In February of 1949 workers from the Quebec Asbestos industry went on strike for higher pay and safer working conditions. The event, which lasted nearly 5 months, pitting the provincial government and Johns-Manville Company mining company against over 5000 unionized workers, is considered a precursor to the Quiet Revolution and a vital moment in Canadian labour history. Soft Cinema Asbestos takes on the task of translating the event and its impact for a present day audience. One that reflects notions of digital content creation and consumption, disorienting precarity and a decline in traditional workplace organizing.

In the early 2000’s media theorist and artist Lev Manovich developed an algorithmic approach to video editing that used code to piece together moving image collage. He termed the operation Soft Cinema. Collected clips were put into a database from which a program would randomly select, compositing them into open-ended multi-shot sequences over a gridded layout. The method set up a symbiotic relationship between the author-as-cinematographer and the computer-as-editor.

Soft Cinema Asbestos takes Manovich’s technique and adds to it historical consciousness and the digital archive. Excerpts from news reel footage, documentary films, biomedical simulations and a video game reenactment created by the artist have been tagged with keywords based on their content. A sorting algorithm uses these keywords to assemble clips with shared context. The work is set up in a two channel synchronized format, where one screen visualizes the program’s logic and the other its final output. It is an anachronistic experience of history that privileges pattern and chance over the fixed linear sequence.

Soft Cinema Asbestos, an exhibition at Western’s ArtLab Gallery by artist and PhD candidate Andreas Buchwaldt, is a multichannel video installation about the 1949 Quebec Asbestos Strike, a vital moment in Canadian labour history. The project builds on media theorist Lev Manovich’s concept of Soft Cinema, the use of randomizing algorithms to assemble montage film sequences, where clips are pulled and assembled from a central database. The method creates a symbiotic relationship between the author-as-cinematographer and the computer-as-editor. Soft Cinema Asbestos uses Manovich’s approach to translate historical events for a present day audience. One that reflects notions of digital content creation and consumption, disorienting precarity and a decline in traditional workplace organizing.