I'm A Believer
"""Please note: this 4K video here has been formatted for this screen. 4444XQ codec (or suitable for context) is deliverable along with ATMOS sound for those cinemas equipped to deliver immersive sound, or alternately lossless sound. Can send a DCP if requested. Embedded text, inter titles and credits will also be appropriately sized for cinema screening"""
At the onset of I'm A Believer, what may seem like an expose of the fervent hubris of the Alt-right, unfolds into an interleaving of entrenched wonts that implicate us all.
I'm A Believer (2025) is a $200.00 CAD budget "Official" music video created for Vancouver band Rat Silo. (mostly made with pro-bono hours of in-kind work by me!). I'm A Believer is an experimental flash documentary short: a melange of photos and video clips and includes video and media artworks of my own throughout. The film is additionally injected with my inter-titles, layers, and text overlays.
It is a largely internet-sourced, reflecting our 24/7 online live-fed broadcast of both historical and contemporary experience in relation to power dynamics. (All sources are properly credited in the end credits and include embedded credits on clips and still images. They are combination of personal permissions, public domain, and CC BY SA 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0).
The breadth of source media reflects our everyday online experience of rapid-fire live-fed broadcast of hegemony, largely bereft of encouraging agency.
Fiona Bowie:
I am a visual artist usually working with immersive media-based installations and commissioned public artworks. I was asked by Vancouver Canada based band Rat Silo to make this video and another Official video for them. (I also added vocals to this song and to the rest of their album 1933, on which I'm A Believer is featured, so felt quite close to both the material and being an activist, the subject at hand.)
See further info in Directors statement.
Fiona Bowie's Bio and Ouvre here: https://www.fionabowie.org/bio.html
CV available at https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html
I live and work in K'emk'emeláy̓ (Vancouver), situated on the stolen, unceded, ancestral and current territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. With respect and acknowledgement of their aeons-long nationhood, cultures, knowledge, languages and all relations, We support these Nations' ongoing actions and initiatives. We also support the Wet'suwet'en Chiefs and their Nations ongoing actions and initiatives in their Yintah.
See further info in Directors statement.
.
-
Fiona BowieDirectorsee at: https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html. ; Most 'filmic' installations: https://www.fionabowie.org/slip.html and at http://www.alancumming.com/2004/2015/6/1/sliphost. Conceptualization, Writer, Original artwork, animation, special effects, production design; projector design and fabrication for "Slip Host", starring Alan Cumming (see more works at fionabowie.org; https://flowvancouver.com/flowvancouver.html; https://flowvancouver.com/flowarchive.html; etc. I am a sound and media-based visual artist. Fiona Bowie. CV: https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html; Bio/Ouvre: https://www.fionabowie.org/bio.html
-
Fiona BowieWritersee at: https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html. ; Most 'filmic' installations: https://www.fionabowie.org/slip.html and at http://www.alancumming.com/2004/2015/6/1/sliphost. Conceptualization, Writer, Original artwork, animation, special effects, production design; projector design and fabrication for "Slip Host", starring Alan Cumming (see more works at fionabowie.org; https://flowvancouver.com/flowvancouver.html; https://flowvancouver.com/flowarchive.html; etc. I am a sound and media-based visual artist. Fiona Bowie. CV: https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html; Bio/Ouvre: https://www.fionabowie.org/bio.html
-
Jim NewtonWriterMusic for "I'm A Believer" and "Kill God Now" & prior credits: Rock Albums. song writer, singer, guitarist for Rat Silo; previously, Sons of Freedom (eg."Mona Lisa", "Criminal")
-
Don BinnsWriterMusic for "I'm A Believer" and "Kill God Now" & prior credits: Rock Albums. song writer, bass player or Rat Silo; previously, Sons of Freedom (eg."Mona Lisa", "Criminal")
-
Sean StubbsWriterMusic for "I'm A Believer" and "Kill God Now" & prior credits: Rock Albums. Drummer, percussionist, vocalist, guitarist, song writer: Rat Silo; Jakalope, Biff Naked, SNFU, Numb, Sons of Freedom (eg."Mona Lisa", "Criminal")
-
Erkan GencolWriterMusic for "I'm A Believer" and "Kill God Now": Percussionist, Composer, digital instruments
-
Fiona BowieProducersee at: https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html. ; Screenplay, Original artwork, animation, special effects, production design; projector design and fabrication for "Slip Host", starring Alan Cumming (see more works at fionabowie.org , click on Iris icon
-
a multitude (see above)Key Cast
-
Fiona Fiona Bowie's embedded media artworks in this video BowieCinematography, animation, special effectssee at: https://www.fionabowie.org/cv.html. ; Screenplay, Original artwork, animation, special effects, production design; projector design and fabrication for "Slip Host", starring Alan Cumming (see more works at fionabowie.org , click on Iris icon; for this project:Wildlife cinematography for "Kill God Now"; Original artwork and wildlife cinematography for "I'm A Believer";
-
Anthony CriderPrinciple Photography ContributorsSee at: https://facstaff.elon.edu/acrider/
-
Elvert BarnesPrinciple Photography ContributorsSee at: elvertxbarnes.com
-
Max GalkaPrinciple Photography ContributorsFlight animation data. See Prior credits at: https://medium.com/@galka_max/mapping-the-worlds-population-in-us-equivalents-fe1b48c5c8d8
-
Project Type:Documentary, Experimental, Music Video, Short, Other
-
Runtime:2 minutes 30 seconds
-
Completion Date:June 9, 2025
-
Production Budget:0 CAD
-
Country of Origin:Canada
-
Shooting Format:digital
-
Aspect Ratio:16:9
-
Film Color:Color
-
First-time Filmmaker:No
-
Student Project:No
-
New work
Distribution Information
-
New Work
Fiona Bowie, b. K'emk'emeláy̓ (Vancouver).
Fiona Bowie is a sound and media-based visual artist.
Fiona variously employs photography, film, video, text, and sound to create immersive gallery installations, evolving public art
and web-based projects, and pursues land restoration projects.
Fiona's gallery and public artworks are motivated by a desire to challenge the mechanisms of atrophied social systems by creating works that confront them, and at the same time defy old framing habits of commercially available technology. As a result, she frequently designs and builds unique image
systems and 360 degree/omni-directional projectors for her evolving public artworks and her omni-directional gallery-based works.
Writing, archiving practice, and web-based forms of outreach factor into many of Fiona's works to increase public access to and visibility
of the subjects therein.
She has lived in and operated her studios in K'emk'emeláy̓ (Vancouver); Samara, Costa Rica and Sitges, Barcelona Province.
see examples of her work, award winning multi-year projects and her CV at fionabowie.org, including https://flowvancouver.com/flowvancouver.html, https://www.fionabowie.org/slip.html, https://flowvancouver.com/flowarchive.html, among many others.
She is Professor Emerita, Emily Carr University.
Having been familiar with my gallery installations and public art works, band Rat Silo invited me to create videos for both Kill God Now and I'm A Believer, the first two singles from their new Album 1933. (I also sang backing vocals on the album).
I created the storylines, and variously compiled/curated and/or created works/shot footage appearing in I'm A Believer.
The underlying subject matter –– laying bare the mechanics of now millennia-long hegemony in relation to contemporary politics, environmental crimes and repression -- is a thread that runs through much of my gallery and public artworks (Slip/host, starring Alan Cumming in both lead roles, being one of the most biting of examples. documentation of this gallery installation can be viewed at https://www.fionabowie.org/slip.html)