CIRCUIT CAST: Recent Episodes
www.circuit.org.nz
CIRCUIT CAST is a podcast produced by CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image, interviewing contemporary artists about recent exhibitions and how they approach their practice. CIRCUIT is Aotearoa/New Zealand's leading distributor of artists' moving image works.
www.circuit.org.nz.
For the final episode of Ka Mua Ka Muri – Walking Backwards Into the Future host David Upton (LUX Scotland) speaks with Sandy Wakefield (NZ) and Andrew Black (UK) about using the moving image to affirm ancestral connections to land and home. They discuss one film by each artist; Sandy's Nakunaku (2020) set on Rakiura / Stewart Island and Andrew’s Dàn Fianais (2022), set on the Isle of Skye. In the face of tourism and rapid commercialisation both islands still retain a deep sense of place which is held in the songs, stories and heritage of local people. Both works stream on LUX Scotland 23 March - 5 April 2026.https://luxscotland.org.uk/programme/events/ka-mua-ka-muri-sandy-wakefield-andrew-blackImage: Left: Sandy Wakefield, Nakunaku (2020). Courtesy of the artist. Right: Andrew Black, ‘Dàn Fianais’ (2022). Courtesy of the artist.
For the second episode of ‘Ka Mua Ka Muri – Walking Backwards Into the Future’ we present a conversation between Maria de Lima (UK/ Brazil) and Alex Monteith (NZ), two artists using moving image in a time of fragile ecologies as a platform for global knowledge exchange, deep time awareness and human rights. Hosted by Mark Williams.From 9-22 March 2026 we will be presenting Alex Monteith's, ‘Deepwater Currents’ (2020) alongside Maria de Lima’s ‘This Map of Affections’ (2024) on LUXScotland.org. This podcast series has been made possible with support from the British Council and their programme Connections through Culture.Image: Maria de Lima, ‘This Map of Affections’ (2024). Courtesy of the artist.
Ka Mua Ka Muri - Walking Backwards Into the Future is a thee-part podcast series that brings together artists who work with CIRCUIT and LUX Scotland.In this episode Thulani Rachia and Jamie Berry (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Porou, Ngā Puhi) discuss Thulani's obuyile (2021-ongoing) and Jamie's Hiwa-i-te-rangi (2023). Both works are based on a shared interest in dreaming, abstraction, repetition and rest as a contemporary continuum of ancestral knowledge.obuyile and Hiwa-i-te-rangi show on LUX Scotland from 23 Feb-8 March 2026.Ka Mua Ka Muri has been made possible with the support of the British Council arts fund Connections Through Culture.
.7.14: What is experimental film? Discusses non-narrative film, the work of Australian film-makers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill. 9.52: Meeting the Cantrills, following research into work by Nova Paul, discusses three colour separation, “the lingering of ghosts”. Seeing the Cantrill films in the original format, understanding the tactility of film. Understanding celluloid film as a dying medium, much as natural species were dying out. Mentions the Cantrills'film in new Zealand, 'Bubbling mud pools in Rotorua'.15.29: Community of film-makers around the Cantrills from the 1960s onwards, the magazine Cantrills Fllm Notes, which included New Zealander Phil Dadson, Nam Jun Paik and others. “They were a network”.16:40: In what way is film like animal? Discusses how celluloid includes a gelatin component. The book Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (2009), and how animal parts have furnished the rise of capitalism. “All film is made out of hooves”. “You can’t have a vegan cinema that’s made out of celluloid”. Film being full of toxic chemicals. The colour, grain and translucency of film. Question of whether the interest in film is just a nostalgic medium. “I think it’s more than that but I’m prepared to be challenged on that”.20:15: Film being animal. Technological analogy between watching animal movement and media. Discusses the book The Squid Cinema From Hell: Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulumedia (2020) and animals as screens. Animal attributes as technology.23:00: The sixth sense and our bodily feel for cinema, the inexplicable - spirit, energy. The human and the non-human. 25:20 The eye of the camera. 25:50: On film programme accompanying the Cinemal book launch. The work of Nova Paul, and her phyto-filmic practice, working with trees. Vegan Cinema. On Sriwhana Spong working with film, realising the specificity of the medium in her practice, film as an entity.
.27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation. 28:58: END
“The smile goes away the longer they experience the work” - John VeaComic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image.In this conversation, Joe meets Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-born, Ōtautahi-based artist John Vea, whose work uses humour as a device to draw viewers into deeper dialogues around Pasifika identity.Image: John Vea, Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025) (detail)List of Topics:00:00: Introduction01:34: What is Talanoa? John - “a holistic way of experiencing information... a learning mechansim”.03.20: On the video work Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025)' included in the exhibition Ini Mini Mani Mou (2025) at the Christchurch Art Gallery. John describes the genesis of the work; coming from the real life experience of being mistaken for someone else. In the video, friends “narrate their experiences of these stereotypical events. “It’s funny… it’s not sort of funny”.05.50: Was the humour in the video intentional? John - “We’re used to laughing at our trauma, which is sad cos we glaze over it... especially when we're kids”.07:30: John on the nature of Pacific humour generally; and then on integrating it into his work. He discusses the 2019 installation If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back? shown in Sydney. Humour as a 'Trojan horse'.10:00: On adjusting a work for different social and class contexts "If it has to be subtle... because of the community, then I'll change it up". The difficulty of reinstalling works in a new space, a new context.12:30: The line between poetic and humorous. How does John "walk that line?" John - “It starts off quite heavy”.14:30: Joe on the effect on him as an audience member of watching Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025). John discusses the common Pasifika experience of changing one's name to “fit in”.16:30: On site specificity; and showing the video Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? to Christchurch audiences.17:00: Is the current political climate influencing new work? John - “It's sad that my practice is almost relying on trauma“.18:00: On John's recent move to Otautahi from Tāmaki Makaurau, being Pasifika in Otautahi.20:30: John on making Tribute to American Samoa and Tonga (2009); combining sculpture and video, objects as projection surface. The story of the making of the work, and the first installation releasing salt water from the sea into the gallery.24:00: On conceptualising the work and discarding various sculptural options during this process.25:30: “Is it a problem if someone comes out of a work and just goes, oh, that was so funny, and then that's it?" John discusses how viewers absorb the work the more time they spend with it.26:30: Using the body in John’s videos. On the work Finish this week off and that’s it! (2009). John - "I wanted (the audience) to just experience working for two hours... not working in terms of the physical, but... to make them sit there and engage with the work for that amount of time".28:00: John discusses how the audiences limited attention span for the two hour work is analogous to the lack of interest in acknowledging the cost of labour on Pasifika bodies, and the poor wages for this work.29:00 On eating below the poverty line for six weeks whilst making Finish this week off and that’s it!30:00 Comedy as a vehicle for hard conversations. Joe - “...what's interesting is the uncomfortable laughter... is that something you purposefully go for?"31:00 Joe - "Is it okay for people to laugh at your work?" John - "Humour is welcomed in my practice. But expect the humour to be wiped off your face once you experience the works longer."
How do moving image artists work with visual effects? In this follow up podcast to CIRCUIT Cast 123: Brett Graham, interviewer Kathryn Graham speaks to Sam Tozer from LOT23. They discuss Sam's work on Whangamārino, a six channel video by Brett included as part of his installation The Wastelands at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Sam discusses the process of working with Brett, the digital challenges of adding visual effects to documentary footage and working through ‘impossible lenses’. List of topics:0:20 How did you first get to know Brett? Sam discusses making one of Nat Tozer’s works (Erotic Geologies (2024)) and forging a mutual connection with Brett via Gow Langsford gallery, and the inclusion of a Fred Graham sculpture in the video. 2.30: Sam describes the original documentary footage which Whangamārino is based on. 3.25: The unusual size of the six screen video installation - “11 times wider than it is high…immediately really exciting”.4.00: What was the process of choosing not to use the original footage? 4:30: Sam discusses ‘impossible lenses’, and the difference between showing The Wastelands in Venice in 2024 versus the 2025 Auckland Art Gallery installation which features the video work Whangamārino.6:00: How LOT23 work with artists - technologically and learning about the artists' kaupapa, looking at previous works, examining narrative and aesthetic threads in existing works - “so we’re part of a continuum”7 :00: The technical challenges of making a work “12 times wider than it’s high” at a resolution of 11,500 pixels wide8:25: Brief discussion of unusual screen sizes in projects with Lisa Reihana and Nat Tozer 10:00: More discussion of working at large scale, Kathryn makes anology of working on a mural and the impact of scale on the viewer12:30 Sam discusses beginning with grass, rock and trees as "touchpoints for a scale reference” Different lens sizes with a virtual camera. The process of creating natural environments. Using NASA Lidar data, using images of the actual sites in Brett’s video.15:00 Working with Brett - suggesting inclusion of other details, thinking about depth of field “you get to play God with it…to create something larger than life…that is hyper real”. 18:00 “There’s all sorts of Easter eggs of meaning…” Discussion of Brett’s personal references to whenua in the work.19:30 Ends
Brett Graham's exhibition Wastelands opened at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in June 2025. Featuring a monumental sculpture of the same name that was commissioned for the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, the haunting installation is expanded to include a new multi-channel video work, titled Whangamārino (2025). Re-working footage shot by news company Aukaha of a 2024 fire in the Whangamārino wetlands, Graham's new work adds layers of animation, personal history, and an ominous soundtrack.The resulting installation addresses both the history of colonial exploitation and our contemporary ecological crisis. Over 1.2 million acres of Waikato-Tainui land were confiscated by the colonial government following the Waste Lands Act (1858), the Waikato War (1863–64), and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863), with devastating consequences for tangata whenua and te taio. In this exhibition, Graham powerfully addresses the resulting degradation of the Waikato River and its surrounding wetlands, a precious resource and taonga for his iwi.In this kōrero with Kathryn Graham, Brett discusses Wastelands, his earlier work Tai Moana Tai Tangata (2020), and presenting Wastelands at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
"If I didn't laugh, I'd cry."Comic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image.In this conversation, Joe meets Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-born, Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker Sean Grattan, whose debut feature film, Policy Wonks, explores the clash of liberal ideologies through an absurd intersection of "money, guns and yoga." Joe and Sean discuss using slogans as dialogue, working with clichés, and deprogramming problematic humour from one's own cultural upbringing.
"There is a vitality that is held in the earth." Artist Nat Tozer and CIRCUIT director Mark Williams talk archaeology, deep time and kaitiakitanga on the occasion of the Aotearoa premiere of Erotic Geologies, Tozer's most complex work to date.Nat Tozer’s Erotic Geologies (2024) is an ambitious new video project described as "a sci-fi parable that seeks knowledge from the underground." Shifting through an otherworldly landscape where rocky outcrops meet tumultuous skies, the setting of the film makes reference to post-earthquake Ōtautahi in Te Waipounamu and the Tongariro Crossing in Te Ika-a-Māui. The narrative follows protagonists Rangi and Liberté, characters inspired by both Māori mythologies surrounding the figures of Ranginui and Papatūānuku’s children, and Greek figures Deucalion and Pyrrha. Archaeology, time and kaitiakitanga are central to the work, which merges a local, contemporary narrative with deep time and mythology.While several of Tozer's earlier video works were one-person productions shot on her iPhone, Erotic Geologies marks a profound shift in production methodologies, and incorporates actors, technical collaborators, and apocalyptic animated landscapes.In this kōrero, Tozer discusses her expansive practice, reflecting on "the slippery mess of our built environment."
"I see the environment as a creative partner." — Tia BarrettHihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a screening programme of six moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day.In this kōrero, Emma talks to artist Tia Barrett (Waitaha, Ngāti Māmoe, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Tamainupō, Ngāti Maniapoto). Emma and Tia discuss Tia's film 'He Pounamu Ko Aū' (2022). Tia explains how her practice has journeyed from a process of "healing myself … to (giving) back to the whenua."
“Whanaungatanga is this gift we have as Māori to connect and to relate”. In this kōrero with host Emma Hislop, artist Sandy Wakefield discusses the making of her film Nakunaku (2020), a “wairua journey” to Rakiura, supported by local iwi wahine, which has been screening recently as part of the group programme Rematriation. Sandy also discusses her earlier works which appropriated Disney and b-movie footage to tell Māori stories. 0:00: Introduction/Pepeha from Emma and Sandy 3:00: Sandy says the sound of the films title 'Nakunaku' evoked her yearning to reconnect with her Ngai Tahu whakapapa ... and Rakiura”. 5:00: “I wanted to be very Māori with my process… so our first port of call was Te Rau Aroha marae on the Bluff”. Sandy describes the generosity of a local Kaumatua in sharing local histories with her. 7.48: The story of colonisation and history of Wāhine Māori in these areas. “I went looking for those people in Rakiura that came from that heritage…” 11:00: On the changing sense of geography surrounding Rakiura; “In the 1800s it wasn’t remote…it was the centre of the universe for our tupuna Kuia”. Describes the weather conditions and accessibility of the landscape during the production process.12:32: Sandy describes the process of whakawhanaungatanga with the speakers , not wanting to put a camera in their face, and likewise the women’s preference not to centre their names, families or face, yet their candid storytelling.15:07: Sandy on point of view in Nakunaku - “…the visual is me being in those spaces and the story is theirs…” 17:19: Sandy describes one of the tupuna Kuia visiting one of the women during the shoot.18:54: Sandy talks about meeting local kaumatua Phillip Smith, looking at maps, going to places, turning the camera on, and becoming filled with “heartbreaking stories of racism, sickness …assimilation”. “The soundtrack is my Tangi … yes, there was empowerment…to experience those histories and stories… but it was actually a little bit mamae (painful)”. 22:25: Emma asks about the tension in the soundtrack. Sandy; “(Nakunaku) was a Wairua journey, acknowledging our dead, in every place that I went”. She discusses the “literally treacherous” weather, and early waka migration to Aotearoa. 25:40: On keeping oneself safe in spaces where Colonial histories are present. “Being around water is very important… especially if as an artist we’re grieving through making and practicing”. “Being overwhelmed is actually ok…that’s part of it…maybe that’s what came through when I started those soundtracks”. 29:00: Sandy talks about influence of 1960s electronic artist Delia Derbyshire on the soundtrack. 31:00 Emma asks: “What are the challenges of making work abut a whenua when you’re not based there?” Sandy describes her family not having lived on Kai Tahu whenua for generations, yet ringing up a Marae in Bluff and being able to speak with a Kuia - “Whanaungatanga is this gift we have as Māori to connect and to relate”.33:50 Emma asks about an interview where Sandy discussed working on a film production where ”… Wairua and Aroha (were) not there…” or in situations where there may be good intentions but still appropriation of “our cultural values”. 38:00: Sandy talks about other films shot 2019-20, which reuse found footage from Disney and elsewhere. Sandy describes seeing Pākeha appropriate Māori heritage and wondering “How hard or how easy is it to appropriate from the other side? Can I see myself in other people’s footage?” Sandy discusses her disappointment at lack of pushback. She also describes the impact of “being a broke student” and wondering “what can i get my hands on?” 42:00 Current projects. Sandy discusses her interest in indigenous futurism “I’m exploring this idea of what does Waitangi Day look like in the year 3000”. She talks about her positive experience working with AI. “How are we going to whakawhanaungatanga with AI?”
Hihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a new screening programme of five moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day.In this conversation, Emma talks to Rematriation's curator Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka (Ngā Puhi, Ngati Pakau and Waitaha). Tanya is CIRCUIT's inaugural Kaitiaki Kiriata, a new role that supports a Māori curator to develop moving image projects which speak through the lens of Te Ao Māori. Emma and Tanya discuss the works in Rematriation, concepts of time, the impact of growing up outside of their ancestral whenua, and Tanya's own video practice.For details on Rematriation's screening venues, see www.circuit.org.nz/rematriationFor distribution/hire enquiries, please write to: info@circuit.org.nz
How is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland City described outside of official city maps? Is it possible to navigate off-road, off-grid? What discrete spaces exist in the plain sight of everyday work, life and commerce? How are these activated by people, flora and fauna? In front of a live audience, artists Layne Waerea, Leala Faleseuga, Gavin Hipkins, Jae Hoon Lee, Gabriel White and Tia Barrett discuss their video works for Wild Wild Life, a public art project commissioned by Auckland Council, curated by Mark Williams (CIRCUIT) and presented as part of the 2024 Auckland Arts Festival.Installed throughout the CBD, the works were presented in proximity to the construction of the City Rail Network, a massive engineering project that has temporarily remapped the CBD as a construction site, and, when completed, will fundamentally alter the psycho-geography of the inner city.
In part 3 of the series Sites of Connection Dani McIntosh speaks to artist Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Haua, Tainui/Waikato, Ngāti Waewae, Waitaha, Kai Tahu). Often juxtaposing poetic text with handheld moving images, Hana’s video work addresses the tension between industry and sacred whenua; the presence of deep time and new parenthood.0:00 Introduction 1:00 Hana discusses her video 'I saw the mountain erupt' (2023); working with an essay by her partner Morgan Godfery; the town of Kawerau as formerly one of NZ’s wealthiest towns and now one of the poorest, and also the town as the site of Māori pūrākau.5:54Dani asks; Why entwine the writing with the moving image? 8:09 Dani introduces the video work A eulogy to love (2019); Dani asks why juxtapose shots of Italian actress Monica Vitti with the landscape in Aotearoa? Hana explains the video was shot in many sites including Aotearoa, Portugal and other European locations. She discusses Vitti as an image of an “hysterical woman”, and the ongoing theme in her practice of "the tension of industry versus caring for the whenua (landscape)”.13.08Dani asks about the line “I will not be afraid despite the fear tumbling through my body”.15:50Hana on how parenthood has affected their work. Se discusses 'deep time', the relationship between the human and non-human and the whakataukī 'Ka Mua, Ka Muri' (walking backwards into the future).20:00Hana on David Lynch’s movie Eraserhead (1977).23:00Hana discusses and the writing of New Zealand author Keri Hulme (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe), which was part of her work with Ke te Pai Press (with Morgan Godfery), shown in the group exhibition Matarau 24:41Working with musician Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu)27:24 End
"Dwelling in the void space" — a conversation between Selina Ershadi and Dani McIntosh, the second part of the CIRCUIT Cast series Sites of Connection.In this podcast, artist Selina Ershadi discusses three films: Hollywood Ave (2017), Amator (2019) and The hands also look (2020), alongside a new work in progress, The Blue Dome (forthcoming). In conversation with artist Dani McIntosh, Selina reflects on navigating personal and family histories as guided by Chantal Akerman, Maya Deren and Derek Jarman; ideas of dwelling, homemaking and displacement; oral storytelling traditions and the poetic potential of decentering the visual.
A conversation between artists James Tapsell-Kururangi and Dani McIntosh on the metaphoric and poetic potential of the moving image.
A conversation with writers Tina Makereti, Gregory Kan, and Gwynneth Porter, on the dynamic possibilities for writing to respond to art beyond the essay, chaired by Thomasin Sleigh. Recorded at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery.
How can artists in the regions discover and experiment with emergent technologies?
In this pod host Mark Williams speaks to Maggie Buxton, the Director of AwhiWorld, a Northland—based creative technology studio. AwhiWorld’s latest project is Bios, an installation at Whangārei Art Museum which presents an interactive research and practice area for artists to experiment with VR, 3d projection mapping, interactive sensors, E-textiles and organic materials.
Bios runs until 18 June. https://awhiworld.com/
In this pod Horowhenua-based artist Leala Faelseuga speaks to Mark Williams about her new work Vessel: Dissolution | It's in the milk.Commissioned for Masons Screen, It’s in the milk reflects on "visceral motherhood", photography and memory. Leala discusses her iterative processes, what it means to exhibit personal work in public space, and inspiration gathered from the films of MD Brown and her collective 7558.
"The air was sucked out of the room". In this final podcast for 2022 we discuss the year that was with artist Judy Darragh, Gloriana Meyers (TAUTAI) and Andrew Clifford (Te Uru). As well as Judy nominating the Academy Awards as the new performance art spectacle, we discuss memorable shows, new artists, spaces, and publishing, and our hopes and dreams for 2023.
Sampling, reuse and copying have long been strategies and approaches in artistic practice and is a thread you can follow through art history. But who owns art? Should culture be under copyright? What are the limits of fair use? These questions are explored in the recent artworks exhibited at City Gallery Wellington in Josh Azzarella: Triple Feature. Picking up and expanding on these conversations, Josh and artists Bronwyn Holloway-Smith and Eugene Hansen discuss this and more. Moderated by Caitlin Lynch.
"What are the legacies that make us who we are?"
In this pod we discuss Legacies, CIRCUIT's 2022 programme of artist cinema commissions; featuring new films by Edith Amituanai, Martin Sagadin, Ukrit Sa-nguanhai, Pati Tyrell, Sriwhana Spong.
CIRCUIT Curator-at-large May Adadol Ingwanaij and Thai artist Ukrit Sa-nguanhai (Todd) speak to host Mark Williams about May's curatorial process, Ukrit's film on a Cold War-era mobile cinema propaganda unit, and the other artists works in the programme.
Curator Tendai Mutambu talks to Sorawit Songsataya and Ary Jansen about their works in Otherwise-image-worlds, a group exhibition presented by CIRCUIT in partnership with Te Uru.
Otherwise-image-worlds brings together five newly commissioned artworks from artists working in animation. Working against the commercial demand for spectacle and efficiency, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Juliet Carpenter, Tanu Gago, Ary Jansen and Sorawit Songsataya, all expand and reconfigure the conventions of image-making, asking what modes of interaction, imagination, attention, and refusal animation can cultivate.
This conversation was recorded at Te Uru.
Sione Faletau discusses his practice of translating the traditional Tongan practice of kupesi (patterns) into digital video, using site-specific audio recordings and traditional Tongan music as the basis for generating images. He discusses his upcoming shows at Gus Fisher Gallery and Masons Screen. Interviewer: Robbie Handcock.
Sandy Gibbs speaks to Thomasin Sleigh about a new body of work made over six years in response to the 1968 Olympics, a project made between Aotearoa, Mexico and Germany which used failure as a generative process. She discusses older women taking the space, critiquing the idea of competition in sport and art, and using restaging as a video art methodology.
In this pod Artspace Aotearoa director Remco de Blaaij discusses his final curatorial project at the gallery, Ex-post, a follow up to his 2017 exhibition Ex-ante. Looking back on Artspace's past 5 years he reflects on the impact of shifting the institution to street level premises, opening a cinema, and the need for future Arts leadership to embrace indigenous perspectives. Hosted by Mark Williams.
“We've needed our artists this year more than ever, to fall into other ways of seeing reality" - Nigel Borell
What was 2021? Host Robbie Handcock discusses the year that was with guests Abby Cunnane, Sophie Davis and Nigel Borell. The panel discuss memorable exhibitions, the power of a publication, bodily vibrations, discovering the South Island, best moving image works and new discoveries.
With shout outs, mentions and commendations for; Bridget Reweti, Brett Graham, Sonya Lacey, Ana Iti, Ralph Hotere, Turumeke Harrington, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, Māori Moving Image, Te Uru, City Gallery Wellington, Hanihiva Rose.
Abby Cunnane is Director of The Physics Room, in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Sophie Davis is a Curator at Dunedin Public Art Gallery in Ōtepoti Dunedin, Nigel Borell is an independent curator based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
Artists Moving Image in the pandemic era; a glut of compromise or new horizons for exhibition and accessibility? Three curators and arts professionals discuss a shift from showing in small towns, major cities and institutions to the online space, and what the future might bring.
Hosted by Thomasin Sleigh with Tendai Mutambu (former curator for Berwick Fim and Media Arts Festival, UK), Serena Bentley (ACMI Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne) and Lisa Berndt (Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth).
In this edition of CIRCUIT Cast host Thomasin Sleigh meets artists Yona Lee, Amy Howden-Chapman and Gavin Hipkins. The advent of the pandemic has seen a rush of material going online. While this has created opportunities for artists and audiences, all sculptural conditions for the moving image are now flattened by the browser and computer speakers. How do we feel about these new conditions for exhibition and viewing? What challenges and opportunities do they represent for artists and how are they affecting practice?
“People who are trying to oppress you hate the fact you’re having an awesome time” - Christopher Ulutupu
In this pod host Robbie Handcock speaks to artist Christopher Ulutupu about his production process, which draws on the visual sheen of commercial film-making, but takes a sharp turn to embrace improvisiation, and collaboration with friends and family. Chris discusses “what queerness is for me…” and “reimagining spaces I occupied as a kid”.
“ .. it was really important to go for the silent woman” – Stephanie Beth
In this podcast Thomasin Sleigh meets pioneering feminist film-maker Stephanie Beth and artist Emma Fitts to discuss two documentaries made by Stephanie in 1977/80 which sought to portray women’s lives and potential. Beth discusses her remarkable journey from a fine arts undergraduate asked to make a film, to self-organising an 18 month screening tour of New Zealand, in which she showed the film 100 times, each screening followed by a discussion in which only women were allowed to speak. Emma Fitts responds to the work and discusses her own interest in psychodrama as a strategy for female empowerment.
In this pod Thomasin Sleigh speaks to Steve Carr and Christian Lamont about Fading to the Sky at Auckland's Te Uru Gallery, an exhibition that began as a response to Carr's mothers passing, and through a collaboration with his former student Lamont, evolved into a deeper narrative of loss.
“I can only speak from my aspiration of how I want to see the world and the art institution that I want to be involved in” - Nigel Borrell
What is the past, the present moment and potential futures for Māori within the art gallery? Three curators discuss; listen to Nigel Borrell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea, former curator Māori at Auckland Art Gallery, Puawai Cairns (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāti Ranginui, and Ngāiterangi), Director Audience and Insight at Te Papa and Karl Chitham (Ngā Puhi, Te Uriroroi), Director of The Dowse Art Museum.
This discussion took place at The Dowse Art Museum as part of The Dowse Speaker Series, presented by The Dowse Foundation – a series of talks which celebrate and reflect on the past 50 years of remarkable ideas at the Dowse.
This talk was originally presented at the Dowse Art Museum on 10 April 2020. With thanks to the Dowse and the speakers.
In this podcast Moya Lawson speaks to Xi Li and Connor Fitzgerald, two emerging artists working in digital space via avatars, text and interactivity. The artists discuss the capability of the avatar to host a range of intentions and possibilities, moving beyond the constraints of physical embodiment.
Xi Li is an artist based in Auckland whose work explores philosophical frameworks through mediums including video, 3D animation, VR and game-design. Watch a sample of Brain Island (2019-ongoing) on CIRCUIT - https://www.circuit.org.nz/film/brain-island-sampler
Connor Fitzgerald is a non-binary artist based in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington, with a multi-disciplinary practice in video, writing and installation. See Connor’s page on CIRCUIT - https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/connor-fitzgerald
In the third part of our podcast series Popular Glory: Contemporary Queerness and the Moving Image, host Robbie Handcock speaks to Neihana Gordon-Stables and Daniel John Corbett Sanders. On this pod they discuss using humour to offset the media focus on queer tragedy; queer generational disconnect as seen through the evolution of cruising practices and sex-oriented networks; plus the complexities of community building and safety.
Watch Dan's work on CIRCUIT: https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/daniel-sanders See Neihana's work on CIRCUIT: https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/neihana-gordon-stables
“I was thinking about what you think is knowledge, what you find out through machinery, and what you find out through attending to things that you see” - In this episode our Mana Moana Resident Israel Randell talks to Alex Monteith about her new CIRCUIT cinema commission Deep Ocean Currents, premiering 6.30pm Friday 23 October at Pataka.
"I identified with the lion... I liked the idea of killing the King"
In this podcast Israel Randell talks to Rangituhia Hollis about his CIRCUIT Artist Cinema Commission Across the face of the Moon (2020) premiering at Pataka 6.30pm Friday 23 October. Listen to Rangituhia discuss his iterative practice, Japanese cinema and the battle to find a place "to live our lives”. All this plus a new anagram - ‘TIWID WHYD?’
Photo of Rangituhia Hollis by Raymond Sagapolutele
"What's good for Māori is good for everyone" - Qiane Matata-Sipu
How do Māori and Pākeha relate to, and value whenua? What are their differing values and how do they intersect? What is the connection between generosity and Tino Rangitiratanga? In this conversation artists Martin Awa Clarke Langdon (Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Whāwhākia, Ngāti Hikairo, Kāi Tahu), Rebecca Hobbs and Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Wai-o-hua, Waikato-Tainui) discuss art, activism and mutual wellbeing for Māori and Tauiwi. The conversation takes place in the context of recent disputes over Ihumātao, a North Island volcanic site currently the subject of dispute between land developers and mana whenua members whose families have resided in Ihumātao for many generations.
To learn more about Ihumātao: S.O.U.L - Save Our Unique Landscape - https://www.protectihumatao.com/
In the second part of our podcast series Popular Glory: Contemporary Queerness and the Moving Image, host Robbie Handcock speaks to Laura Duffy and Aliyah Winter about recent collaborations, and how to image queer lives.
The pod begins with Winter and Duffy discussing the process of working with queer youth to create an exhibition for Te Uru Gallery. Duffy talks about her recent collaboration with Owen Connors at Blue Oyster Art Project Space entitled DUIRVIAS, and Winter discusses her research-driven processes, and subsequent performative gestures, which seek to summon and acknowledge queer histories.
Image: Aliyah Winter, Rage (2020)
Revisiting HADHAD - Part 3: The schism of Liberalism
In Part 3 of this conversation Sean Grattan and Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió discuss HADHAD as a virus analogous to Covid 19, “something that allows for change” and Sean’s forthcoming project about the contradictions of liberalism.
Part 1: Shooting the film, Horror as genre (26:07 mins) Part 2: Language, Technology and Totalitarianism (26:57 mins)
Catalogue Notes
00:00 (MS): "Is HADHAD the quintessential revolutionary figure?"
02:00 (MS): Makes analogy with HADHAD and Covid 19 - "The virus could be seen in your movie as a positive, something that allows for change...not change within the existing accepted categories but new categories, and I find that really hopeful and really exciting"
03:54 (SG): “There might be a liberal fantasy of being liberated by the other … it’s connected to the oppressive regimes of past liberalism……by fact of who I am (a white Western male) I have that with me… ". Discusses Slavoj Žižek's statement that 'the most important step to begin is a ruthless self-critique'
07:00 (MS): "The big takeaway for me from this conversation is the kind of privilege that Art offers… the privilege and joy of being able to ask questions and not resolve them"
(SG): Discusses 8 years writing a script which addresses "the fundamental schism of liberalism". Describes the plot of a group of political agitators seeking to establish a utopia. Describes the films theme as " … the double sided nature of the liberal ideology….in the one hand you have market liberalism and on the other you have political liberalism… but they’re intertwined… you’re free to do what you want and live the life we choose, but you have to do it within a market economy that essentially has no community or compassion about it…at the same time you have to compete for resources"
Discusses eight year script writing process “I think it could still be a relevant work because the screws are getting tightened so much now"
11:30 (MS): Do you think the pandemic has exposed the fallacy of ... the market economy? ... Is your new movie more hopeful?"
13:30 (SG) Discusses the need to resist cyncism. Discusses US/UK liberal politicians of the past 20 years (Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Thatcher / Reagan & Blair / Clinton) “Liberals in power are the ones who deserve the most scrutiny…they’re the enablers…"
(MS): "One of the most amazing things about your work is how you’re able to have these Macro level concerns with politics, philosophy, language and society, and yet you’re able to bring them down to earth with characters, plot lines, music and cinemtography"
17:24 End of Part 3
In Part 2 of this conversation Sean Grattan and Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió discuss language, technology and post-humanism in HADHAD. They explore the relationship between white supremacy and technology in the USA in 2020.
HADHAD (41:21 mins) Part 1: Shooting the film, Horror as genre (26:07 mins) Part 3: The schism of Liberalism (17:24 mins)
Catalogue Notes
00:00 (MS): Continued discussion of David Lynch as counterpoint - "… his movies speak to... the mask of normality in American suburbia...Your film is more about questions of technology, what is the human, and language itself?... What is the risk of accepting that our subjectivity may be be coded in technology?”
04:00 (SG): Language as the pre-eminent tool of communication, but also something hijacked by commercial interests. Notes aspirational commercial slogans ‘Be Yourself, ‘Choose Happiness’
07:00 (MS): Language, technology and post-humanism. “What you’re saying is language tainted by ideology…in it’s various forms, technological, artistic, natural..." "It’s a deep engagement with the problem of the enlightenment and (the question of) in what way can be become masters of our condition?”
(MS) Discusses HADHAD's ambiguous form "Is this thing a projection in their imagination? is this a physical manifestation of language itself? “Is it a concept, is it a metaphor or is it a different type of being?”
12:00 (SG): Describes the HADHAD as … this thing that disrupts but which is potentially creating a new thing…" He discusses evolution.
14:00 (SG) - On the enlightenment; "The idea of progress I find very confusing… establishment powers will manipulate that idea… it can be a very conservative…it can be a tool of oppression”
15:00 (MS) - Discussion on totalitarianism. (MS): "A mode of power where everyone is orientated to 1 way of being, 1 leader, 1 vision, 1 way of communicating." Discusses Frankfurt School philosophers claim that paradoxically the enlightenment had it’s last moment with the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, a rationality taken to an extreme.
Discusses white supremacy and technology in 2020. “There is a branch of white supremacism - certainly in the US - which has to do with technological evolution, which poses a kind of transhumanism… in a way the movie was prescient…all these things were there in 2012 but since then have become more acute…the technological monopolies have become more acute…white supremacism has become more overt and more dominant”
18:00 (SG) Discusses the current political moment. Describes HADHAD’S arrival in the movie as “a metaphor for how the totalitarian system is untenable” and how the movies extreme rationality is counterpointed with an alterity (HADHAD).
22:47 (SG) Liberalism and Western-style democracy. "Cynicism needs to be resisted at all times…but what we’re living in fosters cynicism… what happened with World War 2, is this what rationality brings us? Is that what liberalism brings us?"
26:57 End of Part 2
In Part 1 of this 3 part conversation Sean Grattan and Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió discuss the making of HADHAD, the relationship with the Horror genre and the influence of other film-makers and teachers on the making of the work.
HADHAD (41:21 mins) Part 2: Language, Technology and Totalitarianism (26:07 mins) Part 3: The schism of Liberalism (17:24 mins)
Catalogue Notes:
00:00 Welcome and Introduction from Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió
02:00 Background to making the work at CalArts in Los Angeles (2011/12). Shoot and location
04:36 Discussion of HADHAD’s high production values. Working on a budget with student labour whilst maintaining the film’s sense of horror and tension. Directing actors.
08:40 On the characters robotic personas. (MS) - “One of the ruses of the movie is that the characters may or may not already be Cyborgs… the tightness becomes a metaphor for the characters belief in the coming technological singularity…everything is stripped down to the bare essentials so there’s no room for human expression… technological determinism is so profound”
10:00 What is this movie about? How to describe what happens?
(SG) Describes the plot and the tropes of a traditional horror movie "A group of people, they may be strangers, they’ve gone in vacation to some kind of isolated environment...normally in a horror movie there’s some kind of transgressions, the teenagers will be punished…" Discusses removing stylistic elements of horror and making the intruder “more absurd”
13:00 (MS) - Characters and dialogue. “You remove the emotion, which you could argue is the core of horror..the emotional reaction is what draws audience to this kind of movie…the emotion doesn’t disappear, it gets heightened…why did you so that and why is it so successful?”
15:30 (SG) - Influence of theatre, analytical thinking and English upbringing on the dialogue. "The challenge was using the analytical script on to some other kind of cinematic framework...The tension gets created from putting elements together that don’t work together cinematically in a conventional sense… there’s this kind of humanity that I can’t scrub out…”
18:30 (MS) - Talks about the film discarding emotion but being “saturated with emotion”
21:00 (SG) Talks about Directors, Theorists and Teachers that inpsired the work; David Lynch, James Benning, Claire Denis, Charles Gaines who "rewrote my story of art" . The need to create ”a philosophy that’s embodied”, discusses merging cinema and critical theory to understand “…who are humans, what are they doing, what is our method of living, what is the dynamic between power and subjectivity?”
26:07 End of Part 1
In this interview film-maker M D Brown discusses three short films he made between 2000-2004 inspired by the stream of consciousness technique of modernist European writers including James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Each film featured the voice of a lone male, ruminating on late night memories of murky events and personal relationships whose character has been shaped by the passage of time. Using a visual technique of fleeting images interrupted by black, Brown sought to evoke the nature of memory as a subjective series of affective images flickering across the mind's eye. Interviewed by Mark Williams.
Watch the films on CIRCUIT:
https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/m-d-brown
Popular Glory: Contemporary Queerness and the Moving Image is a new four-part podcast series hosted by Pōneke artist Robbie Handcock, in which he interviews a range of Aotearoa artists working in moving image who employ queerness as identity, content and strategy.
In Episode One, we speak to Berlin based Tāmaki Makaurau artist ZK Steiner-Fox. Here ZK speaks about their move from installation and sculpture through to video and performance, their experience at the Vada Artists Residency in California, and their reference to genre film as a departure point for exploring queer identities. Leading from their work Popular Glory, which came out of the residency, we discuss how the horror movie format—with all its tensions as well as its tropes—is used in ZK’s work to examine the impact of queer coding, classic Hollywood morality and the everyday terror of navigating contemporary media. ZK has previously shown at Artspace Aotearoa, Window Gallery, play_station, and was part of CIRCUIT’s presentation at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2020. Robbie Handcock is a Pōneke based artist and facilitator at play_station gallery. He is also co-founder of the vlog Glad We Did That with co-host and fellow artist Elisabeth Pointon.
In this pod Moya Lawson speaks with Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka and Martin Awa Clarke Langdon; two artists currently exhibiting public artworks in Wellington which celebrate Matariki, a star cluster used traditionally for ancestral navigation, timing the seasons and a marker of the Māori new year.
Listen to Martin discuss his illuminated stills on the Courtenay Place lightboxes, and Tanya discuss her video on Masons Screen.
Image: Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka, Kohatu Tipua (detail) 2020. Commissioned by CIRCUIT with the support of Wellington City Council
In moments of change there is a window to act. How do we organise our politics around the new situation? How do we organise our institutions? What role should artists play in this? How do we move beyond short term solutions to long term ones? And if the next crisis - Climate Change - is going to change daily life for all of us, what do we need to put in place now for the long term? This podcast brings together three artists - Judy Darragh, Ary Jansen, Lisa Reihana - to discuss the future of art after Covid 19, and a new advocacy group for artists, Arts Makers Aotearoa. Hosted by Mark Williams.
http://www.artsmakersaotearoa.nz/
Lisa Reihana is a multi-disciplinary artist who represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with the large scale video installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected]. https://www.lisareihana.com
Judy Darragh is an artist who uses found objects to create sculptural assemblages. She has also worked in paint and film. https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/judy-darragh
Ary Jansen is an artist and musician based in Auckland. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCInGwvU7ljDFAouv7Wzm9Cg https://aryjansen.bandcamp.com/
Is time out the most productive time of all?
Darcell Apelu talks to Mark Williams about a recent residency in Yorkshire spent contemplating her practice. She also discusses a trip to her father's homeland of Niue, two resulting videos, and previous performance works which drew on the body, ideas of 'otherness' and her career as an international wood chopper.
Still from Saw (2011) detail, Darcell Apelu
Watch Darcell's video on CIRCUIT here: http://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/darcell-apelu
"(HIV) doesn’t have agency, it’s not alive like we are, it’s just a piece of programming, but.. in empathising with it, I have gained a greater respect for it" - John Walter
In this podcast Mark Williams talks to John Walter, a British artist exhibiting in Aotearoa as part of the group show Queer Algorithms now on at Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland until 2 May. Resisting labels, binaries and the need to categorise, Queer Algorithms is conceived from an intersectional viewpoint where gender fluidity and identities are understood as always multifarious and in flux. Walter discusses his work in the show which includes the video 'A Virus walks into a bar' (2018).
In this CIRCUIT Cast 2019 review we welcome Becky Hemus (Writer), Remco de Blaaij (Director, Artspace Aotearoa), Judy Darragh (artist) and Lucinda Bennett (writer). Our panellists gather to discuss the notable shows, artists, works and provocations of the Aotearoa artworld in the year past; in the moving image and every other discipline you can name.
Among the highlights celebrated are Māori Moving Image: An Open Archive, works by Natasha Matila-Smith, Sorawit Songsataya, Selina Ershadi and Ruth Buchanan's ambitious response to the Govett Brewster's 50th anniversary.
“I’m interested in what Pacific work looks like situated in a lens of popular culture” - Tanu Gago
Savage in the Garden is a new work by Tanu Gago, currently showing as part of Personal Space, CIRCUIT’s 2019 Artist Cinema Commissions, curated by Serena Bentley. Here Tanu talks to Mark Amery about a practice based on countering false narratives of Pasifika masculinity and overcoming cultural dislocation to build communities at home and internationally. Apologies for the quality of the audio for the first 4 minutes of this recording.
On the phone from Sydney Chevron Hassett talks to Mark Amery about Mauri Tū, The First Breath of Light (2019) showing as part of Home Movies, this Saturday 28 September 10am-4pm in Wellington.
The work visualises the sunrise over Te Moana Nui a Kiwi (The Pacific Ocean) at Rangitikuia, East Cape just North of Gisborne, into the lands of the Ngāti Porou. Hassett describes the video as "a continuous loop in a poetic repetition, like a series of kowhaiwhai designs scrolling the roof the wharenui, intricately expressing sacred narratives of the Ngāti Porou...The light englightens you of the past, as the warmth connects us to the past and the waves prepare you for the future."
Still from Mauri Tū, The First Breath of Light (2019) from the series The Children of Māui
"A lot of confessions we make are performative" - Serena Bentley
In this podcast Melbourne-based curator Serena Bentley talks to Mark Amery about Personal Space, CIRCUIT's 2019 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions. Personal Space features new works by Natasha Matila-Smith, Campbell Patterson, Janet Lilo, Tanu Gago and Atong Atem. Each artist was asked by Bentley to make a short film which responded to the questions 'What do we call 'home'? What are our shared values? What does home look like?'
'Personal Space' premieres 6.30pm, Friday 4 October at the Newtown Community Centre, Wellington. Free Admission.
More info: http://www.circuit.org.nz/project/personal-space-circuit-artist-cinema-commissions-2019
"There's always the question of authoring ... I like the shared space of co-production" - Alex Monteith
In this career-spanning interview with Mark Williams, Alex Monteith discusses Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions (2019). This ongoing installation project brings together representatives of Iwi, South Island museums and researchers nationwide to revisit a collection of archaeological material from Te Mimi o Tū Te Rakiwhānoa (Fiordland coastal and marine area). Monteith also discusses the working methods behind her 2005 feature film on the Irish Troubles, Chapter and Verse, and a subsequent shift towards works based around surfing, motorcycles and military aircraft.
Image: Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions (production still), 2014. Alex Monteith, Sportsman Cave, Tamatea (Dusky Sound). Photo: Sarah Munro
A new roundtable podcast brings together three Auckland gallery directors; Gabriela Salgado (Te Tuhi), Lisa Beauchamp (Gus Fisher) and Charlotte Huddlestone (St Paul St Gallery), to discuss recent strategies for sustainability and audience engagement. Drawing on perspectives both local and international, the panel discuss the role of University galleries within the institution, reaching out to public space, low wages for artists and hosting the odd wedding to pay the bills.
From 30 April-4 May 2019 the Auckland Art Fair expects up to 10,000 people through its doors. What's showing? Who is it for? How does an event like this represent local practice? Does that matter? Host Mark Amery sat down with co-director Stephanie Post, projects curator Francis McWhannell and artist Judy Darragh to discuss what an event like this means for contemporary New Zealand art.
artfair.co.nz/
Peter Wareing is a New Zealand artist who has spent most of the past 30 years working in the USA and now in the UK. His exhibition Suspended Agency at the Govett Brewster examines a distinctly modern condition: individual and collective numbness in the face of increasing political and economic insecurity. In this interview Wareing talks with CIRCUIT Director and the shows curator Mark Williams about Suspended Agency, an ambitious installation, shot over 3 years in Dagenham, a London suburb which which voted overwhelmingly for Brexit.
Suspended Agency runs 6 Apr — 21 Jul 2019 at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth. Photo by Sam Hartnett
“the problem is with bureaucrats who are preventing us from seeing the content” - Luke Fowler
Recently in Wellington for the opening of the Adam Art Gallery installation Passages, Scottish film-maker Luke Fowler sat down with Mark Williams at City Gallery Wellington for a wide-ranging interview on filming portraits of experimental musicians, the revolutionary potential of the past, the responsibility of the spectator, the plight of millenials and bypassing gatekeepers. He begins by discussing ‘Pilgrimage from Scattered Points’ (2006), his film about the English composer Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981).
Recorded at City Gallery Wellington. Passages continues at the Adam Art Gallery until 21 April 2019.
In this end of year podcast panellists Heather Galbraith, Shannon Te Ao, Simon Gennard join host Mark Amery to discuss the highs and lows of 2018, charting shifting tides, the artworld's 'Complicated Love', and a year of diverse perspectives moving to the centre.
Part 1: Personal Highlights of 2018, Trends of the year, Best show.
Part 2: Biggest surprises, Best publication, Best writing, Best moving image work Part 2: https://soundcloud.com/circuit-2/2018-eoy-part-2-of-2?in=circuit-2/
Image: Still from Ziarah (2018) Bridget Reweti. Commissioned by CIRCUIT with the support of Creative New Zealand
In this end of year podcast panellists Heather Galbraith, Shannon Te Ao, Simon Gennard join host Mark Amery to discuss the highs and lows of 2018, charting shifting tides, the artworld's 'Complicated Love', and a year of diverse perspectives moving to the centre.
Part 1: Personal Highlights of 2018, Trends of the year, Best show. Part 2: Biggest surprises, Best publication, Best writing, Best moving image work
Image: Still from Ziarah (2018) Bridget Reweti. Commissioned by CIRCUIT with the support of Creative New Zealand
"The most interesting way to follow an artist is to do the opposite of what they did"
This is not film-making. Artists work for cinema was our 2016 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions. As we launch a limited screening season online, we revisit a 2016 podcast interview with curator George Clark, who discusses the legacy and inspiration of conceptual artist Julian Dashper, whose work Clark positioned as a point of response for six artists from New Zealand and Australia.
“What is true to you may not be true to your neighbour.” -Vea Mafile`o
Ahead of the premiere of Truth or Consequences, CIRCUIT’s 2018 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions, Vea Mafile`o and Jeremy Leatinu’u discuss responding to curator Erika Balsom’s brief which challenged the artists to consider personal and public ‘realities’.
Truth and Consequences premieres 6.30pm, Friday 14 September, Ellen Melville Centre, Pioneer Women's Hall, 1 Freyberg Pl, Auckland, 1000 Tickets from Eventbrite - https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/truth-or-consequences-tickets-49316063674
00:00 - Introductions. Mark Amery (MA) Introduces the venue for the recording, the setting, the Wānanga in Mangare.
01:23 - MA: to Jeremy Leatinu’u (JL): “What are you doing here, (Jeremy)?” JA: Discusses learning Te Reo Māori via full immersion, and a subsequently enriched understanding of stories and histories of Aotearoa New Zealand
03:28 - Vea Mafile’o (VM): On her upcoming feature film, her general Film/TV industry background. Describes the place of her Art practice alongside her other work
05:39 - MA: Introduces CIRCUIT’s 2018 Artist Cinema Commissions programme Truth or Consequences. Reads out curator Erika Balsom’s provocation “We’re an empire now and when we act we create our own reality…”.
06:15 - VM: Discusses her video Toa`ipuapuagā (Strength in Suffering) and response to the provocation. Discusses using existing footage of stigmata and question of “Is this real?”
08:07 - MA: Notes international news coverage of the stigmata event
09:08 - VM: “It divided the community, it divided Samoa, some people were for it some people were against it…. she (Toa) was caught in this situation of these events happening to her, out of her control… or are they in her control?”
09:49 - VM: “I’m not an overly religious person…for a lot of Samoan’s, it was a case of ‘Is this good or is this bad?’ For me, it’s a case of ‘Is this real or not real?’’ Discusses the subjects conversion to Catholicism, in order to go to Rome “to get an audience” with the Pope
12:32 - JL: Notes the role of VM’s work in relation to broader media coverage
13:00 - MA: Asks about JL’s response to the curatorial provocation, “Mai i te kei o te waka ki te ihu o te waka”
13:27 - JL: Discusses the influence of the book Nga Iwi O Tainui: The Traditional History of the Tainui People. Makes analogy of between the formal structure of the film (two contradicting accounts of a journey) and his education in Te Reo Māori - “You are introduced to a whole bunch of stories from all over the country, and you’re also introduced to different accounts of the same story”
15:05 - JL: Discusses the visual language of the film, describes “pick(ing) parts of the land that could be potential traces of a part in the story” and the films attempt to “massage the imagination of the (viewer)”
16:30 - MA: Asks about the question of truth versus cultural perspective, language
16:56 - VM: “...Truth is totally dependent on your own perceptions … what is true to you may not be true to your neighbour”
18:36 - ENDS
Image: Detail from Toa`ipuapuagā (Strength in Suffering) (2018) Vea Mafile'o
“The terrorist spectacle accommodates a dirtier game underneath” - Johan Grimonprez. On his 24 hour trip to Wellington, New Zealand we caught up Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez to discuss his films Blue Orchids and Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, showing at City Gallery Wellington as part of the exhibition 'Iconography Of Revolt'. Made 20 years apart, Grimonprez describes both films as part of the timeline of 9/11, and the construction of the 'war on terror'. He discusses the historical role of the media before and after the Cold War, and the digital commons as a newly contested space. With host Mark Williams.
“There's something inevitably fascistic about a perfect world” - Stella Brennan. UK academic Sean Cubitt joins Stella Brennan and host Mark Amery to discuss 'Object Permanence', Stella's new solo show at Trish Clark gallery, plus technological utopias and making dialogue with the non-human.
“If the essay film has become a trope…and these strategies that we’re using have become formulaic, how do we negotiate our way through that?” - Gavin Hipkins. In the fourth of our conversation series artists Sonya Lacey and Gavin Hipkins come together to discuss working methodologies, a shared interest in failed modernist utopias, and the moving image as a distribution mode of sculpture. Hosted by Mark Amery.
Points of Discussion:
00:00: Introductions
1:00 SL: on recent residency in Singapore researching Cambodian print cultures
2:30 GH: on recent survey at Dowse Art Museum, and sequel to The Homely at City Gallery Wellington, discusses spending time with the work whilst ‘in exhibition form’
3:55 GH: on shift from photography to film, formal and thematic synergies between the two mediums
6.00 SL: on making moving images from a design and sculpture background. Discusses the making of Newspaper for Vignelli (2015); and making films as an act of distribution for the sculptural object
7:50 GH: engagement with modernism and failed utopias, unrealized and realized projects.
9:32 GH: on SL’s practice of ‘making and staging’, makes comparison with Thomas Demand’s use of miniature / maquette and use of stills as means to document; the idea of ‘metamorphosis’
10:20 GH: asks SL about her CIRCUIT commissioned work By Sea (2015), describes it as ‘exquisite’ but “I don’t understand the connection to the commission”. Mentions his own commission in response to the writing of Julian Dashper.
11:00: SL: on the geometry and architecture Joanna Paul’s letterforms and poems as inspiration for By Sea. Question of how dependent to be on the source material.
13:00 MA: What is the resonance of these failed utopias today? GH: On City of Tomorrow (2017), inspired by Courbisier’s architectural vision of Chandigargh. Discusses Leisure Valley (2014) and The Port (2014).
16:00 SL: Modernist history as ‘foil’ in her work, modernist design as ‘pure transmission of content’. Discusses Infinitesmals (2016) - ‘Almost like making the found object I wish existed’.
18:00 SL: Discusses making work for cinema context versus installation. Use of script /text for By Sea to bring ‘sense of intimacy’.
20:50: GH: describes shared ‘essayistic’ practice with SL. “If the essay film has become a trope…and these strategies that we’re using have become formulaic, how do we negotiate our way through that?”
22:00 GH: asks SL about use of the voice in her work Infinitesimals - “Within the heterotopian space what does it mean for (the actor/readers) voice to be present?”
24:30 SL: Discusses working a Japanese New Zealander to voice By Sea. Discusses attempt to use subtitles.
26:15 SL & GH: Discusses working with actors for Erewhon (2014). Use of visual prompts. GH on working with reader Mia Blake.
29:00 GH: on collaboration in moving image projects and with jeweller Karl Fritsch, sound designer Ben Sinclair.
31:30: SL: on collaboration, instructions to musicians. Discusses Lightreading collaboration with Sarah Rose “we can overwrite anything that each other have done…there’s nothing that’s untouchable”. Discusses Courtenay Place commissions and new negotiation of collaboration between Lightreading and others.
35:13: GH: on working with Karl Fritsch and giving up authorship. On recent soundtrack for City of Tomorrow by Torben Tilly, and presenting the audio in an installation context. Activating a single channel work through performance.
"It's about bringing the conversation into the stuff people don't bother talking about" - Marie Shannon
In this pod, host Thomasin Sleigh welcomes Marie Shannon and Megan Dunn for an extended discussion about 'Rooms Found Only In The Home' Marie's survey at the Adam Art Gallery, Megan's new book 'Tinderbox', navigating the decisive moment, the plight of the submerging artist, and being subversive... but in a mild way.
More info on Marie's exhibition: http://www.adamartgallery.org.nz/ and Megan's book: https://www.megandunn.org/2017/09/17/tinderbox/
“I would like to see thinking understood as a materiality.” - Bridget Riggir-Cuddy
On the occasion of the exhibition Starling recently installed at Artspace, artist Sorawit Songsataya and Artspace Assistant Curator Bridget Riggir-Cuddy sit down to unpack their six-year collaborative relationship, the ethics of making, and post-humanist theory. With podcast host Mark Amery.
"It doesn't matter if you're in a bloody gallery or not as long as you're making stuff" - Phil Dadson
In the first episode of our new long-form podcast series Artists In Conversation, we present a discussion between Phil Dadson and Sean Kerr. Topics covered include intermedia practice in New Zealand from past to present, open source art and the recently installed From Scratch exhibition and performance series 546 Moons, now on at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery as part of Auckland Arts Festival.
More info here: http://www.teuru.org.nz/index.cfm/whats-on/calendar/from-scratch-546-moons/
For our 2017 recap, host Mark Amery is joined by Cameron Ah Loo Matamua, Abby Cunnane and Judy Darragh. Topics covered include; powerful women, generational shifts, emerging artists, Documenta, Labour's arts policy, great pieces of writing, documents and flags. Honourable mentions are made of many but include Sione Monu, Chris Krause, Leafa Wilson, Ahilapalapa Rands, Lana Lopesi, Luke Willis-Thompson, Matt Galloway, Dirt Future, Gil Hanly, and we raise a glass in memory of Paul Cullen.
Thanks to The Audio Foundation, Auckland for the generous loan of their recording facilities.
How does the body absorb the pulse of technology? What connects the mechanical and the breath? This week on CIRCUIT Cast, host Mark Amery talks to CIRCUIT Curatorial Intern Priscilla Howe during the installation of her group show PULSE/REPEAT at the Audio Foundation in Auckland.
PULSE/REPEAT runs until December 20.
"The film strip is a body acquiring memory". Ahead of group show PULSE / REPEAT at The Audio Foundation, Montreal film-maker Alexandre Larose discusses his recent New Zealand residency, the making of his work St Bathans repetitions and "putting myself in a situation I can't control".
PULSE / REPEAT opens 5.30pm Thurs 30 November at The Audio Foundation, and runs until 20 December 2017.
What are the challenges and opportunities facing Pacific artists in New Zealand today? The Director of the Tautai Pacific Arts Trust Christina Jeffery speaks to host Mark Amery about the successes of the Pacific art community and support needed for it’s development. Recorded earlier in 2017, Mark and Christina begin by talking about the Honolulu Biennial and the shared concerns between Pacific Rim artists.
On the phone from London, Mercedes Vicente discusses the curatorial process behind Thick Cinema, CIRCUIT's 2017 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions with new work by Fiona Amundsen, John Di Stefano, Sam Hamilton, Kim Pieters, Joyce Campbell. Thick Cinema premiers 6.30pm, Friday 25 August at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu.
Interviewer: Mark Amery
In a CIRCUIT first, this pod takes place from the set of Sam Hamilton's new film. Phoning in from Portland Oregon, Sam talks to host Mark Amery about the newly commissioned work, screening as a part of this years CIRCUIT Symposium.
Still from FOR THIRTY YEARS, NANCY WOULD SIT OUT ON THE STREET CORNER AND WATCH THE SUNSET (2017) Sam Hamilton.
Fiona Amundsen talks to Mark Amery about the forthcoming premiere of her CIRCUIT Artist Cinema commission 'A body that lives' which examines the 1944 breakout (from a prison camp in Cowra, Australia) of just over 1,000 Japanese prisoners.
Still from A body that lives (2017) Fiona Amundsen.
In this pod Martin Patrick, Thomasin Sleigh and host Mark Amery discuss Acting Out, an Adam Art Gallery survey of New Zealand and international artists “who express the raw physicality of sex with varying degrees of candour.”
Inspired by the simple realisation that all energy for life on Earth comes from the Sun, Trudy Lane’s Sunroom is an installation that stretches to encompass astrophysics, energy, ecology, and cosmologies. Presented in Dunedin by Urban Dream Brokerage, Sunroom also features numerous sonic collaborators, including Alastair Galbraith, Matt de Gennaro, Connor Boyle, Peter Claman and Sarah Claman whose work we were lucky enough to sample for this pod. (Apologies also for a little sonic distortion on Mark’s voice down the phone line from Dunedin.)
This pod features a sample of the track ‘Rehua’, from the album Alastair Galbraith / Matt De Gennaro – Long Wires In Dark Museums (Vol. 1) (2000) Emperor Jones Records.
"One thing has led to another..." On the release of a career spanning book, 101 year old artist Michael Nicholson talks to Mark Amery about art, the power of the absurd, witchcraft, mystic philosophy and "the power to live life gracefully".
The pod took place in Michael's home studio in Wellington. Copies of the book can be ordered through publisher Steel Roberts - http://steeleroberts.co.nz/product/visual-language-games/
See Michael's Visual Music on CIRCUIT - http://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/michael-nicholson
Music for this podcast by Heat Pump.
How do we fill in the blanks of our own histories? This week on the podcast we speak with Mairi Gunn about moving from a career in the film industry to working in contemporary art. Speaking to host Mark Amery at the Pah Homestead we hear the backstory of her installation Common Ground, which looks at New Zealand Māori and Scottish Highlanders and their relationships to the land of their ancestors. In this wide-ranging conversation Mairi discusses working as a woman in the film industry, relational art, Merata Mita, public funding and having difficult conversations.
“Is it possible for the Romantic to exceed the rational without eliminating it?” Cushla Donaldson talks Mark Amery through the exhibition The Fairy Falls at Te Uru Waitakere, featuring the premiere of a new film work documenting the mythical 1973 performance by Black Sabbath at The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival.
"How does entanglement in the technical circuits of ‘progress’ shape not just dreams, but the capacity to dream?" In this pod guests Judy Darragh and Scott Hamilton join Mark Amery to discuss Dream Dialects, an exhibition by British artist Jem Noble recently installed at Te Tuhi, Auckland, which responds to the New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs (1977), directed by Roger Donaldson, and to the novel Smith’s Dream (1971), by C. K. Stead, on which the film is based. Both the novel and film tell a fictional tale of an insidious authoritarian power supplanting liberal democracy under familiar mantras of economic crisis and national security. Dream Dialects takes the contemporary resonance of this story as a starting point to consider the media through which narratives circulate and how they affect the nature of subjectivity and its capacity for political action.
“How does your native soul inform your work?” This week on the podcast, host Mark Amery sits down with broadcasting legend Tainui Stephens at the launch of the 2017 Māoriland Film Festival, to discuss indigenous modes of exchange and distribution.
Do you make art? What does it smell like? Does it fit in a paddling pool? Our first pod of 2017 sees Mark Amery in conversation with RIFF RAFF aka Li-Ming Hu and Daphne Simons, who discuss their Enjoy Gallery summer residency and forthcoming Telethon, which seeks to amass a 'stupendously large' collection of contemporary art which will be offered as a gift to the Chartwell Art Trust. Mark Amery attempts to unpick the layers beyond the project which offers no parameters for donations, except that the giver deems the work to be 'art'.
Plus! A new CIRCUIT CAST theme tune by HEAT PUMP.
How do we create indigenous spaces in our institutions? Our 2016 end of year pod took place immediately after a wānanga on curating indigenous art at Takapūwāhia Marae and Pātaka Art + Museum, and a subsequent panel at City Gallery Wellington. Pod guests Nina Tonga, Martin Patrick and Nathan Pohio discuss questions of making space with host Mark Amery. All this plus highlights of 2016 - Best emerging artist? Best show? And looking towards the future, where do artists want to situate their art and why?
Image: Detail from Ladies (2016) Chris Ulutupu
Apologies for the technical issues in this podcast, which were a product of a) technical failure and b) the crazy idea to situate this conversation in a bar pre-Xmas. Yes, we know.
Location!… location? Mike Heynes' new commission for Masons Screen addresses one of the most urgent issues for many New Zealanders, housing affordablity. Host Mark Amery talks to Heynes about responding to current events, and how technology enables political action. As Masons Screen approaches its' first anniversary Mark Amery also talks to CIRCUIT Director Mark Williams about the screens site in the downtown business district, opposite a fashion school.
Our thanks to Eve Armstrong and Wellington City Council.
Mark Williams 0-4:00 mins Mike Heynes 4:00-12:00 mins
How do we attribute value? On the 50th anniversary of the Frances Hodgkins residency in Dunedin 2015 fellow John Ward Knox talks to Mark Amery about art economies, human remains and staying on in the South to examine his “inner gothic cathedral”.
Why start a gallery in 2017? Who needs a physical space? Artists Jordana Bragg and Callum Devlin talk about MEANWHILE, one of a handful of recently established artist-run spaces in Wellington filling a void in the post-art school vacuum.
“...avoid the Pakeha books on Maori mythology … take a look in the kids’ section instead.” How to respond to a place that is not your own? Hong Kong artist Josette Chiang talks to Mark Amery about her recent residency in Wellington and the subsequent installation at Toi Poneke Gallery 'Coastline Paradox', which presents various systems of measure applied to Wellington's landscape.
Coastline Paradox was completed during Josette's recent residency in Wellington as part of the Wellington Asia Residency Exchange programme with the support of Wellington City Council, Asia New Zealand Foundation and CIRCUIT.
What’s the difference between a cave in Sydney and the Auckland Art Gallery? Joyce Campbell discusses her Walters prize-nominated project Flightdream and her working relationships with site and technology. Campbell also discusses Te Taniwha, an ongoing photographic project drawing on the mythology, history and ecology of Waikaremoana and its many tributaries and outlets.
Image: Joyce Campbell, Flightdream II (video still) 2016, three-channel HD video installation, 30:00 min looped, colour, sound by Peter Kolovos, text by Mark von Schlegel narrated by Andrew Maxwell, courtesy of the artist and Two Rooms, Auckland, (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, 2016.
Could New Zealand’s geographical distance be seen as a strength? Is the rumour more potent than the work? How would reframing conceptualist Julian Dashper as a video artist remap New Zealand’s art history? Ahead of the CIRCUIT symposium Phantom Topologies our curator-at-large George Clark talks with Mark Amery about This is not film-making. Artists work for cinema, a programme curated by George and commissioned by CIRCUIT. Plus he discusses symposium guests Merv Espina, Martha and Jake Atienza, and new models for artist run space in South East Asia.
Jake Atienza and Merv Espina's visit to New Zealand is supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
How does the method of a works making afford its participants anything? Ahead of his participation in the CIRCUIT Symposium Phantom Topologies we caught up with artist John Vea to discuss translating the stories of others, and hynotising the audience with the mahi (work).
Image: John Vea, 29.09.2009 Tribute to Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga (2013)
In this podcast the panel puzzle over the 'beautiful threads' that interrogate the Adam Art Gallery group show Inhabiting Space but ask 'is that enough?'
Installation view: Sriwhana Spong, The Fourth Notebook, 2015, HD Video, 8mins 36 secs. Courtesy of Michael Lett, Auckland. Dancer Benjamin ord. Commissioned by Carriageworks Sydney. In the exhibition Inhabiting Space at The Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington. (photo: Shaun Waugh)
Can an image plane be traversed like the threshold of a building, moving from inside to outside and back again? And if so, what are the effects of this movement? Have our bodies become so used to crossing the image plane that they accept and absorb the shrapnel of this collision? What does this kind of co-existence with images mean for our social relations? Mark Amery talks to Andrew Kennedy, curator of The Non-Living Agent, an installation at Te Tuhi from 11 June 2016 - 24 July 2016 featuring work by Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc (Fr), Dorota Broda (NZ), James Richards (UK), Sorawit Songsataya (NZ).
Image: Sorawit Songsataya, Bronies (2016), Animation 3.13 min, 3D printed vases, images printed on steel commissioned by Te Tuhi, Auckland Photo by Sam Hartnett
As Janet Lilo enjoys her first solo survey show 'Status Update' at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, the artist speaks to Mark Amery about coincidence, accountability and her addiction to a socially-driven practice.
Image: Janet Lilo, Portrait, digital photograph
Ahead of a series of nationwide screenings in July, the pod examine Amanda Newall's The Hoover Diairies, which chronicles the dawn of neo-liberalism in 1980s New Zealand through a series of true and strangely connected events; a murder, a pop concert and the introduction of fishing quotas.
Traces and Transmissions; In this podcast Thomasin Sleigh and Tim Corballis join host Mark Amery to discuss Sonya Lacey's installation Infinitesimals, which taks it's cues from homeopathy, linguistics and material shift.. Recently installed at Massey University's Engine Room and The Physics Room in Christchurch the pod find parallels with modernism, abstraction and much more.
Auckland Art fair returns, so what's new this year? With dozens of exhibitors representing over 200 artists from New Zealand and abroad, the 2016 Auckland Art Fair is an ambitious re-invention. Host Mark Amery chatted with co-director Stephanie Post in the lead up to the first fair in three years.
We have a reality, do we really need another one? On the occasion of his installation lowercase at Starkwhite Gallery, Clinton Watkins discusses the real, the virtual and spinning skulls. Your interviewer is Mark Amery.
Image: Still from mono (2015) Clinton Watkins
Yuki Kihara leads Mark Amery on a walkthrough of her exhibition ‘A Study of a Samoan Savage’ at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. Examining historical and contemporary depictions of the Samoan body, Kihara discusses the show’s links between Samoan spirituality, Eadweard Muybridge and Sonny Bill Williams. Curator Ioana Gordon-Smith joins us briefly to discuss the shows resonance in West Auckland.
Image: Subscapular with Skinfold Caliper' (2015) From 'A Study of a Samoan Savage' (2015) series Yuki Kihara Courtesy of Yuki Kihara and Milford Galleries Dunedin
Cinema of splendour or 'be-numbed ego-centrism'? Martin Patrick, Thomasin Sleigh and Mark Amery review Matthew Barney's epic cine-opera River of Fundament. The pod discuss Barney's interplay between sculpture, cinema and visual art, his positions on gender and women, and his many references to celebrated figures of the 20th century avant-garde. Is this a film for our times? All this plus J Hoberman and James Lee Byers.
Image: River of Fundament (2014) Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler
How does a gallery best serve it’s public? How does a gallery best serve an artist? In this podcast Ema Tavola, Judy Darragh and host Mark Amery find many resonances in the work of Angela Tiatia, but lament the missed opportunities in a survey at Māngere Arts Centre.
Image credit: Angela Tiatia, Walking the Wall, 2014, Digital Video, Duration 13:04 minutes. Courtesy of the Artist & Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.
Curator George Clark and Writer Martin Patrick discuss Camille Henrot's Grosse Fatigue, Sol Le Witt's assertion that conceptual artists are not rationalists but mystics, and how we mediate the claims of the internet to represent the world.
George Clark is CIRCUIT's 2016 curator at large. Martin Patrick is a writer and academic based in Wellington, NZ.
Grosse Fatigue is at City Gallery Wellington until 13 March 2016.
Image: Camille Henrot ,Grosse Fatigue, 2013. Courtesy Silex Films and Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris
From moving images to gang portraits to wonky pots; in this podcast our panel consider the most interesting events in the New Zealand art world of 2015. Host Mark Amery is joined by regulars Martin Patrick and Thomasin Sleigh plus newbies Emma Bugden and Reuben Friend.
How do we talk about what can’t be spoken? Thai artist Sutthirat Supaprinya (Som) discusses her recent installation at Toi Pōneke Arts Centre in Wellington entitled STEAL THIS BOOK. Reflecting on censorship, misinformation and buried histories, she talks about art’s role in illuminating the past and present.
The WARE (Wellington Artists Residency Exchange) is a collaboration between Wellington City Council and The Asia New Zealand Foundation.
atelierorange.info
Image: Installation Shot: STEAL THIS BOOK, Sutthirat Supaparinya, Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, 30 October - 14 November 2015
Women appear, but on whose terms? In this recording from the 2015 London Film Festival Lucy Reynolds (artist, writer and Course Leader of MRes Art: Moving Image, Central Saint Martins) chairs a discussion on how women artists are represented in the histories of experimental film.
Panellists include Charlotte Procter (Collections Manager of LUX & Member of the Cinenova Working Group), Maud Jacquin (independent scholar and writer) and Mark Williams (Director of CIRCUIT Artists' Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand), and co-curator of the LFF screening Joanna Margaret Paul: I am an open window.
Introduction 0 – 4.35 Lucy Reynolds. Quote from Lis Rhodes’ essay Whose History? (1979).
Panel Presentations 4.35-13.10 Maud Jacquin on women film-makers working in the London Film-makers Co-Operative from the mid 1960s to the mid 1990s; alternative conceptions of the body, subjectivity and history
13.49-27.00 Charlotte Procter on Cinenova; a distribution agency formed in 1991 from merger of two feminist film distributors Circles and Cinema of Women; questions of archiving
27.26-37.10 Mark Williams on working with the collection of Joanna Margaret Paul (1945-2003), a New Zealand film-maker and artist working across disciplines whilst living in the geographical margins
Panel Discussion 37:00 LR to MJ: Why show this work now? What drew you to the work? How to bring it into dialogue with contemporary artists?
41.50 LR to CP: What are young practitioners finding in the Cinenova collection?
43: MJ/MW: on inter-disciplinary nature of women working in the 1970s
44:42 LR: cites Guy Brett’s observation that for women the distinction between life and art is more porous
46:00 LR: On having to continually answer the question of why it was necessary to establish distribution and representation that was/is women only
47:40 LR: How to find women’s work? MW on working with Archives and issues with cataloguing
48:50 LR: Why the struggle for institutional advocacy? Corresponding danger of work being subsumed into institutions.
52:30 Is the museum a good space to show experimental film works?
55:00 How does the contemporary art market support the preservation, distribution and accessibility to historical film works? How do female moving image artists feel about their relationship to the art market and the collecting institution? How does this differ from their relationship to self-determined (and feminist) models for exhibition and distribution?
Audience Questions 58.30 (Question 1) How do we represent historical feminist work in a contemporary institutional context and innately embody feminism?
52:00 (Question 2) With Joanna Paul’s work how do you release something so personal to the marketplace? MW on market potentially providing funds for restoring the Joanna Paul archive
65:32 (Question 3) In the 1970s structuralist movement how did women extend the paradigm of experimental film?
68:30 LR: What does contemporary feminist scholarship project on the past?
73.00 (Question 4) How did women artists in the 1970s support themselves financially?
76:00 (Question 5) What other parallel histories and genealogies of Women’s experimental film-making await scholarship?
79.30 (Question 6) Does exclusion from official histories and movements offer a kind of freedom from ‘the baggage’ of other histories?
81.21 (Question 7) What kind of challenges are associated with archiving and preserving video as a medium?
86:00 (Question 8) How do we prioritise what gets preserved?
88:28 (Question 9) How do we introduce the work of older female artists to younger female practitioners?
93.30 (Question 10) What kind of writing accompanies the works and in what form, be it essays, cataloguing or other?
101.00 (Question 11) What other contemporary resources exist for the promotion of film works by women?
106:00 Ends
Thanks to LUX, The London Film Festival, Benjamin Cook and Stuart Heaney.
What is an artist-run space today? Mark Amery talks to Chloe Geoghegan, Director of Dunedin's Blue Oyster about the evolution of the gallery, her previous role at Dog Park in Christchurch and Dunedin's new City Council-led arts precinct.
On the phone from Sydney, Jae Hoon Lee talks to Mark Amery about showing his work in a hotel at the Spring 1883 art fair, how his practice draws on Eastern spiritual philosophy and his recent residency at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Art vs Architecture? Ego vs Id? In this pod we review Demented Architecture at City Gallery Wellington and discuss whether the show really sets out to show the two disciplines as the best of enemies. Host Mark Amery is joined by regular guests Martin Patrick and Thomasin Sleigh.
Where does your mind go? Christina Read talks to Mark Amery about her installation The Brain which brings together 15 artists works in an idiosyncratic spatial and conceptual diagram of a brain.
Curated by artist Christina Read and commissioned by CIRCUIT in partnership with Te Uru Waitakere with the support of Creative New Zealand, The Brain is ituated within a sculptural platform conceived and constructed by Paul Cullen. 15 single channel video works explore themes including landscapes of perception and cognition, tangible thoughts, altered states, phantom limbs, the wandering mind, TV brains, dream archives, memory files, and the body in movement.
Exhibited until 15 November 2015 at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery.
How does a film-maker respond to a poem? Nova Paul talks to Mark Amery about the making of her film Still Light and film maker Joanna Paul's 'radical simplicity'.
Still Light screens as part of Six Artists respond to the poetry of Joanna Margaret Paul, 7pm, Friday 14 August, Academy Cinema, Auckland. $10 or free with CIRCUIT symposium registration.
Dirk de Bruyn is an Australian experimental film-maker whose recent film Threshold uses Google Maps and aerial photography to examine how technology constructs memory. At the CIRCUIT symposium Dirk will present Threshold as part of an illustrated lecture.
To find out more about the CIRCUIT Symposium 'A Genealogy of Moving Image Practice' see the website - http://circuit.org.nz/genealogy-of-moving-image-practice
To register follow this link - http://tinyurl.com/ovmo58f
Ahead of the upcoming CIRCUIT symposium A Genealogy of Moving Image Practice we talk to presenter Shannon Te Ao about his film Untitled (epilogue) made in response to a collection of poems by Joanna Margaret Paul.
Still from Untitled (epilogue) Shannon Te Ao 2015
In this pod Janine Randerson discusses her upcoming collaboration with CIRCUIT for the New Zealand Film Festival entitled Place Unmaking, featuring work by Alex Monteith, Richard Von Sturmer, Layne Waerea and others. We also discuss Randerson’s own practice of collaborating with scientists and engineers.
Still from Seawater and Dust (2015) Janine Randerson
In conjunction with her show at Enjoy Gallery 'I thought I would of climbed more mountains by now', Bridget Reweti discusses lost utopias, how Maori have adapted new spiritual movements, and singing lessons.
Your host is Mark Amery, Music by Tlaotlon. Supported by Creative New Zealand
Episode 24: How much do we need to read? How much does the text infect the work?
In this pod we dissect recent publications on Shannon Te Ao, Kim Pieters and the group show Cinema and Painting. Host Mark Amery and guests Thomasin Sleigh and Martin Patrick read passages from the an essay by Tina Barton, a lecture by Hollis Frampton and discuss how “what is written today will be different tomorrow”.
"I'm more interested in shows with smaller budgets but bigger ideas". Ahead of the upcoming show by Matthew Cowan, Jeff Henderson the Director of The Audio Foundation talks to Mark Amery about folk tradition as a precursor of noise music, the ethos of running a multi-disciplinary space, and the economies of arts funding - “the models accepted by festivals are flawed”.
Image: (L) Jeff Henderson, Director of the Audio Foundation (R) Mark Amery http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/
“I wanted to be very ambitious at a time when it looked like the economy was collapsing”.
In this pod Lisa Reihana discusses her installation in Pursuit of Venus (infected) at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Based on 19th century wallpaper, Reihana’s scrolling video installation addresses a moment of early colonial contact between European and South Pacific peoples.
Part 1 (0-8.22) The genesis of the project, links between the historical figures depicted and contemporary culture, and the critical nuances in the work. The making of another video Tai Whetuki/House of Death as a means to work through historical events.
Part 2 (8.30-15.00) Technical challenges and ethical conundrums. Lisa concludes by talking about her digital stills of Captain Cook, Joseph Banks, Omai and Tupaia at the National Portrait Gallery, the revisiting of historical figures and play with gender. “It’s all about representation and ways of looking”.
How important is the gallery exhibition to the work? In this podcast Mark Amery talks to pioneering pop artist and conceptualist Billy Apple about his survey at Auckland Art Gallery The Artist Has to Live Like Everyone Else. Apple reflects on his collaboration with Nam Jun Paik, his willingness to be cloned and his work with agencies from Saatchi and Saatchi to Womens Refuge.
What makes a group of works an exhibition? How does one translate a public art action into the gallery? How does art give witness to catastrophe? These and other big questions on this CIRCUIT CAST as Emil Dryburgh, Mark Jackson and host Mark Amery review the recent St Paul St show Invisible Energy.
What makes a video a performance? In this pod Mark Amery interviews artists Denise Batchelor and Erica Sklenars about their work in the The Performance Arcade, a annual festival of “installation, performance art, sonic art, audio-visual art, interactive media, culinary art and live music” presented in shipping containers on the Wellington waterfront.
Our thanks to the artists and Sam Trubridge. Image courtesy of The Performance Arcade. http://www.theperformancearcade.com/
CIRCUIT Cast was presented with assistance of Creative New Zealand. Music by Tlaotlon.
In our first pod for 2015 we discuss the online component of The Drowned World, an exhibition of student work curated by Daniel Satele for Tautai Pacific Arts Trust. Featuring panellists Claudia Arozqueta, Thomasin Sleigh and host Mark Amery. In part 1 we discuss works by Nina Oberg Humphries, Elyjana Roach and Jasmine Te Hira. In part 2 we discuss the online environment as exhibition platform; Did our panellists watch the works all the way through? Should a student show aim to be on the web in perpetuity? Will an online exhibition find an art audience?
Also on this pod - a new theme tune by TLAOTLON.
Image: Lost Content (2014) Jasmine Te Hira. Courtesy of Tautai Pacific Arts Trust
What were the best exhibitions of 2014? Best emerging artist? Best art writing? Did the public programme taken over the exhibition? Are you cuddling a Care Bear? Megan Dunn, Martin Patrick and host Mark Amery ask the important questions about the year that was, with email best-of's from Pod regular Thomasin Sleigh.
Part 1: 00:00-12:50 Best shows of 2014, Auckland's aggressiveness versus Wellington's fruityness, Robert Leonard at City Gallery
Part 2: 12:50-26:00 Shannon Te Ao, Freedom Farmers, Wystan Curnow, Has the public programme taken over the exhibition?
Part 3: 26:00-34:30 Thoughts on the Walters Prize and Simon Denny
Image: Collectors Edition (Glitch), Eddie Clemens. Adam Art Gallery, Wellington 2014. Photo by Shaun Waugh
In this edition of CIRCUIT Cast we interview Tahi Moore about his show Psyche Rebuild at Hopkinson Mossman and discuss how his practice investigates the gap between thought and language; in our round table discussion our guests Mark Jackson and Ahilapalapa Rands discuss the Auckland Art Gallery’s summer blockbuster Light Show. Your host is Mark Amery.
Image: Magic Hour (2004-2007) David Batchelor. Courtesy the artist, Galeria Leme, São Paulo and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
Guest Bios: Dr. Mark Jackson is Associate Professor of Design in the School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies at AUT University, New Zealand. He has published in the fields of design history and theory, the visual arts, film and media as well as architecture and landscape architecture. He has had a number of film and video works exhibited internationally. His current research focus is on ethics and design cultures with particular emphasis on the works of Derrida, Heidegger, Agamben and Levinas.
Ahilapalapa Rands is the outgoing Education Intern at Artspace, a leading contemporary New Zealand gallery located on Karangahape Road in Auckland. In 2013 she co-curated Close To Home, the 6th Tautai Tertiary Exhibition at ST Paul St Gallery with her Mum Melanie Rands followed by her recent curation of Artspace exhibitionW e l co m e in September 2014. Ahi graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts from AUT University. During her studies she worked in video and performance installation. Along with Maila Urale, Linda T, and Chris Fitzgerald she is one of the founding members of D.A.N.C.E. art club who have been working together since 2008. Ahi is a fourth generation New Zealander on her father’s side and second on her mother’s side with links to Hawai‘i, Tongareva, Fiji, Samoan, England & Scotland.
http://www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2014/welcome.asp Dance - http://danceartclub.co.nz/
In this CIRCUIT podcast we take a break from our usual three-act format to interview Adnan Yıldız, incoming director of Artspace Auckland. Adnan talks about research, collaboration and his vision for Artspace. Additional comments from acting Artspace Director Anna Gardner. Your interviewer is Mark Amery.
Edited by Callum Devlin.
Image credit: Misal Adnan Yıldız, Photo by Fabian Schewe (At the back: Erdag Aksel's "A Calculated Loss of Memory- Stuttgart" 2014 as part the exhibition "Life of Objects" Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Spring (Northern Hemisphere) 2014)
In this months CIRCUIT Cast; William Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time is discussed in front of a live audience at City Gallery Wellington by host Mark Amery, panellists Thomasin Sleigh and Martin Patrick and an audience member; in part 2 we talk to Simon Denny mid-install for The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom at the Adam Art Gallery, and in Part 3 we begin a new monthly feature on artist-run spaces by talking to Henry Davidson about Auckland's Gloria Knight.
Part 1 was recorded at City Gallery Wellington as Part of Tuatara Open Late on Thursday 2 October. This pod was produced with the assistance of Creative New Zealand, with thanks to Tracey Monsatra, Steve McVey, Olivia Lacey and Ann Gale. Music by Orchestra of Spheres.
Image credit: William Kentridge, The Refusal of Time (detail - film still), 2012. A collaboration with Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison. Five-channel video with sound, 30 min, with megaphones and breathing machine ("Elephant"). State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the TomorrowFund, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2013.
In this podcast our panel dissect Gavin Hipkins’ feature film adaptation of Samuel Butler’s 1872 novel Erewhon, asking what message Butler and Hipkins have for us in 2014? In Part 2 we talk to Kim Paton about the vibrant SPARK media arts festival in Hamilton. Your host as always is Mark Amery, with guests Martin Patrick and Thomasin Sleigh.
This months CIRCUIT CAST talks to keynote George Clark about Camille Henrot and all the exciting screenings, talks and events at the upcoming CIRCUIT symposium Locating the Practice. In part 2 Simon Rees merrily spills the beans on the next 3 years of Govett-Brewster programming and offers a few international perspectives on the contemporary NZ art scene.
This months CIRCUIT CAST is an export quality edition; Mark Amery joins Martin Patrick and Thomasin Sleigh at the Tongan contemporary survey Tonga ‘i Onopooni at Pataka, Kim Pieters journeys up from the Dunedin underground to to present her survey What is a life? at the Adam Art Gallery, and mid-install of her group show with the Mata Aho collective Kaokao, Terri Te Tau discusses sending her installation work Unregistered and Unwarranted to Eyebeam in New York. All that and a few calamitous mis-pronunciations on this months CIRCUIT CAST.
Image: Kim Pieters, Halo (2010), digital video, audio by Edie Stevens, in the exhibition What is a life? Kim Pieters at the Adam Art Gallery (Photo: Shaun Waugh)
In the pod this month our critical panel finds much to celebrate in Peter Wareing's Stuggorings and Fijetterings at Enjoy Gallery, we visit Seung Yul Oh mid-install of his 10 year survey MoaMoa at City Gallery Wellington and we dial up curator Mercedes Vicente on a crackly line in Spain to discuss her Art and Social Change research residency in India, subsequent exhibitions in Christchurch and Auckland, the legacy of Darcy Lange and the vexed issue of how artists resolve the divide between ethics and aesthetics.
As usual your host is Mark Amery with guest panellists Martin Patrick and Megan Dunn.
Image: Stuggorings and Fijetterings (2014) Peter Wareing
This month’s CIRCUIT CAST is on the road; from Wellington Martin Patrick, Thomasin Sleigh and Mark Amery discuss Simon Starling’s ‘In Speculuum’, in Auckland Te Tuhi Director James McCarthy talks about his new job as Van Driver/Wrestler for the Maldives Exodus Caravan Show; while in Dunedin performance and video artist Samin Son discusses his Blue Oyster residency and the possibility of leaving New Zealand for pastures new.
It's the first CIRCUIT Cast for 2014! In this months pod we talk to Australian artist Nathan Gray about his decision to withdraw from this years Sydney Biennale, just hours before the Biennale ended it's association with controversial sponsor Transfield Holdings. Panellists Martin Patrick and Abby Cunnane join host Mark Amery to dissect the Adam Art Gallery exhibition Cinema and Painting. From New York we are joined by the one of the show's artists, Mr Ken Jacobs, who with his wife Florence discuss the relationship between the aforementioned two mediums, Jacobs' 3D cinema and also share an anecdote about Len Lye in New York during the 1960s.
Image: Ken Jacobs, film still from The Guests, 2013. 3D Archival footage transferred to digital video, DCP, b/w, surround-sound, 74mins. Courtesy of the artist.
In this final 2013 pod guests Abby Cunnane, Michelle Menzies, Megan Dunn, Martin Patrick and host Mark Amery gather in an Irish pub to discuss the years highlights both in moving image and elsewhere.
Artists discussed include Jacqueline Fraser, G. Bridle, Dan Arps, Kushana Bush, Yvonne Todd, Joanna Paul, Julian Dashper, Gavin Hipkins. Exhibitions discussed include Len Lye at City Gallery Wellington, Auckland Triennal, Moving On Asia: Towards a New Art Network.
Michelle Menzies says "What I would like to see a bit more of is some artists turning to the moving image with some more self-consciousness about it’s history both in New Zealand and at large, so the moving image isn’t always taken up as a found object with a kind of innocence, but rather something that trails a real, formal, content-based background that needs to be grappled with”.
Later in the pod we dial up Melanie Oliver at the Physics Room in Christchurch to review the year that was after the recent earthquakes. Melanie discusses moving back to the gallery premises. Brief discussion of public art projects including FESTA, SCAPE. They discuss other gallery activities by Dog Park and Split Fountain. Notable artists in 2013 include Ella Sutherland. Melanie reflects on the earthquake as backdrop "I can see rubble outside my window" but also talks about artists moving on. She discusses the recent artist mobile cinema project Picture House by Heather Hayward and Tessa Peach, featuring a collection of works curated by CIRCUIT entitled Six Videos for TEZA, and the loss of cinemas in the earthquake.
This month it's a noisy old pod as host Mark Amery gives two thumbs down to Sound Full at City Gallery Wellington only to be rebutted by guests Martin Patrick and Sophie Jerram; we talk to Dr Max Schleser co-founder of MINA , the Mobile Innovation Network Aotearoa about their upcoming symposium and mobile technology in contemporary art; then we round off by dialing up Rebecca Hobbs in Auckland where her show Body Rock has just opened at the Film Archive. All that, some paper rustling, two studios and the usual gripping content that is CIRCUIT CAST.
Image: Kusum Normoyle, Tension Sets (3) installation view City Gallery Wellington, 2013, video and audio. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Justine Hall.
In this CIRCUIT CAST; host Mark Amery talks abut Francis Alÿs' REEL-UNREEL, recently at the Adam Art Gallery and also on the artists website. Guests are Martin Patrick (writer, academic) and Bronwyn Holloway-Smith (artist). Mid-show we cross to Christchurch where Phil Dadson is preparing a new version of his interactive work the Bodytok Quintet. Phil also talks about the aesthetics of early video and the recent CIRCUIT symposium. To finish CIRCUIT Director Mark Williams makes his biannual pod appearance to wrap up the CIRCUIT symposium and announce two exciting new CIRCUIT initiatives for artists.
Image: Francis Alÿs (in collaboration with Julien Devaux and Ajmal Maiwandi), still from Reel-Unreel, 2011. Video documentation of an action. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London.
In this months edition of CIRCUIT CAST the pod deliver an extended onsite discussion from the Auckland Art Fair. Host Mark Amery is joined by Andrew Clifford (Curator, Gus Fisher Gallery) and visiting ex-patriate Serena Bentley (Curator, Next Wave Festival, Melbourne). In part 1 the pod discuss the Art Fair's place in the wider art ecology and wonder where are all the dealers this year? In part 2 they reflect on highlights, and in part 3 they address the puzzling absence of the moving image in this years event.
In this months CIRCUIT podcast your host Mark Amery welcomes Dick Whyte, who offers a brief and pained shakedown on Warhol at Te Papa before discussing his remake of Pulp Fiction using over 400 You Tube fan videos. Wanganui artist Brit Bunkley talks about embracing digital distribution and a new online service [S]edition which promises Artists video for your smartphone, tablet or TV at a fraction of the dealer price. And kicking it all off for June, Abby Cunnane and Tim Corballis reflect on Beautiful Creatures at the Adam Art Gallery, featuring Bill Henson, Jacqueline Fraser and the man sometimes described as the original Warhol, Mr Jack Smith.
Produced with the assistance of Creative New Zealand, Massey University School of Fine Arts and Mike Heynes. Music by Orchestra of Spheres.