Circuit Cast

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.

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 exp

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 Oberhaus

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 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.