CIRCUIT CAST

Sione Faletau discusses his practice of translating the traditional Tongan practice of kupesi (patterns) into digital video, using site-specific audio recordings and traditional Tongan music as the basis for generating images. He discusses his upcoming shows at Gus Fisher Gallery and Masons Screen. Interviewer: Robbie Handcock.

Sandy Gibbs speaks to Thomasin Sleigh about a new body of work made over six years in response to the 1968 Olympics, a project made between Aotearoa, Mexico and Germany which used failure as a generative process. She discusses older women taking the space, critiquing the idea of competition in sport and art, and using restaging as a video art methodology.

In this pod Artspace Aotearoa director Remco de Blaaij discusses his final curatorial project at the gallery, Ex-post, a follow up to his 2017 exhibition Ex-ante. Looking back on Artspace's past 5 years he reflects on the impact of shifting the institution to street level premises, opening a cinema, and the need for future Arts leadership to embrace indigenous perspectives. Hosted by Mark Williams...

“We've needed our artists this year  more than ever, to fall into other ways of seeing reality" - Nigel Borell What was 2021? Host Robbie Handcock discusses the year that was with guests Abby Cunnane, Sophie Davis and Nigel Borell. The panel discuss memorable exhibitions, the power of a publication, bodily vibrations, discovering the South Island, best moving image works and new discoveries. With...

Artists Moving Image in the pandemic era; a glut of compromise or new horizons for exhibition and accessibility? Three curators and arts professionals discuss a shift from showing in small towns, major cities and institutions to the online space, and what the future might bring. Hosted by Thomasin Sleigh with Tendai Mutambu (former curator for Berwick Fim and Media Arts Festival, UK), Serena Bentl...

In this edition of CIRCUIT Cast host Thomasin Sleigh meets artists Yona Lee, Amy Howden-Chapman and Gavin Hipkins. The advent of the pandemic has seen a rush of material going online. While this has created opportunities for artists and audiences, all sculptural conditions for the moving image are now flattened by the browser and computer speakers. How do we feel about these new conditions for exh...

“People who are trying to oppress you hate the fact you’re having an awesome time” - Christopher Ulutupu In this pod host Robbie Handcock speaks to artist Christopher Ulutupu about his production process, which draws on the visual sheen of commercial film-making, but takes a sharp turn to embrace improvisiation, and collaboration with friends and family. Chris discusses “what queerness is for me…”...

“ .. it was really important to go for the silent woman” – Stephanie Beth In this podcast Thomasin Sleigh meets pioneering feminist film-maker Stephanie Beth and artist Emma Fitts to discuss two documentaries made by Stephanie in 1977/80 which sought to portray women’s lives and potential. Beth discusses her remarkable journey from a fine arts undergraduate asked to make a film, to self-organising...

In this pod Thomasin Sleigh speaks to Steve Carr and Christian Lamont about Fading to the Sky at Auckland's Te Uru Gallery, an exhibition that began as a response to Carr's mothers passing, and through a collaboration with his former student Lamont, evolved into a deeper narrative of loss.

“I can only speak from my aspiration of how I want to see the world and the art institution that I want to be involved in” - Nigel Borrell What is the past, the present moment and potential futures for Māori within the art gallery? Three curators discuss; listen to Nigel Borrell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea, former curator Māori at Auckland Art Gallery, Puawai Cairns (N...

In this podcast Moya Lawson speaks to Xi Li and Connor Fitzgerald, two emerging artists working in digital space via avatars, text and interactivity. The artists discuss the capability of the avatar to host a range of intentions and possibilities, moving beyond the constraints of physical embodiment. Xi Li is an artist based in Auckland whose work explores philosophical frameworks through mediums...

In the third part of our podcast series Popular Glory: Contemporary Queerness and the Moving Image, host Robbie Handcock speaks to Neihana Gordon-Stables and Daniel John Corbett Sanders. On this pod they discuss using humour to offset the media focus on queer tragedy; queer generational disconnect as seen through the evolution of cruising practices and sex-oriented networks; plus the complexities...

“I was thinking about what you think is knowledge, what you find out through machinery, and what you find out through attending to things that you see” - In this episode our Mana Moana Resident Israel Randell talks to Alex Monteith about her new CIRCUIT cinema commission Deep Ocean Currents, premiering 6.30pm Friday 23 October at Pataka.

"I identified with the lion... I liked the idea of killing the King" In this podcast Israel Randell talks to Rangituhia Hollis about his CIRCUIT Artist Cinema Commission Across the face of the Moon (2020) premiering at Pataka 6.30pm Friday 23 October. Listen to Rangituhia discuss his iterative practice, Japanese cinema and the battle to find a place "to live our lives”. All this plus a new anagram...

"What's good for Māori is good for everyone" - Qiane Matata-Sipu How do Māori and Pākeha relate to, and value whenua? What are their differing values and how do they intersect? What is the connection between generosity and Tino Rangitiratanga? In this conversation artists Martin Awa Clarke Langdon (Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Whāwhākia, Ngāti Hikairo, Kāi Tahu), Rebecca Hobbs and Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te W...

In the second part of our podcast series Popular Glory: Contemporary Queerness and the Moving Image, host Robbie Handcock speaks to Laura Duffy and Aliyah Winter about recent collaborations, and how to image queer lives. The pod begins with Winter and Duffy discussing the process of working with queer youth to create an exhibition for Te Uru Gallery. Duffy talks about her recent collaboration with...

Revisiting HADHAD - Part 3: The schism of Liberalism In Part 3 of this conversation Sean Grattan and Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió discuss HADHAD as a virus analogous to Covid 19, “something that allows for change” and Sean’s forthcoming project about the contradictions of liberalism. Part 1: Shooting the film, Horror as genre (26:07 mins) Part 2: Language, Technology and Totalitarianism (26:57 mins)...

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...

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 Introduc...

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...

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 s...

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 d...

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...

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 A...

"(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 ne...