SCANZ

SCANZ (Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand) represented several firsts: it was the first Polar/Solar Circuit event to be held in New Zealand, and the first festival of its kind in this country, bringing together 25 artists from NZ and around the world for a two week collaborative residency. SCANZ provided the context for the first [faces] meeting in New Zealand, and it was also the first time a group residency had been offered to Avatar Body Collision – our first opportunity for the four globally dispersed Colliders to actually meet and work together in the same physical space … !!!

SCANZ was also cloaked with mystery, rumour and illusion, the line between truth and fiction often fluctuating and hard to discern. Were we really hearing a recording of the extinct huia? Why was there always at least one artist struck down with a strange illness? Where was the Inglewood Internet Café? What was making the wireless network at the accommodation randomly appear and disappear? And who was the loud snorer in Room 6?

Then there were the little entanglements with the authorities. The orchestrated litany of mishaps so beautifully performed by the Colliders was more than matched by the antics of our fellow artists, who reported close encounters with security guards at the Port, forcible ejection from a local bar for insubordinate activities, frantic emails with IP lawyers and reprimands from the fire service for experimental circuit bending with a smoke alarm…

However, these exploits were not the main fare of the two week residency – the meeting of the artists and the work was what it was all about, and a very interesting mix of artists had been brought together. We filled the evenings of the first week with presentations about our work, our brains close to bursting as we struggled to remember each others’ names, let alone the many fascinating projects everyone had been involved with over the years. As well as the opportunity to meet and work with the international artists, it was a treat to reconnect with other New Zealanders and for once to have a decent length of time to hang out together and the resources to do some work. Many meetings and collaborations evolved during the residency.

An important meeting for me was with Becca Wood, an Auckland-based dancer who is experimenting with choreographing and performing over the internet; we exchanged ideas, technologies and techniques, and messed around with software and data projectors together. It was also good to have ex-pat Adam Hyde there, in the role of chief network organiser but also presenting his latest project, Floss Manuals (have you set it up for the UpStage manual yet, Adam? : ) It’s hard to name a few people without naming them all, so I invite you to visit the SCANZ web site for a full list of artists and projects. A number of the artists contributed work to an exhibition at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery at the end of the residency, and during the event numerous informal workshops were held.

The themes of SCANZ were “connection and disconnection” and “environmental response”. For Avatar Body Collision, our work mainly addressed the first theme, and our residency effectively became a two-week endurance performance on “presence and absence”. Once we had recovered from the intense disappointment of having to accept, a fortnight before the residency, that Karla and Leena were not going to have the funds to get to New Zealand and our well-made plans for our first ever physical meeting might as well be thrown out the window, we wholeheartedly implicated every available technology and everyone around us into the elaborate tale of our Near Miss. With the aid of a blog (“Trip The Light Fantastic”), email, web cams, mobile phones, UpStage, PhotoShop and a few wily conspirators, we virtually brought Karla and Leena into the SCANZ environment. There are people out there who will insist they met them in New Plymouth last July …

At the same time as maintaining our extended performance, Vicki and I engaged with other artists’ projects, worked on our new show and prepared for our presentation on the final night, at the launch of the exhibition at the Govett Brewster. We set up a shared workspace with Becca in a blacked out gallery near to N2, the SCANZ main work room, and set about exploring the new experience of working in the same physical space. Even without Karla and Leena there, it was a very unusual situation for me and Vicki to be in the same physical space – especially a space where there was a lot of other artistic activity going on around us. Sometimes I found it easier to go back to my room and communicate over email and chat, but when it came to setting up the installation and the presentation itself, it was great to have Vicki there. Cyberformance, even when you are part of a group, can be a lonely process.

The [faces] meeting was a good opportunity for a break from the work; hosted by myself and Nina Czegledy, we welcomed the new [faces] and chatted informally with wine and snacks. Another escape from SCANZ was Second Life – but while Vicki and Caro were having hysterics together, some strange bug prevented me from seeing or being visible to them – a sadly ostracising experience! More satisfactory was the Indian banquet, created by a team of artists under the direction of Sara Kolzer; shared meals are always a highlight of such gatherings.

What began as a gloriously long residency period rapidly dissolved into a collection of digital photos and selective memories, and suddenly the final weekend was upon us. The annual ADA symposium was incorporated into this weekend, although Vicki and I missed most of it while we were setting up for our presentation at the Govett Brewster that night.

Besides revealing the final climax of our Near Miss and giving an UpStage performance on the theme of presence and absence, our presentation included experimenting with the installation element of our new show. This involves a web cam feedback loop, simple enough in itself but tricky to get everything positioned correctly. As we were setting it up in the gallery, a group of children came by and needed only the slightest encouragement to play with their shadowy projected images. After the presentation, the installation was encountered by the audience as they left the auditorium, and proved to be less effective with a crowd, but still a lot of people stopped to play in it. When we reconstructed it a week later at Intimacy & Inyerface, the different environment made it into another experience altogether.

As SCANZ drew to a close, I wondered what it would have been like if Karla and Leena had really been there; how would we four have coped with the enormity of finally being together in the same space after 5 years of working remotely – at the same time as participating in an intense event such as SCANZ? It reminded me of running into Caro McCaw in Novi Sad a few years ago at the Transeuropean Picnic – the last place you’d expect a couple of kiwis to randomly meet up. We spent most of the weekend catching up with each other, which meant that we barely met any of the other artists. That might have been our experience of SCANZ, had we four collided there. Perhaps the best meeting place for the Colliders will be in a remote village, a long way from other distractions …

Some might think that’s a good description of New Plymouth, but I have to disagree. Having previously spent very little time in the Taranaki area, I discovered it to be an unexpectedly rich place. Watching the mountain come and go teasingly amongst the clouds, being honoured with one of the most meaningful powhiri I’ve ever experienced, and getting to know New Plymouth – the Govett Brewster, Real Tart, some fine cafes, the beaches, Paritutu – these were just a few of the local features that gave SCANZ that extra specialness.

As we drove south with Vicki at the wheel of the Valiant, I looked back to watch a cloud-free Taranaki gracefully shrink and disappear into the golden sunset. Thank you, Taranaki, for your generosity; and thank you Ian Clothier, Trudy Lane and the other organisers, for a most excellent SCANZ – may it be the first of many.

Helen Varley Jamieson