Birth of the World begins sometime in the future—time passes, and time passes again. We are sometime after the fall, the landscape is barren, harsh. We are witnessing the birth of a new world. Two survivors connect, try to heal each other as they are the sole witnesses to a brave new world.
Joshua Tree
Brad Necyk – Video
Gary James Joynes – Original Music & Sound Design Score
Joshua Tree is a single-shot, minimalist experimental film about time, consciousness, and climate change. It is about the experience of time, the movement of time, and the growing sense of being-out-of-time. It is also about a rhythm between waking consciousness and dreaming, where surreal and mystical experiences occur. Further, it is building off of evolving themes of the Anthropocene by directly witnessing landscapes at risk of annihilation, acting as an archive, a memorial. It examines a contribution art could have on shifting and attuning human understanding to something so massive and distributed across time as climate change—that stars no one, that is long in the making, and attritional. All of these ideas were in play when making this work.
Joshua Tree was a collaboration with Brad Necyk and the Brian Webb Dance Company, and was part of an original dance performance with Brian Webb Dance Company which premiered in the summer of 2023.
Avatar’s Dream
Brad Necyk – Video
Gary James Joynes – Original Music & Sound Design Score
Avatar’s Dream is a meditation on an old-growth forest on Vancouver Island called Avatar Grove. It is currently at threat from logging and has sparked a resistance called the Fairy Creek Blockade. “When I sit and meditate in this forest, I imagine the network of Red Cedar and Hemlock roots weaving and knotting with mycelium exchanging nutrients and knowledge. I once read forests dream, and as I meditate, I wonder if I can dream with the forest and if we can fall into each other’s dreams: because sometimes falling is easier than resisting. Does this forest dream of its birth or death, the fullness of life or coming epochs of deserts? Is it aware of the Joshua Trees 2,482 km south? Does it have nightmares of axes and trucks? Does it sense the activists chaining themselves to its roots? Do these thousand-year-old Bodhisattva’s even perceive all the frenetic activity of us humans? Or does this forest rest and recoil into the soil, slipping into the dreams of the mycelial network waiting for a new epoch?” – Brad Necyk
Kingdom of Illumination
Brad Necyk – Video
Gary James Joynes – Original Music & Sound Design Score
Kingdom of Illumination is a 8-channel video, 16-channel audio installation. A collaboration with Brad Necyk and the Brian Webb Dance Company, which was part of an original dance performance with Brian Webb Dance Company which premiered in the summer of 2023.
In 2021, we premiered a 3-channel version of this work as a 100-foot wide projection in the Contemporary Calgary Planetarium.
Film Screenings
2023 Fungi Film Festival. Portland, OR, USA (Winner: Freshest Fungi Film – Honours the most unique presentation of fungi or fungi-related topics)
2023 Tangled Art. Toronto, ON, Canada
2022 Radius Gallery. Santa Cruz, CA, USA
2022 ParTecK. Vancouver, BC, Canada
2022 Radius Gallery. Santa Cruz, CA, USA
2022 Dallas Shorts. Dallas, TX, USA (Semi-finalist)
2022 San Francisco Indie Short Festival. San Francisco, CA, USA (Semi-finalist)
2021 Athens International Art Film Festival. Athens, Greece (Winner: Best Art Film)
2021 New Wave Short Film Festival. Munich, Germany (Finalist)
2021 Roma Short Film Festival. Rome, Italy (Finalist)
2021 Madrid Indie Film Festival. Madrid, Spain
2021 Himachal Short Film Festival. Himachal Pradesh, India
2021 Paris International Film Awards. Paris, France. (Best SciFi film)
2021 Vancouver Independent Film Festival. Vancouver, BC, Canada (Finalist: Best animated short)
2020 Oregon Short Film Festival. The Dalles, OR, USA (Finalist: Best Experimental Film)
2020 South Film and Arts Academy Festival. Rancagua, Chile (Best Art Video)
2020 The Short Film Filmmaker Showcase. Pinewood Studios, UK
2020 New York Animation Film Awards. New York City, NY, USA (Semi-Finalist)
2020 Dumbo Film Festival. New York City, NY, USA (Semi-Finalist)
2020 ARTsPLACE. Annapolis Royal, NS, Canada
2020 Paris Play Film Festival. Paris, France
2020 New Indie Film Festival of London. London, UK
2020 Twin Rivers Media Festival: Experimental. Asheville, NC, USA
2020 International Festival of Winter Cinema. Edmonton, AB, Canada
Dance
2022-23 Collaboration on Of Dreaming with the Brian Webb Dance Company
2022-23 Collaboration on Of Visions with Action at a Distance
2020-21 Collaboration on an original dance performance with Brian Webb Dance Company
2020-21 Collaboration on a film series with Van Grimde’s Corps Secrets
Exhibitions
Upcoming in 2025 Avatar’s Dream. The Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Lethbridge, AB (Solo)
2023 And All of Everything. Harcourt House. Edmonton, AB (Solo)
2023 The Birth of the World. Harcourt House. Edmonton, AB (Solo)
2023 V-Unframed. Vancouver, BC
2023 Symbiosis. Art Gallery of Great Victoria. Victoria, BC
2022 And All of Everything. Art Gallery of St. Albert. St. Albert, AB (Solo)
2021 Perspectives From Within. Contemporary Calgary. Calgary, AB
2021 The Birth of the World. Espace Corps Secrets. Montreal, QB. (Solo)
2020 What Makes Us Human? Art + Genomics. Mary Porter Sensnon Art Gallery. Santa Cruz, CA
2020 Creative Code Festival. Lightbox. New York City, NY
2020 Beyond Here Lies Nothing. ARTsPLACE. Annapolis Royal, NS (Solo)
2020 Telling Stories Otherwise. Alberta Printmakers. Calgary, AB (Solo)
2019 Kingdom of Illumination. The Ou Gallery. Duncan, BC (Solo)
2019 Practicing Engagement. SLSA. Irvine, CA