un-fiction

Update

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 21:38:00 +0000

Hi,

Please go to makethinkbe.com or www.awhiworld.com for Dr Maggie's latest blog posts. This blog was part of an extended research project and is now inactive.

Maori TV Interview

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 23:20:00 +0000

New Zealand's Maori Television news show Te Kaea recently ran a news item on our Te Ngira project at Papakura Marae....view it here.

Muralismo Fulbright Mission

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 01:59:00 +0000

One of the many murals in Mission District, SF

I had a fantastic trip down the 101 Highway visiting some incredibly interesting creative technology practitioners as part of my Fulbright Foundation NZ Travel Award this year.

I started in Seattle with Prof Daniel Hart who runs the University of Washington's Native Voices Documentary Programe. They have been supporting indigenous film making for a number of years and have been incredibly successful with documentaries winning awards and being screened at Sundance, the American Indian Film Festival, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art, and many other venues.

It was good to share the work we have been doing at Papakura Marae to create a locative media channel and see who this kind of technology platform could support indigenous film making both here and with the first nation peoples in the US.

I gave a talk at the 2015 Integral Theory Conference at Sonoma State University. It was interesting to hear how this methodology is being used - particularly in community settings in third world nations.

Next stop was the Community Technology Network in San Francisco who are engaging in digital capacity building across a number of different groups in the community who are traditionally under served by technology. Take a look at a recent blog post they wrote about our visit.

We finished our visit to CTN with an excursion to their collaborators, the San Francisco library. SF library have just set up a teenage space called The MiX that is filled with maker technologies and is a adult free zone. We were lucky to be let in to see the state of the art equipment and the teenagers already making full use of the space.


An installation we found on a street corner	in Mission District

Apart from official talks and visits I also had the chance to visit many different grassroots maker spaces, The Precita Eyes Muralists were a standout organisation for me - supporting a collective of muralists and graffit artists who have literally covered the Mission District in every kind of place art.

Much of this work carries strong political messages about issues of immigration, imperialism, corporatisation while at the same time being incredibly intricate and beautiful public works of art.

I also checked out SOMarts who had a maker exhibition on at the time we visited and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts where hundreds of school kids were learning theatre skills the day we visited.

These were just some of the highlights of a trip that has already proved very useful to my own practice here in South Auckland. I am eternally grateful to Fulbright NZ for making it happen.

Fulbright Travel Award

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 00:12:00 +0000

I am very grateful to have been awarded a Fulbright NZ Travel Award which allows me to travel to the United States and talk about my PhD and ongoing projects in New Zealand. A full description of my activities will be posted on my return.

Place Stories Concrete Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 00:04:00 +0000

South Auckland towns are not often described as poetic but AwhiWorld is determined to prove otherwise.

Place Stories - Concrete_Poetry which was a collaboration between AwhiWorld and AUT South's Art and Design (Graphic Design) students which took place between January and June 2015.

Over the course of two semesters students focused on Papakura as a source of inspiration for their work. They each picked a specific site (after a photo documentation visit), and carried out research and creative practice on this location.

Research was assisted by Dr Michelle Smith of Papakura Museum.

The students generated posters, publications and 3D objects that used typography as a core part of the visual language i.e. concrete poetry - poetry where there is a symbiotic relationship between word and image to convey the poem, story or lyric.

There was an exhibition of student work on the 22 June at AUT's South Campus, and a selection of the works are now being placed around Papakura in empty shops to create a circle of exchange from place to student, student to place.

Radio 101 Interview

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:39:00 +0000

Had a great Place Stories Matariki Radio interview 29 June 2015 with Radio NZ's Music 101 Show and Emma Smith.

We walked the town and showed off the talent of our wonderful artists....

Place Stories Matariki weaves together the sounds of seven different community artists and groups from the Papakura area. Each audio track is located in a Papakura space or place that needs cherishing in some way.

The audio is accessed via an app downloaded onto a GPS enabled smart device, and heard via your own headphones. This 'locative mobile technology' allows you to be immersed in a number of different realities as you walk around the town.

Waiata, spoken word, samples and synthesised tracks, and sound effects, are all part of the town-wide installation. Different genres and cultures come together to celebrate the town's diversity, and the wairua of the town at Matariki, a time when the boundaries between worlds are at their thinnest.

Place stories is available from the Google Play Store and iTunes

Participating artists:

Curator and Producer: Maggie Buxton
App Development and Visual Design: Kim Newall

Funding is kindly provided by

Additional supporters include the Audio Foundation (who have two artists participating), Papakura Art Gallery, Papakura Business Association, Auckland City Council and Papakura Local Board

and

Imersia Group who are kindly providing the technology to support the experience.

Whanake

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Fri, 01 May 2015 21:36:00 +0000

I just had an article published in the new journal 'Whanake: The Pacific Journal of Community Development'. Take a look here It discusses my work with locative mobile and is based on my PhD Research.

Augmenting Elders, Placing Stories and The Concreteness of Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 01:38:00 +0000

It has been an exciting month for me with lots of projects on the go. The big news was that my PhD was submitted for examination in February - the wait begins.

AwhiWorld is taking off and the Te Ngira project is entering another phase. More detailed information can be found on the AwhiWorld website or on my personal site but for now a summary:

In February I spoke at the UNITEC Community Development Conference on my work - hopefully I can put some links to this up soon
David Sinfield from AUT South Art and Design, and myself have begun a project with his students on Place: Concrete Poetry. Concrete Poetry is a type of practice where typography and visual elements mix together artfully. In this case sites around Papakura form the nexus for each students practice and eventual work. This is an AwhiWorld - AUT South collaboration.
Kim Newall and myself conducted an AwhiWorld workshop at Elmwood Retirement Village showing them the wonders of augmented reality. Residents turned themselves into augmented creatures and made some wandering creatures their own. More events and projects are planned this year as part of our Augmenting Elders programme.
Our youth oriented Awhi_Creatures special event at the January Accelerating Aotearoa Geek Camp was a success - we are now planning a major Awhi_Creatures related exhibition for later in the year.
The next version of the Papakura Marae app is under development in collaboration with Imersia Group - it will have clearer graphics and a more user friendly interface. More details will be provided when it launches in a few months.
Place_Stories (Matariki) gained CNZ funding. This is an AwhiWorld project that geo-locates seven sound installations around Papakura. The sounds emphasise the liminality of the time of year, the technology, the artist's concept and the spaces and places themselves

All of these projects are designed to support the spirit of place in some way - whether it be through creating magical workshops using emerging technology, through activating spaces as points of creative practice, or directly laying information into locations to be magically encountered
.

The Reemergence of AwhiWorld

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 05:32:00 +0000

AwhiWorld is back!

AwhiWorld an innovative arts, education, social and economic development project that aims to open minds, shift perspective, and generate opportunities for people (particularly young people) to creatively connect to the places where they live.

AwhiWorld is a world that sits beyond our world. From time to time it generates portals from which

magical creatures, fantastical people, odd artefacts, and amazing technologies spring forth to reveal the wonder just beyond our eyes. AwhiWorld demonstrates that the places we live in are alive with knowledge, beauty and fun.

AwhiWorld first emerged in 2008. At that time, police, artists, horticulturalists, interdimensional investigators and other individual all appeared through portals to help children in a South Auckland school see the world that existed beyond their world. You can read more about these activities here.
Six years later, AwhiWorld has grown into a large scale multi-event concept aimed at generating learning, innovation, connection and perspective shift in and around the places (digital and physical) where we live, work and play.

Our world faces tricky problems that require complex, cross-boundary solutions. AwhiWorld teaches us new ways to relate to each other and the world around us through playing in the spaces between.

In 2015 AwhiWorld is generating a series of place-based projects. AwhiWorld can be found on Twitter @awhiworld, Instagram and Facebook. From to time I will update this blog on AwhiWorld adventures.

MINA 2014 Talk

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 01:49:00 +0000

Am providing a link to my recent MINA 2014 presentation..

....see my talk from 26 mins onwards or watch the whole thing to see a great presentation by Marsha Berry on disconnection and mobility.

Big Data

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 03:14:00 +0000

Have you noticed the cameras that track you as you walk or drive around towns and cities? Thought about all the signals you send as you cross at intersections, use electricity in your house, make a call, or spend money?

This kind of 'big data' is collected on a mass scale and is being increasingly baked into the infrastructure of the places where we live.

In Chicago there is an initiative to track everything, always through a series of high tech lampposts and other sensor systems. The idea is to create a smart city - one where almost every aspect of life is tracked and turned into useful information for civic authorities and everyday people who want to know more about their day to day life.

In Christchurch the Sensing Cities initiative are making moves to be an integral part of the rebuild process - inserting sensors and code into many different aspects of the future cities infrastructure. And in my own city, Auckland, HP is developing a sophisticated system to coordinate more effective surveillance across the city.

So what does gathering this amount of data mean? If citizens are more immediately aware of how their actions and choices (such as cycling to work or taking public transport) are impacting the environment in real time (for example through displaying decreased air pollution) it's more likely changes in behaviour may result. However, not all of us feel comfortable in a world where our every action is tracked, analysed and converted into public policy or business strategy.

Most developed nations already have comprehensive sensor systems in place which have been slowly embedded into the social and physical infrastructure of towns and cities. Many systems, such as traffic control, would not run without these data collection networks. In this environment its important to maintain a degree of awareness over what information is relayed to others and what rights we have to anonymity or the right to be forgotten.

In NZ there has been some concern that tracking is occurring on a mass scale by outside intelligence agencies (i.e. NSA) but there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of how much we are tracked as we go about our day to day lives. Information is power, and with the right informations citizens can lead more informed and have many more choices available to them, but it is also important to ensure that big data is not used to exploit and manipulate rather than empower the masses.

Augmenting the Marae

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 04:36:00 +0000

The Te Ngira project uses smartphones in smart new ways to strengthen the mana of a marae and support the wairua of its community.

A dynamic learning system has been created in and around Papakura Marae that incorporates whakapapa, tikanga, and te reo, and engages the community in ways which are critical to health and well being and relevant to 21^st century Māori society.

Students at different age and achievement levels, community members, and tourists can access historical and cultural information, community members access up to date information about services on offer at the marae, and groups hiring facilities, or attending events (e.g. tangi, huihuinga) learn the kawa and tikanga of the marae and see what facilities are available.

The system, created by Imersia Group, is based on leading edge geo locative mobile technology. Through the portal of their mobile phone users access archival photos, videos of stories told by Marae founders, information about protocol and historical-cultural information linked to carvings and other taonga around the Marae.

Imersia Group have signed an MOU with the marae in an innovative indigenous-private sector partnership. The Imersia platform allows for cloud-based real time interactivity on a massive scale and powerful data processing. This will mean that multiple users can experience a variety of experiences simultaneously and imersively.

In the Marae app you either look 'through' the screen and see icons (marking story-points) floating in space ....

.....or look down into the screen and see a map of the content markers in relation to where you are in space.

The next stage of the project involves young tertiary and post tertiary Maori and Pacifica creative technology students and professionals generating animations, audio, video content based on existing material.

The vision is for the interiors of the wharenui and other learning buildings around the site to be alive with songs, stories, images and teachings. Of course, these buildings are already inspirited and alive, the technology just reveals this by 21st century tools.

We are currently submitting applications for funding this next exciting stage. I will post updates on funding and next steps on Twitter as they emerge. See @magsbx.

Aumenting Place

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 22:46:00 +0000

Marae's and cemetery's are places where the dead and the living co-exist more obviously than others in society. Both are places of knowledge exchange - with the Marae perhaps being more visible in this process than the other. But, I believe that both involve dynamic interdimensional interaction - conversations between those in this world, and those in others.

To explore these multi-dimensional notions of place I have been working on two projects one in a large public cemetery in partnership with a suburban museum, the other with an urban Marae. These projects are in addition to my continued artistic engagement with a suburban park mentioned in the last post.

My work at the Papakura Marae has involved setting up a mobile phone based geo-reality based system which allows visitors to learn of its history, understand its current role in the community, and present plans for future development and expansion. Working with Marae founders and kaumatua, stories of the site, and images from its past, present and future were laid around the location so that they can be enjoyed at the pace of the user -with different artifacts and symbols 'locating' the stories in different smartpoints around the site. This Marae is innovative, dynamic and truly representative of Te Ao HuriHuri (the evolving world).

With the Museum, the content was already gathered for a brochure-based, and face to face group educational tour. I assisted their passionate and talented Curator to turn her researched material into a mobile experience that allows visitors to the cemetery to visit different graves and hear stories of pestilence, war, disaster, triumph and heroism from Papakura's past.

In both these cases it was interesting to explore the boundary between what is sacred and profane from different cultural perspectives, and also see how the spirit and spirits of places can be engaged with in a very real, and respectful way that supports learning and engagement with a location. Of course, there are issues with commodification, and post-modern consumption, great fodder for PHD students like myself. But there are also interesting points to consider to do with how augmented reality technologies allow us to access 'other dimensional' aspects of reality in a way that we could not necessarily envisage before. The boundaries of what we understand to be reality in the 21st century are truly blurring....

'Place'

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Sun, 26 May 2013 04:06:00 +0000

Photo: Maggie Buxton

My inter-arts Matariki Exhibition: 'Place' ran from 24 to 29th June at Papakura Art Gallery, and was on-site at a local Papakura Park.

‘Place’ allowed you to engage with digital material on a monitor in a traditional gallery space, and via the screens of your mobile device (via a geo-locative interface on a website). Through these two ‘portals’ the audience accessed a multiplicity of images and sounds sampled from a suburban Papakura park.

'Place' told the story of my conversation with a location through collaboration across different disciplines, and work in different media. Collecting material involved conversations with local residents and descendants of settlers, working with scientists, hobbyists and consultation with different representatives of mana whenua. All have in some way supported through providing expertise, resources, and aroha.

The exhibition was at once an artistic engagement with a location, an educational and an opportunity for local residents to appreciate the great taonga next to which they reside.

Background

The exhibition was transdisciplinary in nature, blurring spiritual, scientific and artistic lines. The exhibition represented a strong connection with the location and deep respect for the spirit of the land.

Photo: Maggie Buxton/Papakura District Council Document

After a blessing by a representative of local iwi, and permission from Auckland City Council Parks, I worked for six months intensively gathering, conversing, meditating, and investigating the location. I was also supported by Papakura Marae during this process.

Over time, and with the assistance of key individuals, seven key points of interest were identified which form a trail around the park. These points then became the focus of intensive activities of different kinds. Microscopic, macro, timelapse, underwater and aerial images were collected with my mobile phone. (The aerial footage involved strapping my phone to a helicopter drone provided by an enthusiastic hobbyist). I also used different kinds of microphones (XLR H4N Zoom; hydrophones and a homemade contact microphone) to take layers of sound samples.

Photo: Maggie Buxton

Off-site, I gathered documents and archival material with the assistance of Papakura Museum, South Auckland Research Library, Auckland City Council Archives , Auckland Council Cultural Heritage Inventory (CHI), Archives NZ. Nancy Hawks (nee Smith), a direct descendent of the original European farmers in the area, was very kind to provide me with family photos from her personal collection. I also connected with a local Maori woman who grew up in the area and who shared a little of her childhood history with the location.

It is important to note that while I undertook research, and was told of some aspects of the earlier Maori history of the park, I felt it was important to be respectful of local iwi traditions and protocols and so did not relay stories that belonged to local iwi. I did however insert material that represented what I had been told about the interconnected history and linkages with other sites in that area to ensure the site was seen in a larger context.

Photo: Nathan Scott/Maggie Buxton

Later in the process, Nathan Scott and Professor Nikolas Kasabov from KEDRI assisted me to record my brain activity at different points in the park using Emotiv - a headset that reads your brain. Video extracts from the recordings around the points are included.

Photo: John Brooks/Maggie Buxton

I also approached Applied Sciences at AUT and asked Professor John Brooks and Dr John Robertson to assist me with scientific sampling. Dr Robertson, together with his PhD student (Joshua Thoreson) helped me gather and analyse soil samples. Dr Brooks provided microscopic images of mould, pond life, mushrooms and other items collected from points across the park.

I put all of the material together using Aftereffects, Premiere Pro, and Audacity. I then mixed the material on-site using a VJ mixing programme called Resolume and a trusty little portable table.

Photo: Maggie Buxton/Papakura District Council File

The final Gallery installation was a composition of the seven different videos mixed at each of the seven points. At the Gallery, you listened to the Park with headphones and view the mixes and layers of images on a monitor. Booklets available at the Gallery guided you to the park site where you accessed (with instructions) a website using Imersia Group Software which utilises the GPS of your mobile device. Once at that location, you then viewed the same material as in the Gallery, but also engaged more fully with the site from which it was collected, or to which it is connected.

'Place' is an ongoing exploration and relationship with the site. It was supported by a number of individuals and organisations but I wish to particularly acknowledge: Ted Ngataki; Tony Kake, Brian Joyce and Haare Williams for their support for my spirit during this process.

The exhibition occurred from 24-29 June 2013, at Papakura Art Gallery. There was an Artist Talk at the gallery Tuesday 25 June 6-7pm, and a Talk and Walk 29th June at Gallery - then on Park site.

Mobile Investigations

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:33:00 +0000

I have been using some of my new mobile devices to gather material for an exhibition occurring in June this year. The exhibition, entitled 'Place' is about revealing the hidden aspects of a location through the portal of a mobile phone, and the displaced context of a gallery. Through simultaneous presentation in a formal 'white' gallery space and on site using a geo-locative mobile application, the concept of 'place', and sense of a 'place' is explored. I will talk more about the ideas behind this exhibition, and some of the contributing groups and individuals in another post, but for now I want to provide some follow up to an earlier post about the devices I am trying out i.e. the Keeploop Microscope Attachment and the Easy Macro Lens. In quick summary, the results have been generally very good.

In regards to the Keeploop, of course, you will not get lab quality images from a 'snap on' mobile microscope however, for work outside a lab, in the field, you can get some pretty decent pictures that explore what can't easily be seen by the naked eye. Definitely worth the investment. Below images are (in order) Eucalyptus Leaf; Gum and Tree Moss.

The Easy Macro does not compete with a normal SLR Macro Lens - but again is fun to use on your phone. Below are a tiny lawn daisy and some tree lichen

The Slingshot Grip arrived and I have been using that a lot as an adapter to allow my camera to sit on a normal tripod - that means timelapse is possible on your mobile. It also makes filming video a lot easier. Have just ordered a hyrdophone which I think will provide the best way of capturing material at my location...will provide a small sample in a future post.
I think it is interesting to think about all the hidden realities that exist in our day to day lives - those that are not accessible within the limits of our senses. It feels as if we are working on 1% of the information available and expanding this to be our world.....

Augmentation and Corruption

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 05:23:00 +0000

Your phone can reveal, and record, a lot about the place in which you live. As part of my PHD project I am undertaking to record many different perspectives on a particular location but only by using my phone. So I have had fun finding and making all sorts of apps and gadgets which you can attach or download into your phone in order to find different kinds of information.

Some of you (particularly the teachers who read this regularly) may be interested in the stuff I found so am putting out this post for you....

Sound: Of course you can record sound on your phone, but if you really want to take it up a notch and record high quality sound you need to find ways to augment the internal microphone of your device. If you have an Andriod phone it is a tricky process to be honest. The external microphones that have been made specifically for smartphones are usually Apple specific devices. a Samsung devices (and some Nokia), have a jack that (mostly) takes devices built for Apple but often the accompanying app isn't available for Android. I have ordered a Tascam Microphone for my iPad, and have some different cables and adapters for my Samsung Note to see if I can connect an external microphone. Will keep you posted and put up some sounds to show the difference in quality. There are also other kinds of microphones: contact microphones record vibrations of different kinds, and hydrophones record underwater. If you want to see some really creative work done with contact microphones take a look at Bruno Zamborlin's work. You might also check out the power of recording 'place' at these sites: Wild Sanctuary and NatureSounds (although from my enquiries most of these recordings were done with professional equipment like digital records and directional microphones - not mobiles.

Visuals: If you want to take microscopic pictures you can try Keeploop. which has an actual lens rather than relying on digital enhancement as many of the downloaded apps. There are few of these being developed, mainly with medical use in mind. Some really interesting work is going on in Africa to assist local health workers to test blood for Malaria using a device developed by a team from Cellscope at Berkeley.You can get all sorts of add-on lens for your phone right up to a rig that makes it look like an actual SLR camera - check out TurtleJacket.

Easy Macro does a little lens that is quite cheap and worth looking at if you just want to do Macro shots and don't want to be limited to your phone camera's range. Other companies do telephoto, wide, macro lens combos.

If you are interested in Timelapse there are several different apps (Android or otherwise) that will help you do the job, and to ensure you have a steady camera take a look at another great Kickstarter originating product called the Slingshot, which is atripod adapter/universal grip for your phone (Joby do a similar product called GorrillaPod).

If you want to take underwater shots then maybe think about iOtte. They do a kind of skin for your phone that scares the bejebbers out of me with my expensive phone, but others may be game to try. Otherwise something like Aquapac's much bulkier version would work but maybe not give as good a picture quality (lots of outfits do these waterproof bag/pouch versions).

Other dimensional activities - of course for those of you who are interested in finding other kinds of information about a site, Mr Ghost might be just your thing. It records EMF readings (Electro Magnetic Frequencies at a location so, apparently, it can tell you if you are being secretly fried by your microwave, interfered with by your hair tongs or spied on by spirits. My name is down for one (again through Kickstarter) so will let you know the results when I have tested, along with a number of the products above.

And last and unrelated to phones but very cool for digital artists wanting to have some fun....I found a nice little programme that allows you to corrupt graphics with text. It is called the Jpeg corruption programme made by developer, Charlie Kindel. The photos on this post are made using the process. So if you want to hack into a the code of a photo and can't be bothered using long work-flows in Gimp or Paint.Net then this might be a quick way to do the work.

Ghosts of History

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:40:00 +0000

Jo Teeuwisse blurs visual histories. Her work, which has gained widespread acclaim involves merging the past with the present making it possible to time travel visually back to WWII.

Ms Teeuwisse, who is Dutch, has found a way of manipulating images so that historical events from her own country and war-torn Europe are brought to life in the present. In effect, she is engaging in a form of augmented reality albeit static rather than live material.

The images are at times disturbing, conjuring up images of ghosts and other dimensional engagement. And in effect, this is true as she creates a portal from past realities to present day.

The photos for this post are reproduced with the permission of Ms Teeuwisse. See her web and Facebook pages for more of these startling images.

Integral Mixed Realities

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 21:52:00 +0000

Just had a blog post published on the MetaIntegral/Integral Research Institute Blog...am looking forward to giving a small poster presentation at this conference this year. Take a look here to have a bit of an update and overview of my PHD research.

Naming, Reality and Hobbits

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 02:26:00 +0000

The act of naming is powerful. Language creates and reinforces culture and reality. By naming, or renaming something or someone you gain a certain power, a right to control or own, a right to shape the reality of that entity. (Cult leaders, bullies, hate groups ...they all know this and use the power of naming in a way that hurts and dis-empowers their victims).

The power of naming is one to be treated with caution and respect, which is the reason that many indigenous people take exception to the efforts of missionaries, settlers and, more recently, government geographers to chart, map and rename their places and spaces.

In small dark offices within Ministries of Lands and Departments of Settlement many a mountain, road, river and sea across the 'Empire', have been recreated and remodelled with European identities. The grid lines of settlement carved up locations into unnatural territories (ignoring traditional tribal boundaries) and in defiance of the actual topography ... and then the names of the localities were either changed or bastardized so they were pronounceable by new settlers.Tribal histories were of course generally ignored in this process - and then undermined and corrupted as these 'names' are passed off to marginalised indigenous students as the 'official' identity of a location. It should be said at this point, that in recent years there have been efforts to restore indigenous names to places and to consult with local groups before 'officially' naming localities, streets etc. However there remains a legacy of colonisation of place. So it is in this context that I read with horror today's article in Stuff.

Apparently an individual, living in NZ, has decided he would like to try and name a mountain in the southern part of our country 'Mt Tolkien' in some sort of memorial to the author of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. He bases his right to do this on the fact that the mountain is officially 'unnamed', and that his action would be in some way promoting tourism. The article goes on to note that this individual had tried to rename the Wairau river 'Anduin Reach' (again after the novels and movie).

Two things strike me here. One, this individual believes that it is reasonable to 'brand', and thereby commodify nature in order to promote Hollywood's corporate elite and generate revenue. Secondly, that this mountain is supposedly 'un-named'. By whom? I would guarantee that the local iwi (Maori tribe), very clearly have a name for this mountain and situate it within their whakapapa, and tribal histories. The fact that this name does not appear on government maps does not mean it is 'unnamed' and therefore open to random individuals submitting requests to have it become movie merchandise. "Would you like a mountain with your popcorn sir?"

We have already had NZ towns given new, ridiculous names such as 'Hobbiton', all supposedly in the name of tourism. In my opinion, this 'renaming' is another form of colonisation - this time promoted by local tourism operators, and supported by NZ Tourism, Culture and the Environment. (Am I the only person who has noticed that all of the 'good' characters in Tolkien's books and films are either short and white, or tall and white, and that the bad guys are dark, menacing and dressed in black? I somehow don't think that people of colour have a place in 'the Shires' unless they are evil!).

I am not interested in NZ twisting itself in order to generate revenue for the governments and corporates. I am not interested in having nature become a more sophisticated form of product placement. So perhaps the individual named in the article might like to rename himself: I think that 'Sauron' might be fitting.

True Stories, Scripted Realities

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Disconcerting is the best description for the exhibition I attended today at Te Tohi Gallery, Pakuranga (NZ). The Gallery is hosting an international exhibition entitled 'True Stories, Scripted Realities': five video installations playing with the themes of authenticity, truth, fiction and reality. Of them all, I found Omer Fast's work, 'The Casting', as the most startling. Two double-sided screens are suspended in the middle of the gallery space projecting on both sides. On one side, the artist is visible on one screen, with his interview subject, an Army Sergeant on the other. On the other side an is the uncanny projection of 'actors' silently, and in semi-still life, acting out the narrative elements of the interview with the soldier. In my opinion, the resulting installation is a multi-layered attack on the audiences assumptions about authentic narrative, memory and 'true accounts'.

The interview with the soldier edits together two different key events, one is his accidental murder of a civilian in a war-zone, the other is his intense and awkward encounter with a troubled self-harming woman. At any given minute the actors on the opposing screen are either creating different tableaux of interactions in a desert war, or working through male-female relationships in suburban Germany. As you watch these scenes are interspersed with images from a film-studio.

The juxtaposition of the 'real' being recreated with the 'making-of' background of a film set with actors/directors forces the viewer to listen more closely to the interview taking place on the other side. In fact, several times I had to get up and switch to see the supposedly 'authentic' interview taking place in order to reorient myself in time. I believe that when we are forced to confront our schema for making sense of the world our critical reflective capacity is strengthened. The complicated web of audio and visual narratives and layers of relationship with the story (supposedly authentic interview; scene 're-enactment', supposed footage of audition for the role or the 'making of' background shots) confront us with the barrier we face as discerning audience members when encountering 'documentary' works and the fourth wall. The real time motion of the interview juxtaposed with posed actors (not frozen as a special effect), is uncanny.

The whole installation was augmented, on a Sunday morning, by the very loud Pacifica church service occurring next door. Surreal. Perhaps looking at True Stories and Scripted Realities and how that has played out in different religious contexts was an unintended addition of the gallery.

Printing eyeballs

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Facsimile body parts disturb me, and this week I have been more disturbed that usual as the students who I work with in Colab (formerly known as AUT's Interdisciplinary Unit), have been printing eyeballs.

Using a combination of Solid Works, 3D printing machines and Arduino, they have been creating eyes that stare, blink and wink. Why? Because their final studio project is based on animatronics - that weird interdisciplinary field dedicated to creating simulacrum. In the space between real, and imaginary, lies the beasts from movies and themeparks... 21st century Frankensteinian creations that are cute when representative of the imaginary (dragons and aliens), but disturbing when the come close to replicating the so-called real i.e. humans and animals.

Masahiro Mori (one of the theorists in this area), talks about the 'uncanny valley'. He puts forward the idea that the closer that robots become to appearing life-like or 'real', the more uncanny they are and less affinity there is with them. Robots should not duplicate nature too closely as, paradoxically, the creations become less believable and more disturbing. I wonder if this disturbance is our brain struggling to make sense of slighly un-natural movements or sensations - or perhaps there is a theological boundary that is being unconsciously crossed where we feel somehow disturbed by humans treading on the territory of our Gods. Who knows, but if you want to feel truly unnerved I suggest a few of the following videos: baby; assorted monsters; human head. Nice.

Expeditions and Experiments

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:02:00 +0000

I has been a while since my last blog but I have taken time out from my Phd to update you on my progress.
I am now half-way through doctoral process - with about a year and a half to go. I have started primary research: interviews at this point, and hope to start writing up the material over the summer.
Essentially I am now working quite deeply on the idea of a 'multiplicity of place' and relating various ideas about this to mixed reality technologies and practices. Can these practices and technologies affect place, and support the work of different place based practitioners? What are the issues involved with engaging with place in this way? The material ranges from quite practical hints and tips, through to esoteric and philosophical musings on the nature of 'place' and relationship with consciousness.
As as a supplement to this work I am engaging in expeditions to various marginal locations including Kopuatai Peat Dome (picture above) and Whatipu Reserve, and historic sites such as Te Maketu and Rangariri Pa. It is interesting in these locations to notice the mutiple (sometimes contradictory) stories that inform each place, and the hidden dimensions that are discovered through encounters with environment. These 'other' dimensions, I feel, can be highlighted through the use of certain technologies alongside a certain kind of mindfulness of approach. More writing on this in future...

a quote....

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:20:00 +0000

A quote from "Boys Life" by Robert R. McCammon (1991) that I think you'll enjoy.....

“You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theatre the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

That’s what I believe. “

Article: Augmenting Reality, Transforming Learning

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:03:00 +0000

I recently had an article published in Colab's Journal of Creative Technologies (2011) Issue 2. It explores the potential for Augmented and Alternate Reality Gaming to transform the way we learn. Comments welcome on site.

hyperRitual and the Electric Wizard

noreply@blogger.com (maggie b) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:22:00 +0000

Joshua Madara is an electric wizard who manifests technomagical artefacts and rituals by merging together archane practices and creative technologies (eg. arduino, kinect). I spoke to him today after a friend told me about his work in Seattle, and the alignments with my own philosophies and practices.

What I found interesting was his passion for cybernetics, and the creative ways in which he links these ideas with magical practice. Essentially his work marries archane with modern day technology.

Joshua has had a lifelong interest in magic but only in the last decade or so, partly inspired by the work of William Burroughs (literary figure and chaos magic practitioner), he has merged his practice with his skills in electronics and programming.

Joshua works across the spectrum from classical rituals, to small magical/techo experiments to large scale multimedia hyper ritualistic experiences but because his work is not traditional enough for many pagans, and far too esoteric for programmers, he carves out his practice in the fringes. His blog is extremely interesting and he has a couple of good articles on his site that are a good read. Take a look.