Identifying the Value of the Local Through Site-Specific Contemporary Art Projects in New Zealand Author McCaw, Caroline Published 2016 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School Queensland College of Art DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/1362 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367514 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Identfying the value of the local through site-specifc contemporary art projects in New Zealand Caroline McCaw DipFA, BA, MFA, GCTLT Element: Queensland College of Art Group: Arts, Educaton and Law at Grifth University Submited in fulflment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2015 Abstract This research identfes a number of tensions arising from historic and contemporary experiences of living in New Zealand. It engages with creatve methodologies that fall within contemporary site-specifc and socially engaged felds of artstc practce to investgate these tensions. Through writng and partcipatng in three art projects set in Dunedin, New Zealand as case studies, this thesis refects on ways in which these projects contribute to understandings of a partcular experience of the local. Each case has involved specifc sites, narratves and mediated experiences. Through undertaking practce-based and practce-led research the thesis argues that these art practces are able to contribute to our understanding of the local through the connectons they make between lands, landscapes, sociality and techno-sociality. The research is predicated on an acceptance of what I have chosen to term a methodological ‘andness’: a neologism coined to highlight the connectvity between diferent types of informaton systems as they operate ecologically and in co-locaton with landscapes, local cultures, the internet and mobile communicaton. Throughout the project, metaphors pertaining to land and sea and shore are used to identfy and refect andness as it is experienced when one lives on an unstable island where boundaries are porous and movement between systems is both inevitable and fecund. Declaraton of authorship I declare that this work has not previously been submited for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or writen by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Table of contents Abstract 3 Declaraton of authorship 5 List of fgures 11 Acknowledgements 15 Chapter 1 Introducton Introducton 16 Map of Otago Harbour 23 Chapter 2 The New Zealand and Pacifc context 24 2.1 A background to this land 25 2.2 Land and people 28 2.2.1 Bicultural landscapes 29 2.2.2 Dual histories: migraton and contradicton 30 2.2.3 European arrivals 31 2.2.4 The Treaty of Waitangi 32 2.3 Landscapes, art practces and diference 34 2.3.1 Landscape traditons in European art 34 2.3.2 As far as the eye can see 37 2.3.3 Irresolvable contradictons 40 2.4 Distance and nearness 45 2.4.1 Horizons that we carry about 45 2.4.2 The naton state 46 2.4.3 Antpodes as a trope of distance 49 2.4.4 Alternatves to distance 50 2.5 Media, mobility and technosociality 53 2.5.1 Spatality, media and co-presence 53 2.5.2 Spatality and sociality 56 2.5.3 Technosociality 64 2.6 Requiring andness 68 2.7 Return to our shaky islands 70 2.7.1 Research propositon 71 Chapter 3 Theoretcal felds: Frameworks and strategies for andness 72 3.1 Technologies of looking 73 3.1.1 The beach 73 3.1.2 Looking at landscapes 76 3.1.3 Politcal locatons 80 3.1.4 The beach as metaphor 88 3.2 Locaton, co-locaton and heterotopia 90 3.2.1 Coastal wetlands 90 3.2.2 Heterotopia, urban contexts and practces 91 3.2.3 Contemporary heterotopia, urban spaces 94 3.2.4 Coastal wetlands as heterotopia 100 3.3 Networks, ecologies and assemblages 101 3.3.1 Estuaries 101 3.3.2 Relatons, shared values 102 3.3.3 Networks 104 3.3.4 Media ecologies 108 3.3.5 Assemblages 113 3.3.6 The Toitū stream as a useful meetng point 114 3.4 Looking forward, looking back 115 3.4.1 The research context 115 3.4.2 Frameworks and practces 116 Chapter 4 Fields of practce, proposing the local 120 4.1 Site-specifc art 122 4.1.1 From the gallery into public space 122 4.1.2 An expansive relatonship to site 123 4.1.3 Intertextual and transitve experiences of site 124 4.1.4 A shif from space to place 126 4.1.5 Documentaton, image and experience 127 4.2 Socially engaged art practces 128 4.2.1 Expanded audiences, dialogic practces 129 4.2.2 Past practces, histories and connectons 130 4.2.3 Community and its conversatons 131 4.3 New media and locatve media art practces 135 4.3.1 New media art - histories and practces 135 4.3.2 Locatve media - abstract and grounded 139 4.4 Connectng themes, relevant theories and useful gaps 141 4.4.1 Site 141 4.4.2 Distance 142 4.4.3 Engagement 142 4.4.4 Useful gaps and additonal questons, a summary 143 Chapter 5 Research Methods 144 5.1 Research objectves 145 5.1.1 Development of objectves 146 5.2 Research design 146 5.2.1 Collaboratve, creatve and expanded feldwork 146 5.2.2 Practce-based and practce-led conversatons 147 5.2.3 Identfying case studies 150 5.2.4 Planning, collectng, documentng, refectng 152 5.2.5 Collaboratve re-placing, partcipaton and ethical consideratons 153 5.3 Situatng myself 155 5.4 The following case studies 157 Chapter 6 Case Study 1: One Day Sculpture Dunedin 158 6.1 Background to the project 159 6.2 Connectons to research themes 160 6.3 The project’s development 164 6.4 The journey 165 6.5 The site 167 6.6 The artworks 169 6.7 The island experience 173 6.8 Analysis and discussion 176 Chapter 7 Case Study 2: Rachael Rakena’s Haka Peepshow 182 7.1 Background to the project 183 7.2 Connectons to the research themes 185 7.3 Rugby, haka and New Zealand identty 187 7.4 The journey and my involvement 191 7.5 The project’s development 192 7.6 The artwork – project launch 203 7.7 The Dunedin mediated experience 204 7.8 Analysis and discussion 207 Chapter 8 Case Study 3: Awash 215 8.1 Background to the project 216 8.2 Connectons to the research themes 217 8.3 Background to this practce 219 8.4 The artwork experience 220 8.5 Analysis and discussion 223 8.6 Social and relatonal art: more than meets the eye 226 8.7 Extending a community of practce 230 8.8.1 The God Partcle 230 8.8.2 The Central City Minigolf Challenge 232 8.8.3 Common Ground 236 8.8.4 Deveron Arts 237 8.8.5 Sean Starowitz, Byproduct: the laundromat 239 8.8.6 A local dialect? 241 Chapter 9 Results and evaluaton 242 9.1 Visualizing technologies 244 9.2 Art and technosocial engagement 245 9.3 Seeking andness 247 9.4 At the edge – drawn together 248 Bibliography 250 Glossary 264 List of fgures Figure 1 Visitors of One Day Sculpture Dunedin, Quarantne Island, Otago Harbour 2008 (photograph Mark Currie). Figure 2 Tame It (performer) and Rachael Rakena (artst) at the flming of Haka Peepshow, 2011 (photograph Justn Spiers). Figure 3 Audience members using their cell phones to augment the performance of a wave, Awash, Port Chalmers 2012, (photograph Caroline McCaw). Figure 4 Map of Otago Harbour showing the sites of the three case studies, (graphic by Martn Kean). Figure 5 A map of the ocean foor surrounding New Zealand shows a very large roughly triangular contnent known as Zealandia. The protruding islands known as New Zealand form around one twenteth of the total of this mainly submerged landmass. Retrieved from GNS New Zealand government research insttute website 4 August 2013 www.gns. cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Landforms/Ocean-Underworld/Creatng-Zealandia Figure 6 Sea cadets row to Quarantne Island, Kamau Taurua where the forest meets the sea, (photograph Charlote Parallel). Figure 7 Rat eatng birds eggs, (photograph C14255: copyright Nga Manu images). Retrieved from: www.ngamanu.co.nz Figure 8 Pastoral farming, (photograph courtesy of David J. Lowe), retrieved from www.sci.waikato.ac.nzdin. Figure 9 Railway Staton and Law Courts are examples of Renaissance revival architecture in central Dunedin, (photograph Wikimedia Commons). Retreived from htps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Dunedin_Railway_Staton. Figure 10 Charles Heaphy, Mt Egmont from the southward. [September 1840]. Ref: C-025-008. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Retreived from htp://natlib.govt.nz/records/23173901. Figure 11 The cover of a recently published book that celebrates Otago landscapes through the art and writng of three New Zealanders: Grahame Sydney, Brian Turner and Owen Marshall. Timeless Land (photograph Longacre Press, 2010). Figure 12 Screenshot from Tourism New Zealand’s homepage htp://www.newzealand.com/int/. Retrieved 30 September 2013. Figure 13 Lisa Reihana, Hinepukohurangi, 2001 from Digital Marae series (2001–), cibachrome photograph mounted on aluminium, 200 x 100 cm, collecton Queensland Art Gallery, Retrieved from: htp://www.artsforall.ca/index.php/AFA/new_artcle/close_ encounters_internatonal_exhibton_of_indigenous_contemporary_art/. Figure 14 Kirsten Parkinson (née Kemp) E KORE E WAREWARE, thread, light. Exhibited at Kā Honoka – Kai Tahu Alumni Exhibiton exhibiton, Dunedin School of Art Gallery, September 10 – 26, 2013, (photograph courtesy of Simon Kaan).