Combining a field of mundane domestic messages collected at home and work with the ominous silhouette of an F-18 Hornet, Mixed Messages (2006) alludes to the ‘Pure War’ theories of Paul Virilio that articulate the interweave between military interests and domestic economies. Each banal note, addressed to the artist, functions as a micro-narrative grounded against the silhouette of the meta-narrative of symbolic, aggressive military power. This at a time when Canadian ground forces in Afghanistan are deployed in combat duty for the first time in decades beyond their more traditional peacekeeping missions.
Recognizing Halifax as a Canadian example of a ‘Pure War’ environment, the ‘camouflage’ pattern within the fighter plane image is a representation of a land-use map of the Halifax Regional Municipality and its extended environs. As posited by Virilio, local economies and inhabitants are always directly or indirectly interrelated to global politics and warfare.