image from bg5 2007 by Giles Whittaker
Beating themselves up for art’s sake
Singing to Janis Joplin until you almost pass out, hyperventilating on camera and generating electricity for hours on end all sound like difficult ways to pass the time. What is it with a current crop of artists seemingly doing their upmost to pass massive feats of endurance for our viewing pleasure (or alarm as the case may be)?
The third Artists’ Film Festival, which opens at the Pelorus Trust mediagallery (inside the Film Archive) on Friday 11 April, provides a snapshot of artists’ use of the video medium. The results, hinted at above, are both astonishing and mesmerising, thought-provoking and often just downright weird. Curated by Wellington-based curator and art writer Paula J Booker, this collection of work is surely the largest artist video show ever undertaken in New Zealand.
Featuring 28 artists from around the country Booker explains, “This show was designed to profile the work of artists from photographers, sculptors, to sound artists and even VJs, who may not exclusively make ‘video art’ as part of their art practice. The usual suspects who are already well-known for their video installations have an audience, so I wanted to bring some new voices to this show.”
“There is no specific umbrella theme for the festival – “artists’ video” is the theme and artists have really enjoyed having the freedom that the brief allowed. It’s been very interesting for me to spin out the nuances and themes from the works that have come in.”
Booker says that while many works use moving image to create visual narratives, many of the artists’ works “are concerned with recording performance art. While I noticed this trend in many of last year’s work, this year there is more of a tendency towards what I call ‘endurance performance’”.
Booker stresses “even amongst this sub-group within the festival, each work has different politics and aims.” For example, visitors will wonder what Murray Hewitt is up to in Weeping Waters, relentlessly kicking a soccer ball up a giant sand dune. It seems frustrating but if you watch the work over time, it is quite hypnotising and you can pick up the subtleties of his symbolism. Fiona Gilmore investigates what happens when the emotional posturing of pop music collides with performance in art making.
In One Hour Janice, the artist mimes a performance by Janice Joplin again and again. She is searching for an authentic performance of the musician and is trying to bring emotion to her piece of art. In Soda Diary Campbell Paterson samples soda from his parents fridge, each day drinking enough to experience its effervescence quite violently, testing his physical limitations.”
The Artists Film Festival
11 April – 17 May 2008
Inside the New Zealand Film Archive at the mediagallery, and mediatheatre, cnr Taranaki and Ghuznee Sts
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