Digital stories are first person narratives enhanced by visual imagery and personal voiceover. The
two digital stories exhibited here were produced in 3-day digital storytelling workshops as part of
two separate research projects facilitated by Digital Storytelling Aotearoa, a partnership of Elaine
Bliss and Sasha McLaren, in collaboration with the Mediarena Research Centre. ‘Pam’s Story’
(aproximately 3 minutes) tells about her emerging independence, and honors her family. Her story
is part of a research initiative between Interactionz, an organization that works alongside people
with disabilities to achieve autonomy, and Digital Storytelling Aotearoa. The second story (approximately 5 minutes), ‘Beach Paradise; a dream come true’ was created by Fungai Mhlanga. Fungai and
his family immigrated to New Zealand from Zimbabwe in 2006 and his story was created as part
of ‘For the Record: the Mediation of Immigrant Experiences and Identity through Visual Media’, a
research project coordinated by Dr Alastair Swale, in conjunction with Digital Storytelling Aotearoa
and the Mediarena Research Centre.
ARTZELECTRO
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Staff of the Academy of Performing Arts, Brad Thomson, Dave Lowndes, Grant Sherson, Lizzie Dobson, Jeremy
Mayall, Kim Johnson
Event Material Coordinating: Claire Timpany (Computer Graphic Design), Sean Castle & Lisa Perrott (Screen
and Media), Terri Crawford (School of Maori and Pacific Development), Karen Barbour (Dance), Ian Whalley
(Music), Elaine Bliss (Geography, Tourism and Environmental Planning)
CGRD143 photography class - students were challenged to show one of
the elements of design through a photographic image.
Front cover image: Emma Martin
Back cover image: Dairne O’Sullivan
FRIDAY 1 OCTOBER 2010 7.30PM
GALLAGHER CONCERT CHAMBER
WEL ACADEMY OF PERFORMING ARTS
ARTZELECTRO
Computer Graphic Design
ArtzElectro focuses on creative works that combine different electronic media, and works that combine electronic media with visual arts and/or real-time performance. This second concert presents
a selection of recent works by University staff and students from Music, Screen and Media, Computer Graphic Design, Dance, Geography and Tourism, German and the School of Maori and Pacific
Development.
I Am (2010) by Scott Alonzo
The introduction of the new Bachelor of Media and Creative Technologies degree this year is enhancing further dialogue and combined research outputs between the creative and performing arts on
campus. ArtzElectro aims to encourage and showcase this emerging interdisciplinary collaboration.
The intention of ArtzElectro is to build an event that draws on local, national and international
contributions. Going forward, the aim is to combine in real-time the real space of our campus facilities with online spaces, virtual or real, accessed through the internet. Recent international artistic
partnerships through the high-speed internet research network are now making this possible.
Ian Whalley, Director
PROGRAMME
Music
The Juniper Passion (2010) by Michael Williams
Tarryn Viggiano - flute
Felicity Hanlon - oboe
Jeremy Mayall - tympani
Lara Hall - violin 1
Sebastian Lowe - viola
Julia Booth - soprano
Michael Petrus - tenor
David Griffiths - baritone
12.00
Ying-Te Liu - clarinet
Rupert D’Cruze - trombone
Katherine Austin - piano
Emily Campbell - violin 2
James Tennant - cello
Chase Douglas - tenor
Jarvis Dams - baritone
4 short extracts from the forthcoming multimedia work:
• Prologue from the opening sequence
• Adaptation of a section of Dante’s Inferno
• Joe relates his death
• Soldiers relate their experiences on the battlefield
The Juniper Passion is a large scale multi-media work set during WWII at the battle of Montecassino.
This battle was one of the most fierce and protracted sieges in the war and New Zealand soldiers
played an important role in defeating the German army, thereby breaking through the Gustav line
and freeing the road to Rome. I have refrained from calling this work an opera and although it could
be presented in operatic form, there are a number of other possibilities in disseminating it which do
not fit into a traditional opera mould which are being explored as part of the developmental process.
The entire work will be amplified and the sounds digitally processed in various ways through Ableton
Live. A number of pre-recorded samples and loops will be played at strategic points throughout
the work. Sean Castle from Screen and Media has developed the screen images and our goal is to
interact with these through specialised software. Screen software will be triggered by movement as
1.19
Type-in-motion piece based on the poem of John Clare (c.1800) designed and animated by as part of
the CGRD242-10B class. The type-in-motion assignment challenges students to give visual form to a
piece of poetry, story or legend, using visual cues derived from the author, the work and the context
in which it was written. Students are encouraged to apply skills in layout, animation and typography
to create a work that is visually sympathetic to both the message of the poem and the poet. The assignment work results in a process book detailing the experiment process, and the digital movie file.
Selection of Maya Animations
Scott Avery BSc (2010)
Gerrit Haas BCGD (2010)
Jason Huang BCGD (2009)
Sian Insull BCGD (2009)
Maruf Morshed BCGD (2009)
Stephen Sherman BCGD (2009)
Eli Thomas 2010 (2009)
0.34
0.17
0.53
0.08
0.42
0.08
0.27
An introduction to 3-D Animation and modelling using “Autodesk Maya” is available to students as
a module in several second year papers. Students spend three weeks working through guided exercises and then three weeks on a project of their own design. The exercises introduce the students to
modelling through the use of polygons, nurbs and cv rotations; along with the use of basic texturing.
Animation is by keyframing, ep curves, and simple dynamics. Students are encouraged to extend their
knowledge of tool and techniques through self research for their projects.
Chris Williams and Kira Poole:
1.30
With changes in society, graphic designers can no longer rely solely on intuition in the design process,
particularly if they work in the growing area of social design. This honours project explores the importance of participatory design in social graphic communication. A series of three advertisements were
created as part of a cross-media campaign to promote awareness of youth depression, and motivate
those affected to seek help. The TV advertisements used the appeal of motion graphics to the target
group to provide the focus of the campaign. Supporting these were a series of visually coordinated
posters, stencilled graffiti tags, a brochure and a website. Colour, texture, typography and images were
identified as most reflecting the experiences of the target group.
Kerrin Meek:
0.30
Idents created for a fictional television station in CGRD343 called ‘Ag tv’: A television channel
promoting New Zealand farming. It broadcasts a variety of farming shows that are educational
and entertaining for farmers and non-farmers alike. The channel brings a modern feel to farming,
giving it a whole new look to go hand-in-hand with the wide variety of new technologies and farming
practices.
Geography and Screen and Media Studies
Digital Storytelling (2010) by Elaine Bliss and Sasha McLaren
8.00
Digital storytelling is a new media form that was developed originally in relation to performance art,
social justice and activism. Meanings about the world are made through storytelling and by using
contemporary media devices. Digital storytelling pays homage to this ancient craft.
In this edited version of Changing Aspects, the camera begins from an early morning scene set in
an arboretum just west of Hamilton. Manipulating light, frame rate, colour, adding special effects
and actors, we try to create a vastly different space, far removed from the ‘natural world’ we see
before filming began. The purpose of this exercise was not only to create visual meaning, but also
create an emotional atmosphere around that visual space, which is enhanced by the sounds. The
musical elements are a reaction to the imagery on the screen. Live sound manipulation by Jeremy
Mayall on turntables, samplers and effects. Video elements provided by Ben Woollen of “Chasing
Time Productions”.
For Morehu Te Whare (2009) by Ian Whalley
6:44
This short work is in memory of Morehu Te Whare, a collaborator in a project that drew on environmental and cultural influences that centred on the Ruakuri (Den of Dogs) Cave in Waitomo, New
Zealand. The two short samples of Maori music instruments (Taonga Puoro), the putorino iti (flute)
and the ku (mouth bow) heard in the opening, are played by Richard Nunns ©. Apart from a short
water sample taken from the cave, the majority of the material is then electroacoustically derived
and developed, reflecting aspects of the past and present.
Syneme Summer (2010) by Ian Whalley and Ken Fields
6.18
This was a technical experiment as much as a work. It combines dance, video, sound and poetry in
real-time over the high-speed international research networks. Participants from Calgary (Canada),
Hong Kong, Beijing (China) Bournemouth (UK), Hamilton (New Zealand) and Indiana (USA) contributed material in an interactive way to make a work in real-time from their physical locations,
the results broadcast through internet TV. Poetry is read by a number of people around the world,
from text condensed into 85 letters, making it difficult to read. Video patches are streamed in to
the Calgary Lab, including motion capture from Hong Kong. The soundtrack is made through input
from RecursionNet (UK, Calgary, NZ), an Erhu from Canada, and eight soundscape channels with
two Max/MSP patches from NZ. Waikato controlled the soundscape and effects manipulation from
our studios in IBlock on campus. Artistic/Research work is continuing, with the next work being an
online composition (Whalley) for the Acousmatica festival in Beijing in October, involving player/
participants from Waikato, Calgary and Beijing.
Dance
Liminal (2010) by Karen Barbour
5:00
This short digital dance represents some of the ‘findings’ from my recent creative practice as
research project called ‘Dance Site’. In this research I aimed to explore how digital dance making
could be re-conceptualized from a dancer’s perspective, rather than from a film-maker’s perspective.
The focus was to construct a ‘site’ for performing and shooting improvisational dance and to create
a digital dance using my own choreographic, compositional and aesthetic strategies, rather than
relying on those of a director, script writer, camera and post-production crew. In editing the dance,
I was interested in liminal imagery and liminal performative states. When considering liminal digital
images, Sarah Rubidge suggests that the “Neurological mechanisms that allow us the experience a
sense of corporeal empathy when we view even non-representational art, offers some kind of explanation for the liminal sensations that we experience when we view non-representational imagery
that is grounded in human motion” (Rubudge, 2009, p. 6). On this basis, I began working with Sasha
McLaren to explore how non-representational liminal images, such as the reflections of my dancing body on the floor, might be used within this work. Liminal was shown as part of my conference
presentation ‘Dance site: Re-conceptualizing digital dance’, presented to the Dancing across the
Disciplines Symposium, 28-30 June 2010 held at The University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
This Cracked Shell (2010) visual and score by Hannah Gilmour
4.40
In July 2009 I attended the Sound and Music Computing Conference held in Porto, Portugal, where
one of my music compositions was played. I realised through the conference and the country itself
how often I had run from my desire to create. It was not until a few weeks ago in reflecting and
recording my journey that I have become aware of how much of an answer to prayer the whole trip
was. I experienced freedom as I had never experienced it and it has changed the way I live my life.
Yet it came with an incredible cost and my future is now very uncertain. I live each day with the hope
that there is a God and he knows what he is doing. The text used is from poems I wrote and the Bible,
with the film created using VTrack, and audio composed on ProTools LE and Ableton Live.
Tending Shadows (2010) by Jenny Spark
5.00
Performers: Scott Hall & Diantha Hillenbrand
A setting of three sonnets by William Shakespeare, for actor and singer, this piece juxtaposes speech
and song in an interactive multimedia context. Sonnet 43: on dreaming of the beloved. The actor and
singer are linked by a single musical pitch which resonates with the actor’s voice and which the singer
harmonises (perhaps this could be thought of as the dream-link between poet and absent beloved).
The pattern of the actor’s speech and pitch of the singer’s voice modulate aspects of the visual image
in real-time. Sonnet 53: on the shadows and images of beauty, set for singer alone. Sonnet 73: on decay and death. The singer joins the actor for certain words of the poem, the melody generated in realtime via a Max/MSP algorithm. An electronic effect steadily degrades her voice, echoing the theme.
After Dürer (2007) by Martin Lodge and Daniel Belton
7.00
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is the most famous German artist of the Renaissance. Equally skilled as
a painter, printmaker and theorist, Dürer’s formidable body of creative work was underpinned by his
probing investigations into related areas of mathematics, perspective, proportion and symbolism.
One of Dürer’s most famous images is the engraving Melencolia I. Dating from 1514, this mysterious and overtly symbolical image, with is title evocative of the state of depression, has become one
of Western art’s most extensively analysed and interpreted pictures. It remains just as powerfully
intriguing today as when it was first printed five hundred years ago. The impulse to create a response
to Melencolia I originated in a long-held fascination with the engraving. The posture of the angel is
rather like that of a cellist, which led to the idea of writing a piece for solo cello. Such a response
seemed too limited, however, given the great richness of the picture’s symbolism and its implied
movement and hallucinatory perspective games. The answer, I realised eventually, was to build music for solo cello into a larger matrix of design, dance and movement. This ambition was realised by
working collaboratively with the international award winning choreographer and film-maker Daniel
Belton. The result is After Dürer.
Man on the Corner (2010) by Elizabeth Dobson, visuals by Eli Peters
Diantha Hillenbrand –soprano, Gabrielle Peake – piano
Dedicated to Barry George Bell Young (1928 -2007)
I – Preliminary, II – Epilogue
One life. One eulogy
Some truth. Some suggestions.
A rose among the drabness of our street.
8.00
Screen and Media
CRPC101-10A Creative Technologies and Creative Practice: Show Real
3.38
101 is the only first-year paper core to all majors in the BMCT degree. For their final assessment, the
students were asked to design a 3D environment using Unreal Development Kit, which conveyed a
message using trompe l’oeil or anamorphosis. The selection of works shown was completed in the
final part of the course in only 3-4 weeks. Most students had no prior exposure to 3D modelling, but
by the end of 101 their overall skill and confidence far surpassed already high expectations.
The Glimpse (2010) audio by Adam Purdy, images by Pernille Hellevik
2.30
This is a work developed in Video Production 3 based on a page from an academic text. The work
utilises phrases found in the text that trigger a suggestive image-scape through which the viewer
glimpses actions and movements and then the sound scape is utilised to attempt to give a sense of
an overall coherence. This film is an example of the potential possible when both a video production
student and a music student work as a team to create an evocative non-narrative film.
Flash (2010) directed by Cameron Neate with crew from Advanced Studio Production
3.00
This projected was developed from Jim Woodring’s comic Frank and displays the potential possible
between a production crew working in the television studio and a post-production crew developing
and integrating a range of special effects. The work is suggestive and open dealing with the paranoid
mood of Woodring’s own comics and creates an atmosphere that doesn’t copy but strangely parallels
the Frank comic.
Ole the Brave (2010) by Jordan Browne, Pernille Hellivick and Josh Hills
2.57
Ole the Brave utilises the stop-motion method of animation to tell the story of a little boy who is
tormented by nightmares. Jordan, Pernille and Josh set out to explore the concept of animated space
as it relates to dream-space. These students experimented with various model-making, cinematic
and post-production techniques, developing a project that combines both handmade and digital
production methods. Their original soundscape is intended to evoke the emotions associated with
nightmares.
The Final Dream (2010) by Jordan Baker and Lara Ward
1.49
The Final Dream was constructed through the stop-motion method of cut-out animation. This project
explores key concepts associated with the study of animation, such as anthropomorphism and subversion of the laws of physiology, gravity and movement through space and time. This animation was
inspired by the universal experience of falling dreams that end with a sudden jerk awake before hitting the ground. Jordan and Lara explored the psychological reasons for these dreams, which helped
them to develop the story. They wanted the story to communicate the idea that dreams are our
subconscious copy of everyday feelings, fears and desire that are reflected in dreams
Blindsight (2010) by Shoshana Sachi
1.39
Blindsight is a gothic-thriller about human identity and relationships. Created as a way to explore the
possibility of using cinematography as a primary tool of storytelling; the elements of cinematography and composition that the film employs are deeply connected to the film’s narrative. This Hillary
Scholarship project was a collaboration between graduate students from Screen & Media, Music,
Theatre Studies and Computer Graphic Design.
Actors. Natasha Jade Pountney, Daniel Matthews, Arianne Zilberberg, Michael Gaastra.
Co-Producer/ Actor/ Art Director: Arianne Zilberberg.
Composer: Lizzie Dobson.
Special Effects: Eli Peters.
Special Thanks: Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship, Directed Study supervised by Lisa Perrott
Geography, German and Screen and Media Studies
Past Present (2010) by Norman P. Franke, Elaine Bliss and Jake Ngawaka
6.30
Past Present is a documentary film about Peter Dane, Holocaust survivor, English literature professor,
poet and organic orchardist. Peter Dane had a Jewish mother and German father. He fled Berlin just
before the start of the Second World War but was interned as an enemy alien in England and Australia. It was while he was a prisoner that he honed his English skills and developed a knowledge of
English poetry. He graduated from London University in 1952 and taught in East Africa before coming to New Zealand to be a Professor of English Literature at Auckland University. Exhibited here is a
6 1/2 minute trailer of the one hour long documentary film.
INTERVAL: Please visit installations
Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao - School of Māori and Pacific Development
Te Aka Tikanga
7.00
Hine-raukatauri
Composed in 2007 by alumni student Thomas Strickland of Ngāpuhi with musical re-arrangement
by Reti Hedley, this waiata describes the relationship of the Goddess of Music and the Kōkako.
Te Kōkako
A rendition of the song composed by the late Dr Hirini Melbourne in 1987. Te Kōkako speaks of
anti-deforestation in concern for the Great Forest of Tāne, native bird life and the future generations.
Soprano arrangement by Mere Boynton, musical arrangement by Reti Hedley.
Musicians: Kararaina Walker - soprano, Rangiiria Hedley & Toti West - taonga pūoro,
Reti Hedley - guitar
Directed by: Terri Crawford
Music
Small Change (2010) by Maggie Yue
8.00
It seems that in the current world people are obsessed money, and cannot live without it. Small
change has a much greater value than is initially perceived. While people tend to think of small
change as having very little value, not caring too much about it, this is often to save face or pretend
how wealthy one is. Small Change takes this idea and explores it sonically. It is developed from a
few sound samples of coins, and explores the relationships people have with hard currency, and the
emotions it evokes.
Changing Aspects (2010) by Jeremy Mayall
6.00
Based on a video installation by “Chasing Time Productions”. As an audience, we often take for
granted that the ‘natural world’ depicted on film is consciously and consistently manipulated by the
filmmaker to create a space for meaning and purpose.