CIRCUIT CAST

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 (at 27:14) 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.