Mute Swan/ Trumpeter Swan

2014
Graphic Novel (Paperback, 80 pages).
Album (Vinyl/digital, 8 tracks).

Inspired by the real life slaying of a mute swan in Stratford Ontario in 2010, “Mute Swan/ Trumpeter Swan” tells the story of two days in the life of a digital archiver at Voyager Inc – a company that digitizes popular culture and media – as he unknowingly reveals his mechanized approach to modern life by his seeming failure to differentiate between touch and screen.

The graphic novel portion of the work is written by Stephen Trothen and drawn by JP Gosselin
The album portion is written and recorded by Trothen under the name Treephones.

Drawing on media theory, mathematics, pop culture, and religious iconography, central themes throughout both pieces is the notion of presence, digitization, and the urge to archive. Through the manipulation of forms of storytelling and production practice, both works are an attempt to come to terms with a digital culture that paradoxically brings closer that which it simultaneously threatens to pull apart.