Circuit Cast

“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 t

“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 w

"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.