SCANZ Exhibition

by sarah cook

Published on 11/13/2008

SCANZ 2009 Exhibition
6 February to 29 March 2009

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in association with Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand (SCANZ) presents the SCANZ exhibition – Raranga Tangata – opening 6 February 2009. Due to Waitangi day, the opening night event is Saturday 7 February 2009.

SCANZ is a project-based residency and workshop for international and national artists, theorists and curators working at the intersection of art, culture and technology.

This year’s theme is Raranga Tangata – The Weaving Together of People – a phrase originally given by Charlie Tawhiao and adopted by Sally Jane Norman and Sylvia Nagl to describe the internet. The aim of the event is to fuse an enduring fabric of people and technology.

From an initial call to SCANZ participants for proposals for the exhibition, Mercedes Vicente, Govett-Brewster curator, and Sarah Cook, UK guest co-curator, have selected eight projects by Stella Brennan (NZ), Nina Czegledy/Greg Judelman/Daniel Barber (Canada), Sean Kerr (NZ), Naomi Lamb (NZ), Alex Monteith (NZ), Sally Jane Norman/Jacques Sirot (NZ/France), Amanda Newall (NZ), The Polytechnic (UK) and Dan Torop (USA). Some of these artworks have been developed during this year and the previous SCANZ workshop in 2006.

Co-curators Vicente and Cook are delighted to be exhibiting the results of these artists’ long-term commitments to working with new technologies and only regret not being able to include more of the exciting new work being developed during the SCANZ residency.

“This is a rare opportunity for Taranaki to host projects which demonstrate artists’ uses of diverse digital and electronic media, from ultrasonic sound to data visualization, 3D graphics to kinetic responsive sculptures, performance to participatory public projects.”

The exhibition, opening on Saturday 7 February at 6pm, will feature performances by Sean Kerr and Naomi Lamb. During the opening weekend a symposium will be held featuring international speakers from Hawaii, the UK and Australia, including the writers and theorists on the SCANZ residency. The symposium will focus on weaving together Indigenous, Asian, Polynesian and Maori knowledge and belief systems in the context of new media technologies and art. On Sunday 8 February join the SCANZ artists at 11.30am for a floor talk with co-curators Vicente and Cook.

This exhibition has been organised in partnership with Intercreate Research Centre at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT), Puke Ariki, Shell and Creative New Zealand.

Dominic Smith operating The Random Information Exchange, by the collective artist group, The Polytechnic

Venue Information:

Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
40 Queen Street, New Plymouth, New Zealand
Phone: +64-6 759 6060 | http://govettbrewster.com
Opening hours – 10.00am—5.00pm daily (Closed Christmas Day)

Exhibition Entry
Admission to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is free, although visitor donations
enable the Gallery to ensure the ongoing provision of dynamic programmes.

More detailed venue information is available here.

Talk to the author/s about SCANZ Exhibition

kath odonnell said

hi Sarah, I was interested in something you mentioned at the closing talk panel session at the symposium. when you mentioned that you wouldn’t class the G-B SCANZ exhibition as a new media exhibition. is this correct – sorry if I misheard what you said. if so, what, in your experience would it need to be a new media exhibition? ie what have other new media exhibitions had that SCANZ didn’t?

and I was also wondering what the artists chosen thought – do they think of their work as new media or is it just another label to them?

Posted at 02/18/2009 22:46

Related Categories

Residency 2009: Projects & Stories

sarah cook

In 2008 Sarah Cook was the inaugural curatorial fellow at Eyebeam through a partnership with CRUMB (www.crumbweb.org), the UK-based online resource for curators of new media art, at the University of Sunderland, where she is a post-doctoral research fellow. Sarah has been curating and co-curating exhibitions of new media art in North America and Europe for the past 10 years;
recent curatorial projects include: Untethered (Eyebeam, 2008); Broadcast Yourself (AV Festival and Cornerhouse, UK, 2008); My Own Private Reality (Edith Russ Haus, Oldenburg, 2007); Package Holiday: Studer / vdBerg (BALTIC, 2005); The Art Formerly Known As New Media (Banff Centre, 2005); Database Imaginary (Banff Centre, 2005). Sarah has organised exhibitions and presentations, commissioned new media art and managed publications and educational projects for the Banff New Media Institute (Banff, Canada), The Star and Shadow Cinema (Newcastle), The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Locus+ (Newcastle), and the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa). In 2006 she was awarded a Leverhulme early career research fellowship for her work on artists use of new technologies, and she is co-author with Beryl Graham of a book on curatorial practice and new media art (forthcoming from MIT Press).

Web Sites

http://www.sarahcook.info

sarah cook's Stories

Intercreate.org is a project based research centre which consists of an international network of people interested in interdisciplinary creativity. Project foci include interdisciplinary projects, education initiatives and residencies. Intercreate is a not-for-profit trust that is registered with the Charities Commmission of New Zealand.

About SCANZ
Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand (SCANZ) is New Zealand’s premier art and technology event and involves a symposium, artist residency, and public exhibition. It occurs every two years, and has typically involved a mix of Aotearoa New Zealand and international artists, producers, theorists and curators many of whom are leading practitioners. Held in New Plymouth, SCANZ 2011 will be the third event.

SCANZ 2011: Eco sapiens
A symposium followed by a residency is to be held late January to early February 2011 in New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand. It seeks to bring a range of knowledge groups together to investigate the cultural roots of climate change and seek out poetically pragmatic approaches to encouraging the cultural and behavioural shifts required. Initial expressions of interest are due 21 November, 2009. Please see here for more details.

SCANZ 2009 international participants included Nina Czegledy, Brett Stalbaum, Sally Jane Norman, Jacques Sirot, Sarah Cook, Andrew Gryf Paterson, Dan Torop, Melinda Rackham and Dominic Smith of The Polytechnic. Participants based in New Zealand included Lisa Reihana, Stella Brennan, Sean Kerr, Rachel Rakena, Natalie Robertson, Danny Butt, Herman Pi’ikea Clarke, Alex Monteith, Naomi Lamb, Caro McCaw, Jon Bywater, Julian Priest (UK/NZ) and many others.

Occurring along side the 2009 residency was a two day symposium (February 7 and 8), presentation evening & exhibition (opened February 7), and curatorial workshop.

Intercreate.org gratefully acknowledges the support and partnerships of:

Creative New Zealand

Govett-Brewster Art Gallery

Puke Ariki

Shell New Zealand
Sustainability Fund, 60 Springs

Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT)

TSB Community Trust

and...
Phosphor Essence Ltd.