Seek Collaboration and Auckland Mueseum visit

Today we talked about the SEEK exhibtion.

This exhibition was a collaborative effort consisting of 3 artists -

Dion Hitchens who specialises in sculpture and installations this drawing is called Kingdom of the dragon king"

Bill Riley who specialises in painting this installation is called "Stacks"

James Ormsby who specialises in Drawing the image in the background is called piece is called " mine mount mine"

I found this peice to be the most intriguing because there is alot of history behind it and I appreciate the uncanny appropriation of the Image I also like the third dimension of it revolving like a record.

This is a moving image piece it is a photo of a Mine that James Ormsby used to cycle past everyday as a child in Waihi.

He saw the Image in a pamphlet and decided to appropriate it into his work obviously not bothered by copyrights.

At first glance I thought this was a picture of a planet (Mars) because of the circular form and because it was set against a black background.

If I had to describe this peice of work in one word it would be "transfomer " because it is the epitomie of more than meets the eye from a distance it looks like a planet upright and upclose it looks like a crater or a mine and once it rotates upside down it resembles a mountain with a bike track hence the name " mine mount mine" Very innovative use of an everyday image to create a powerful work of art showcasing how artistic views of mundane objects can provoke thought .

The seek collaborative stands for activating thought in their audience rather than being activists they combine informal interaction and are against being branded or labelled finally the key theme to keep their work authentic is that they interact and comminicate with local communities as pictured above where they exchanged art for food to give to the local foodbank at their Sydney exhibition.

THE AUCKLAND MUESEUM

At the Auckland mueseum I really enjoyed this installation called the gold wall it consists of hundreds of gold leaf squares that have been burnished on individually square by square (15cmx15cm) the gold leaf contains real gold and cannot be touched by hand so is picked up by static cling. the thing I liked most about this wall was the way it reacted to the flash in the camera in this first photo I used no flash in the second photo I used a flash which as u can see created an illuminating effect reminescent of the regal ballrooms of the french renaissance period.

Eldon Booth Blog

Eldon Booth is a moving Image artist one of the first short films he produced was called "Withdrawl" it was a lo fi production on VHS he worked with Jason Crane on this project and his aim was to create an imperfect moving image with an imperfect amatuerish realistic feel.

He tries not stage scenes to make them look more natural one of his tricks is to not tell the actors in his films the trajectory of the camera.

This technique reminded me of a game I played on xbox 360 called Kane and Lynch 2 dog days

in this Game the video image is given a realistic feel by immitating cell phone video footage as illustrated in the images above.

One of the highlights of his career was to work with screenwriter Robin shawl who is famous for the movie once were warriors.

Eldon became intrigued and determined to do dialogue driven piece after veiwing a heavily sensationalised 60 minute interveiw what spoke to Eldon was how the veiwer was manipulited by emotive music, closeups, and cut scenes which led him to make the Short film "5 good reasons" in this movie he is able to reflect the ideas of the sensational 60 minute dialogue driven scene effectively using his own script and his own archived footage.

Eldon's current movie project is called finding Honk in it he has father and son non proffessional actors he states that it was an advantage as he was able to access archival video footage and photos.

He suggests that it is better not to give to much infomation to amatuer actors to bring more authenticity to the footage he also tricked his actors by deliberatley not informing them of the situations he may be putting them in.

In this film there are 2 scenes in which Eldon utilises the phantom camera one is with the glass smashing and the other is with a car doing burnouts.

The phantom camera captures 1500 frames per second and can slow down images with crystal clarity so every minute detail can be veiwed something which normal video cameras are incapable of.

We watched the Movie elephant by americn director Gus Van Sant in it he blurred the line between fact and fiction by taking an actual event the columbine school shooting massacreand recreating it as a movie utilising fragmented cut scenes and non lineal time footage to create a slowbuild to a climatic finish he interweaves time superbly and uses a shallow depth of feild ( similar to Steve Roods photos . Van Sant also uses text of names of students to create a personal friendship between the veiwer and the characters .

In this movie everyone shows indivduality but in the end they are all in the same predicament .

The Banksy film exit through the gift shop is a Mockumentary that blurs the line between fact and fiction through showing actual art and using actors to portray fake events.

Steve Rood Blog

Steve Rood specialises in digital photography .The catalyst of his career was when he was 10 years old and photographed a compost heap which later the same day spontaneously burst into flame thus igniting Steves passion for photography.

The 2 above photos are were done by Steve Rood using shadow making machines which if done correctly can transform the everyday Mundane to the magnificent as this quote describes-
"The Shadow Making Machines bring the darkness in everyday life to light.They urge us to closely look within the shadow to ascertain the light." - Patricia Rood,2008 I

I enjoy these photo's because they blur they line between the traditional and the modern.

The sepia finish resembles photos done in1835 using the daguereotype method and the play with shadows using the shadow making machine gives it a modern futuristic feel.

Steve Rood specialises in digital photography .The catalyst of his career was when he was 10 years old and photographed a compost heap which later the same day spontaneously burst into flame thus igniting Steves passion for photography.

Years of experience has led Steve to an almost minimalist approach to his photography preffering to leave more to the veiwers imagination as shown in the above photos these are some of Steves fashion photos where he utilises out of focus and overexposed techniques to create almost ghostly,dreamlike images.

Steve Rood tries to connect with each photo in an attempt to spark the interest of the veiwer in his series of food photography he wanted a unpredictable feel to it as beleived that contempary food photography had become invalid some of his techniques using light reminded me of the Curuscao ( light and dark effect ) first used by the painter Carrivagio.

Frances Hansen and Steve Clothier images

Frances Hansen blog

Frances Hansen is a drawing Lecturer at MIT she has Ben here since the inception of the MSVA 1995.

This year she triumphantly published a book called "keepsakes" for me this book can be summed up in one word "nostalgia" which means sentimental longing or remembrance of the past.

Keepsakes is essentially an archive turned recipe book containing many photos ,recipes memento's and art spanning from decades it's pages are bloated with colour, touchable texture and keepsakes it is quite overwhelming and offers an insightful overview of years gone by in a very personal way.

This book proves that hoarding is not necessarily a bad thing if channeled into a lifes work presentation such as this.

In my practice as a Maori carver I collect certain organic materials to carve such as bovine bone,paua shell, deer antler ,whale bone ,deer bone and greenstone.

I have a collection of these at home and Something Rebecca hobbs said rings true sculptors and painters usually have quite cluttered studios while digital artists seem to be more adept at keeping their workspaces tidy and formatted.

Steven Clothier also known as iron man is a new zealand artist who collects scrap corrugated iron from which he creates works of art at his bussiness called currogated creations he individually hand crafts sculptures for logos,statues shop displays and garden displays his most famous is the gigantic dog in Tirau.

Leilani Kake and Te Tuhi blog

Due to my commitments as a father I unfortunately Missed the first 3 weeks of the semester so I shall now Endevour to catch up !

Leilani Kake is a Moving Image artist and is currently employed as a lecturer at the MSVA at MIT she is of Maori descent on her fathers side (Nga Puhi) and Cook Island descent on her Mothers side.
I veiwed her exhibition called Nga Hau e Wha at the fresh gallery in Otara at the beginning of this year the exhibit consisted of 4 Naked polynesian women floating on water and projected on to 4 walls symbolising the 4 stages of a womens life the young women ,the pregnant women, the middle aged women and the older women the context of the work was to create dialogue about the high rate of breast and cervical cancer among Maori and Pacific island women and also to celbrate the beauty of the female spirit.
Another one of her works I veiwed was called Tino Rangatiratanga another moving image peice that documented the last 3 stages of her fathers life. The first stage showed her father receiving a facial moko and the ceremonial karakia or prayer the second stage showed her father in hospital after suffering a stroke not long after receiving his Moko the third stage showed his Tangi her fathers name was Richard Kake. After watching this peice I realised that Leilani has an overwhelming passion for moving image art although I must admit It felt a bit intrusive to watch something so personal and so close to ones heart.

Leilani is currently working on amusic video for her sister who is a female rapper from south Auckland the video is called ghetto sheek and should be released later this year.


Te Tuhio - Rapid change exhibition

Mega Mall Infomation Centre ,2011
by Elisapeta Heta
(digitalvideo,vinyl signage ,timber ,MDF,cardboard)

This exhibit was punctuated by contrasts for example the outer wall of this peice was constructed out of brown corrougated cardboard while the inside was a pristine white acrylic on MDF which talks about the fact that mega malls like Westfeild st lukes give little thought to their exterior and surroundings and concentrate more on creating an inviting interior which encourages patrons to spend more money.
One of the visuals used showed a picture illutrating the height of the mall in relation to the houses sorounding it it was made to scale and portrayed how the mall dwarfs over local properties effectively blocking the sun and reducing the properties value which works in favor of the faceless foriegn owners who purchase these properties at a lesser price in order to expand their Mega malls more like Mega cons (condominiums that is ! )

Ice House Detroit ,2011
Mathue Radune

This peice is in two parts moving image and a still photo.
It talks about the American recession of 2008 and how it crippled detroit when 20% of the locals defaulted on their loans and the residential properties were forclosed effectively creating ghost towns of close to empty streets.
the artist successfully pervays the credit freeze by producing an icicle clad family home by dousing it with a fire hose for 24 hours for 30 days straight the result is an ominous and haunting site strategically lit at dusk.
This is my favorite work to dateas it effortlessly and effectively creates dialogue about the detrimental and callously cold effects of capitlist greed gone wild.

Leilani Kake