Digital Archive: Experimental Selections from the SAW Video Mediatheque
Digital Arts Resource Centre (DARC), formerly known as SAW Video, is one of Canada’s longest-standing artist-run centres dedicated to independent media arts. For 40 years, SAW Video supported the creation, exhibition, and distribution of video and media arts in Ottawa-Gatineau and beyond. Since 2020, SAW Video now operates as DARC, which continues this legacy, championing emerging, mid-career, and established film, video and media makers while expanding its mandate into the digital landscape.
This 45th anniversary screen-based pop-up exhibition marks both a celebration of that enduring history and a forward-looking embrace of DARC’s renewed identity, honouring the past while stepping boldly into its next chapter.
As we decommission the SAW Video website, and say thank you to the legacy established by so many amazing Ottawa media artists and cultural workers, we will be moving the Mediatheque into a new digital space on the Digital Arts Resource Centre site. Keeping it as part of our ongoing history, this archive of media art works – from a time before everything was available at our fingertips – will continue to be preserved for passionate creators and producers of experimental digital media in Ottawa.
The exhibition is curated collectively by the staff of Digital Arts Resource Centre. Each staff member selected one work from the Mediatheque that holds personal or professional resonance for them – a video that speaks to DARC’s history, to the possibilities of independent media art, or to their own experience with the organization.
Attendees will find booklets available at the DARC Microcinema which includes an essay by Penny McCann called, “The Mediatheque: a crazy, messy and beautiful thing”.
Digital Archive: Experimental Selections from the SAW Video Mediatheque will be presented at the DARC Microcinema, July 6-31, 2026.
Featured Films
ATTENTION SPAN
Rob Thompson
Television reaches new depths of mediocrity as it seeks to fill time through the endless repetition of images. Moments of reality rendered pointless by their decontextualisation. Style over content reigns supreme.
SHORE LINES
Dan Sokolowski
Set against the shores of Lake Superior, the sculptures of William Conly create the images for this film. Linear sketches in welded metal, the figures of a man, a bird and a caribou interact through the juxtaposition of their images. Positive and negative spaces combine to form a harmonic unity that link the elements in a mosaic of time and space.
GOING BACK HOME (NI AQUÍ, NI ALLÁ)
Maria Belisario
A personal reflection on going back to Venezuela and to my family’s home-town. After three years of living in Canada as a refugee, the artist decides to go back home and encounters an even worse reality – political unrest has spread even to small towns, in this case, her family’s home-town. Only this time the artist/activist has a camera and starts recording the people manifesting over the tampering of the Major’s election in front of the government house. The next morning, she gets a warning. Now she encounters a conflict: Her family lives there, and she’s going back to Canada; there is more at risk now even when she thought things would be better…
NICE SHOES FAGGOT
Carl Stewart
Altering between black and white, past and present, dreaming and waking, “Nice Shoes Faggot” is an eerie and evocative exploration of homophobic violence and its psychological effects.
DEAD END JOB
Ryan Stec
“Dead End Job” was created using a surveillance camera system connected to a digital video mixer. Using the movement of the urban environment surrounding the surveillance system as the launching point, the video mixer helps move the images into a blurry dreamscape. Feedback and colourization techniques turn buildings into rivers of architectural shapes as the city is transformed into an abstract dream world. The title refers to the context within which the work was created. The surveillance camera system used belonged to the arts centre in downtown Ottawa where I worked at the reception. The video was created during my work hours.
NAIL POLISH
Yvon Villarceau
The first of the fictional “Vovo Kingdom” series of therapeutic videos in which Dr. Dotolulu suggests transcendental ways to get over the breakup of a love affair, while still remaining friends.
Accessibility
All doors at DARC have accessibility buttons to press for automatic entry. DARC is located on the main floor (one story above ground) of the Arts Court building. DARC’s main entrance is located at 67 Nicholas Street which is fully wheelchair accessible. Alternate wheelchair-accessible entry is available through 2 Daly Ave at the Arts Court main entrance or the Ottawa Art Gallery. Elevator access is available from 9AM – 11PM. DARC staff are available and happy to assist with all inquiries and requests regarding physical access.
We also welcome inquiry, feedback, and resources regarding accessibility and accessibility improvement by phone (613.238.7648 x. 6) or by email at access@digitalartsresourcecentre.ca.
Visit https://digitalartsresourcecentre.ca/access/ for information on how to get to DARC, language barriers, fragrance policy, and access to programming.