Capitalist wisdom teaches that the value of a territory is a function of its resources. Wars have been fought over lands that yield gold, oil and other exploitable raw materials. Indigenous peoples have traditionally placed a different set of values on the land. Rather than seeing it as a vessel from which to extract and exhaust resources, Mother Earth is regarded as a site of exchange between Creator and individual, a support system to be held in trust for future generations.

As urban Aboriginal artist-curators generating an Aboriginally-determined corner of cyberspace, these are the questions that we are asking as we develop CyberPowWow 04:

What does it mean to claim territory in cyberspace? Is it even possible to delineate such a space? If so, is it a good idea? What are the natural resources of cyberspace? Can they be exploited? Should they be, and by whom? Is cyberspace infinite? How much can it really escape the finite world of wires in the ground, access to computing power, and entrenched modes of thinking? And do these modes of thinking –call hem “Native” and “non-Native” – carry over into the virtual world the same differences of opinion about natural resources that exist in the real world?

Co-curators Skawennati Tricia Fragnito and Jason E. Lewis have invited Rosalie Favell, Greg A. Hill, Ryan Johnston, Joseph Tekaroniake Lazare and Archer Pechawis to create artwork that will explore some of the unnatural resources we have determined so far: data, pixels, bandwidth, computing power, networks, access, and attention.