CIRCUIT CAST

For the final episode of Ka Mua Ka Muri – Walking Backwards Into the Future host David Upton (LUX Scotland) speaks with Sandy Wakefield (NZ) and Andrew Black (UK) about using the moving image to affirm ancestral connections to land and home. They discuss one film by each artist; Sandy's Nakunaku (2020) set on Rakiura / Stewart Island and Andrew’s Dàn Fianais (2022), set on the Isle of Skye. In the face of tourism and rapid commercialisation both islands still retain a deep sense of place which is held in the songs, stories and heritage of local people. Both works stream on LUX Scotland 23 March - 5 April 2026. https://luxscotland.org.uk/programme/events/ka-mua-ka-muri-sandy-wakefield-andrew-black Image: Left: Sandy Wakefield, Nakunaku (2020). Courtesy of the artist. Right: Andrew Black, ‘Dàn Fianais’ (2022). Courtesy of the artist.

For the second episode of ‘Ka Mua Ka Muri – Walking Backwards Into the Future’ we present a conversation between Maria de Lima (UK/ Brazil) and Alex Monteith (NZ), two artists using moving image in a time of fragile ecologies as a platform for global knowledge exchange, deep time awareness and human rights. Hosted by Mark Williams. From 9-22 March 2026 we will be presenting Alex Monteith's, ‘Deepwater Currents’ (2020) alongside Maria de Lima’s ‘This Map of Affections’ (2024) on LUXScotland.org. This podcast series has been made possible with support from the British Council and their programme Connections through Culture. Image: Maria de Lima, ‘This Map of Affections’ (2024). Courtesy of the artist.

Ka Mua Ka Muri - Walking Backwards Into the Future is a thee-part podcast series that brings together artists who work with CIRCUIT and LUX Scotland. In this episode Thulani Rachia and Jamie Berry (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Porou, Ngā Puhi) discuss Thulani's obuyile (2021-ongoing) and Jamie's Hiwa-i-te-rangi (2023). Both works are based on a shared interest in dreaming, abstraction, repetition and rest as a contemporary continuum of ancestral knowledge. obuyile and Hiwa-i-te-rangi show on LUX Scotland from 23 Feb-8 March 2026. Ka Mua Ka Muri has been made possible with the support of the British Council arts fund Connections Through Culture.

Tessa Laird: Cinemal “All film is made out of hooves”. Mark Amery speaks to writer Tessa Laird about her new publication Cinemal: The Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film, and discusses the various animal qualities of cinema, like scratching and sniffing, vibrant colours, and voices. 00:00: Introduction 01.52: What is a Cinemal? On the hybrid of Cinema and Animal. Inspiration of films by Australian film-makers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill. The idea of 'a cinematic animal...(while watching a film) the human viewer may also become animal...” The subtitle 'the becoming animal of experimental film', where does that come from? Tessa discusses the book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980) by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, Tessa's resistance to reading it, discovery of the books assertion that “all art comes from the animal… when we are engaged in artistic production we are at our most animal”. Discusses our “current hyper separation from the natural world". 7.14: What is experimental film? Discusses non-narrative film, the work of Australian film-makers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill. 9.52: Meeting the Cantrills, following research into work by Nova Paul, discusses three colour separation, “the lingering of ghosts”. Seeing the Cantrill films in the original format, understanding the tactility of film. Understanding celluloid film as a dying medium, much as natural species were dying out. Mentions the Cantrills'film in new Zealand, 'Bubbling mud pools in Rotorua'. 15.29: Community of film-makers around the Cantrills from the 1960s onwards, the magazine Cantrills Fllm Notes, which included New Zealander Phil Dadson, Nam Jun Paik and others. “They were a network”. 16:40: In what way is film like animal? Discusses how celluloid includes a gelatin component. The book Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (2009), and how animal parts have furnished the rise of capitalism. “All film is made out of hooves”. “You can’t have a vegan cinema that’s made out of celluloid”. Film being full of toxic chemicals. The colour, grain and translucency of film. Question of whether the interest in film is just a nostalgic medium. “I think it’s more than that but I’m prepared to be challenged on that”. 20:15: Film being animal. Technological analogy between watching animal movement and media. Discusses the book The Squid Cinema From Hell: Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulumedia (2020) and animals as screens. Animal attributes as technology. 23:00: The sixth sense and our bodily feel for cinema, the inexplicable - spirit, energy. The human and the non-human. 25:20 The eye of the camera. 25:50: On film programme accompanying the Cinemal book launch. The work of Nova Paul, and her phyto-filmic practice, working with trees. Vegan Cinema. On Sriwhana Spong working with film, realising the specificity of the medium in her practice, film as an entity.

"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail" In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body. 00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt 1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure. 3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?" 5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After. 7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton 8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there. 9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting. 12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha -  "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency". 13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours". 15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke". 16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family. 17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself? 18:10: Social media as influence 19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024). 21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there". 22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere. 23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery. 24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome. 26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries? 26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour". 27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation. 28:58: END

“The smile goes away the longer they experience the work” - John Vea Comic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image. In this conversation, Joe meets Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-born, Ōtautahi-based artist John Vea, whose work uses humour as a device to draw viewers into deeper dialogues around Pasifika identity. Image: John Vea, Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025) (detail) List of Topics: 00:00: Introduction 01:34: What is Talanoa? John - “a holistic way of experiencing information... a learning mechansim”. 03.20: On the video work Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025)' included in the exhibition Ini Mini Mani Mou (2025) at the Christchurch Art Gallery. John describes the genesis of the work; coming from the real life experience of being mistaken for someone else. In the video, friends “narrate their experiences of these stereotypical events. “It’s funny… it’s not sort of funny”. 05.50: Was the humour in the video intentional? John - “We’re used to laughing at our trauma, which is sad cos we glaze over it... especially when we're kids”. 07:30: John on the nature of Pacific humour generally; and then on integrating it into his work. He discusses the 2019 installation If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back? shown in Sydney. Humour as a 'Trojan horse'. 10:00: On adjusting a work for different social and class contexts "If it has to be subtle... because of the community, then I'll change it up". The difficulty of reinstalling works in a new space, a new context. 12:30: The line between poetic and humorous. How does John "walk that line?" John - “It starts off quite heavy”. 14:30: Joe on the effect on him as an audience member of watching Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025). John discusses the common Pasifika experience of changing one's name to “fit in”. 16:30: On site specificity; and showing the video Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? to Christchurch audiences. 17:00: Is the current political climate influencing new work? John - “It's sad that my practice is almost relying on trauma“. 18:00: On John's recent move to Otautahi from Tāmaki Makaurau, being Pasifika in Otautahi. 20:30: John on making Tribute to American Samoa and Tonga (2009); combining sculpture and video, objects as projection surface. The story of the making of the work, and the first installation releasing salt water from the sea into the gallery. 24:00: On conceptualising the work and discarding various sculptural options during this process. 25:30: “Is it a problem if someone comes out of a work and just goes, oh, that was so funny, and then that's it?" John discusses how viewers absorb the work the more time they spend with it. 26:30: Using the body in John’s videos. On the work Finish this week off and that’s it! (2009). John - "I wanted (the audience) to just experience working for two hours... not working in terms of the physical, but... to make them sit there and engage with the work for that amount of time". 28:00: John discusses how the audiences limited attention span for the two hour work is analogous to the lack of interest in acknowledging the cost of labour on Pasifika bodies, and the poor wages for this work. 29:00 On eating below the poverty line for six weeks whilst making Finish this week off and that’s it! 30:00 Comedy as a vehicle for hard conversations. Joe - “...what's interesting is the uncomfortable laughter... is that something you purposefully go for?" 31:00 Joe - "Is it okay for people to laugh at your work?" John - "Humour is welcomed in my practice. But expect the humour to be wiped off your face once you experience the works longer."

How do moving image artists work with visual effects? In this follow up podcast to CIRCUIT Cast 123: Brett Graham, interviewer Kathryn Graham speaks to Sam Tozer from LOT23. They discuss Sam's work on Whangamārino, a six channel video by Brett included as part of his installation The Wastelands at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Sam discusses the process of working with Brett, the digital challenges of adding visual effects to documentary footage and working through ‘impossible lenses’. List of topics: 0:20 How did you first get to know Brett? Sam discusses making one of Nat Tozer’s works (Erotic Geologies (2024)) and forging a mutual connection with Brett via Gow Langsford gallery, and the inclusion of a Fred Graham sculpture in the video. 2.30: Sam describes the original documentary footage which Whangamārino is based on. 3.25: The unusual size of the six screen video installation - “11 times wider than it is high…immediately really exciting”. 4.00: What was the process of choosing not to use the original footage? 4:30: Sam discusses ‘impossible lenses’, and the difference between showing The Wastelands in Venice in 2024 versus the 2025 Auckland Art Gallery installation which features the video work Whangamārino. 6:00: How LOT23 work with artists - technologically and learning about the artists' kaupapa, looking at previous works, examining narrative and aesthetic threads in existing works - “so we’re part of a continuum” 7 :00: The technical challenges of making a work “12 times wider than it’s high” at a resolution of 11,500 pixels wide 8:25: Brief discussion of unusual screen sizes in projects with Lisa Reihana and Nat Tozer 10:00: More discussion of working at large scale, Kathryn makes anology of working on a mural and the impact of scale on the viewer 12:30 Sam discusses beginning with grass, rock and trees as "touchpoints for a scale reference” Different lens sizes with a virtual camera. The process of creating natural environments. Using NASA Lidar data, using images of the actual sites in Brett’s video. 15:00 Working with Brett - suggesting inclusion of other details, thinking about depth of field “you get to play God with it…to create something larger than life…that is hyper real”. 18:00 “There’s all sorts of Easter eggs of meaning…” Discussion of Brett’s personal references to whenua in the work. 19:30 Ends

Brett Graham's exhibition Wastelands opened at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in June 2025. Featuring a monumental sculpture of the same name that was commissioned for the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, the haunting installation is expanded to include a new multi-channel video work, titled Whangamārino (2025). Re-working footage shot by news company Aukaha of a 2024 fire in the Whangamārino wetlands, Graham's new work adds layers of animation, personal history, and an ominous soundtrack. The resulting installation addresses both the history of colonial exploitation and our contemporary ecological crisis. Over 1.2 million acres of Waikato-Tainui land were confiscated by the colonial government following the Waste Lands Act (1858), the Waikato War (1863–64), and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863), with devastating consequences for tangata whenua and te taio. In this exhibition, Graham powerfully addresses the resulting degradation of the Waikato River and its surrounding wetlands, a precious resource and taonga for his iwi. In this kōrero with Kathryn Graham, Brett discusses Wastelands, his earlier work Tai Moana Tai Tangata (2020), and presenting Wastelands at the Venice Biennale in 2024.

"If I didn't laugh, I'd cry." Comic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image. In this conversation, Joe meets Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-born, Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker Sean Grattan, whose debut feature film, Policy Wonks, explores the clash of liberal ideologies through an absurd intersection of "money, guns and yoga." Joe and Sean discuss using slogans as dialogue, working with clichés, and deprogramming problematic humour from one's own cultural upbringing.

"There is a vitality that is held in the earth." Artist Nat Tozer and CIRCUIT director Mark Williams talk archaeology, deep time and kaitiakitanga on the occasion of the Aotearoa premiere of Erotic Geologies, Tozer's most complex work to date. Nat Tozer’s Erotic Geologies (2024) is an ambitious new video project described as "a sci-fi parable that seeks knowledge from the underground." Shifting through an otherworldly landscape where rocky outcrops meet tumultuous skies, the setting of the film makes reference to post-earthquake Ōtautahi in Te Waipounamu and the Tongariro Crossing in Te Ika-a-Māui. The narrative follows protagonists Rangi and Liberté, characters inspired by both Māori mythologies surrounding the figures of Ranginui and Papatūānuku’s children, and Greek figures Deucalion and Pyrrha. Archaeology, time and kaitiakitanga are central to the work, which merges a local, contemporary narrative with deep time and mythology. While several of Tozer's earlier video works were one-person productions shot on her iPhone, Erotic Geologies marks a profound shift in production methodologies, and incorporates actors, technical collaborators, and apocalyptic animated landscapes. In this kōrero, Tozer discusses her expansive practice, reflecting on "the slippery mess of our built environment."

"I see the environment as a creative partner." — Tia Barrett Hihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a screening programme of six moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day. In this kōrero, Emma talks to artist Tia Barrett (Waitaha, Ngāti Māmoe, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Tamainupō, Ngāti Maniapoto). Emma and Tia discuss Tia's film 'He Pounamu Ko Aū' (2022). Tia explains how her practice has journeyed from a process of "healing myself … to (giving) back to the whenua."

"Whanaungatanga is this gift we have as Māori to connect and to relate" Hihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a screening programme of six moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day. In this kōrero, Emma talks to artist Sandy Wakefield (Ngapuhi, Ngāi Tahu). Emma and Sandy discuss the making of Sandy's film 'Nakunaku' (2020), a "wairua journey" to Rakiura supported by local iwi wāhine, which is included in Rematriation. Sandy also discusses her earlier works, which appropriated Disney and b-movie footage to tell Māori stories.

Hihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a new screening programme of five moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day. In this conversation, Emma talks to Rematriation's curator Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka (Ngā Puhi, Ngati Pakau and Waitaha). Tanya is CIRCUIT's inaugural Kaitiaki Kiriata, a new role that supports a Māori curator to develop moving image projects which speak through the lens of Te Ao Māori. Emma and Tanya discuss the works in Rematriation, concepts of time, the impact of growing up outside of their ancestral whenua, and Tanya's own video practice. For details on Rematriation's screening venues, see www.circuit.org.nz/rematriation For distribution/hire enquiries, please write to: [email protected]

How is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland City described outside of official city maps? Is it possible to navigate off-road, off-grid? What discrete spaces exist in the plain sight of everyday work, life and commerce? How are these activated by people, flora and fauna? In front of a live audience, artists Layne Waerea, Leala Faleseuga, Gavin Hipkins, Jae Hoon Lee, Gabriel White, and Tia Barrett discuss their video works for Wild Wild Life, a public art project commissioned by Auckland Council, curated by Mark Williams for CIRCUIT, and presented as part of the 2024 Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival. Installed at a series of site-specific locations across the inner city, the artists’ works were presented in proximity to the construction of the City Rail Network, a massive engineering project that has temporarily remapped downtown Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland as a construction site, and, when completed, will fundamentally alter its psycho-geography.

In part 3 of the series Sites of Connection Dani McIntosh speaks to artist Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Haua, Tainui/Waikato, Ngāti Waewae, Waitaha, Kai Tahu). Often juxtaposing poetic text with handheld moving images, Hana’s video work addresses the tension between industry and sacred whenua; the presence of deep time and new parenthood. 0:00 Introduction 1:00 Hana discusses her video 'I saw the mountain erupt' (2023); working with an essay by her partner Morgan Godfery; the town of Kawerau as formerly one of NZ’s wealthiest towns and now one of the poorest, and also the town as the site of Māori pūrākau. 5:54 Dani asks; Why entwine the writing with the moving image? 8:09 Dani introduces the video work A eulogy to love (2019); Dani asks why juxtapose shots of Italian actress Monica Vitti with the landscape in Aotearoa? Hana explains the video was shot in many sites including Aotearoa, Portugal and other European locations. She discusses Vitti as an image of an “hysterical woman”, and the ongoing theme in her practice of "the tension of industry versus caring for the whenua (landscape)”. 13.08 Dani asks about the line “I will not be afraid despite the fear tumbling through my body”. 15:50 Hana on how parenthood has affected their work. Se discusses 'deep time', the relationship between the human and non-human and the whakataukī 'Ka Mua, Ka Muri' (walking backwards into the future). 20:00 Hana on David Lynch’s movie Eraserhead (1977). 23:00 Hana discusses and the writing of New Zealand author Keri Hulme (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe), which was part of her work with Ke te Pai Press (with Morgan Godfery), shown in the group exhibition Matarau 24:41 Working with musician Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu) 27:24 End

"Dwelling in the void space" — a conversation between Selina Ershadi and Dani McIntosh, the second part of the CIRCUIT Cast series Sites of Connection. In this podcast, artist Selina Ershadi discusses three films: Hollywood Ave (2017), Amator (2019) and The hands also look (2020), alongside a new work in progress, The Blue Dome (forthcoming). In conversation with artist Dani McIntosh, Selina reflects on navigating personal and family histories as guided by Chantal Akerman, Maya Deren and Derek Jarman; ideas of dwelling, homemaking and displacement; oral storytelling traditions and the poetic potential of decentering the visual.

A conversation between artists James Tapsell-Kururangi and Dani McIntosh on the metaphoric and poetic potential of the moving image.

A conversation with writers Tina Makereti, Gregory Kan, and Gwynneth Porter, on the dynamic possibilities for writing to respond to art beyond the essay, chaired by Thomasin Sleigh. Recorded at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery.

How can artists in the regions discover and experiment with emergent technologies? In this pod host Mark Williams speaks to Maggie Buxton, the Director of AwhiWorld, a Northland—based creative technology studio. AwhiWorld’s latest project is Bios, an installation at Whangārei Art Museum which presents an interactive research and practice area for artists to experiment with VR, 3d projection mapping, interactive sensors, E-textiles and organic materials. Bios runs until 18 June. https://awhiworld.com/ BIOS was produced in collaboration with ThoTho and in partnership with a number of community partners. It was funded by Ministry of Culture and Heritage.

In this pod Horowhenua-based artist Leala Faelseuga speaks to Mark Williams about her new work Vessel: Dissolution | It's in the milk. Commissioned for Masons Screen, It’s in the milk reflects on "visceral motherhood", photography and memory. Leala discusses her iterative processes, what it means to exhibit personal work in public space, and inspiration gathered from the films of MD Brown and her collective 7558.

"The air was sucked out of the room". In this final podcast for 2022 we discuss the year that was with artist Judy Darragh, Gloriana Meyers (TAUTAI) and Andrew Clifford (Te Uru). As well as Judy nominating the Academy Awards as the new performance art spectacle, we discuss memorable shows, new artists, spaces, and publishing, and our hopes and dreams for 2023.

Sampling, reuse and copying have long been strategies and approaches in artistic practice and is a thread you can follow through art history. But who owns art? Should culture be under copyright? What are the limits of fair use? These questions are explored in the recent artworks exhibited at City Gallery Wellington in Josh Azzarella: Triple Feature. Picking up and expanding on these conversations, Josh and artists Bronwyn Holloway-Smith and Eugene Hansen discuss this and more. Moderated by Caitlin Lynch.

In this conversation host Mark Williams meets three artists who discuss the intersection of filmic technologies with living world of mauri, whakapapa and spiritual practice. Nova Paul's Rākau (2022) is a 16mm film of Pūriri trees. Paul created a film developer solution from foliage discarded by the trees themselves, bringing the image from negative to postive, creating a cyclical portrait of the Pūriri. Jamie Berry’s Whakapapa Algorhythms (2021) is a montage of archival home movies, recent digital animation and a constant pulsing score which was written by sequencing the artists own DNA. Jae Hoon Lee's Dark Matter (2022) continues his preoccupation with new technology as a vehicle to transform organic matter, presenting a series of pulsing coals, crystal and other mineral deposits. This conversation was recorded for the 2022 Screen Studies Association of New Zealand conference The Materiality of Screen Media.

"What are the legacies that make us who we are?" In this pod we discuss Legacies, CIRCUIT's 2022 programme of artist cinema commissions; featuring new films by Edith Amituanai, Martin Sagadin, Ukrit Sa-nguanhai, Pati Tyrell, Sriwhana Spong. CIRCUIT Curator-at-large May Adadol Ingwanaij and Thai artist Ukrit Sa-nguanhai (Todd) speak to host Mark Williams about May's curatorial process, Ukrit's film on a Cold War-era mobile cinema propaganda unit, and the other artists works in the programme.

Curator Tendai Mutambu talks to Sorawit Songsataya and Ary Jansen about their works in Otherwise-image-worlds, a group exhibition presented by CIRCUIT in partnership with Te Uru. Otherwise-image-worlds brings together five newly commissioned artworks from artists working in animation. Working against the commercial demand for spectacle and efficiency, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Juliet Carpenter, Tanu Gago, Ary Jansen and Sorawit Songsataya, all expand and reconfigure the conventions of image-making, asking what modes of interaction, imagination, attention, and refusal animation can cultivate. This conversation was recorded at Te Uru.

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 shout outs, mentions and commendations for; Bridget Reweti, Brett Graham, Sonya Lacey, Ana Iti, Ralph Hotere, Turumeke Harrington, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, Māori Moving Image, Te Uru, City Gallery Wellington, Hanihiva Rose. Abby Cunnane is Director of The Physics Room, in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Sophie Davis is a Curator at Dunedin Public Art Gallery in Ōtepoti Dunedin, Nigel Borell is an independent curator based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

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 Bentley (ACMI Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne) and Lisa Berndt (Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth).

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 exhibition and viewing? What challenges and opportunities do they represent for artists and how are they affecting practice?

“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…” and “reimagining spaces I occupied as a kid”.

“ .. 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 an 18 month screening tour of New Zealand, in which she showed the film 100 times, each screening followed by a discussion in which only women were allowed to speak. Emma Fitts responds to the work and discusses her own interest in psychodrama as a strategy for female empowerment.

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 (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāti Ranginui, and Ngāiterangi), Director Audience and Insight at Te Papa and Karl Chitham (Ngā Puhi, Te Uriroroi), Director of The Dowse Art Museum. This discussion took place at The Dowse Art Museum as part of The Dowse Speaker Series, presented by The Dowse Foundation – a series of talks which celebrate and reflect on the past 50 years of remarkable ideas at the Dowse. This talk was originally presented at the Dowse Art Museum on 10 April 2020. With thanks to the Dowse and the speakers.

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 including video, 3D animation, VR and game-design. Watch a sample of Brain Island (2019-ongoing) on CIRCUIT - https://www.circuit.org.nz/film/brain-island-sampler Connor Fitzgerald is a non-binary artist based in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington, with a multi-disciplinary practice in video, writing and installation. See Connor’s page on CIRCUIT - https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/connor-fitzgerald

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 of community building and safety. Watch Dan's work on CIRCUIT: https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/daniel-sanders See Neihana's work on CIRCUIT: https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/neihana-gordon-stables

“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 - ‘TIWID WHYD?’ Photo of Rangituhia Hollis by Raymond Sagapolutele

"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 Wai-o-hua, Waikato-Tainui) discuss art, activism and mutual wellbeing for Māori and Tauiwi. The conversation takes place in the context of recent disputes over Ihumātao, a North Island volcanic site currently the subject of dispute between land developers and mana whenua members whose families have resided in Ihumātao for many generations. To learn more about Ihumātao: S.O.U.L - Save Our Unique Landscape - https://www.protectihumatao.com/

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 Owen Connors at Blue Oyster Art Project Space entitled DUIRVIAS, and Winter discusses her research-driven processes, and subsequent performative gestures, which seek to summon and acknowledge queer histories. Image: Aliyah Winter, Rage (2020)

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) Catalogue Notes 00:00 (MS): "Is HADHAD the quintessential revolutionary figure?" 02:00 (MS): Makes analogy with HADHAD and Covid 19 - "The virus could be seen in your movie as a positive, something that allows for change...not change within the existing accepted categories but new categories, and I find that really hopeful and really exciting" 03:54 (SG): “There might be a liberal fantasy of being liberated by the other … it’s connected to the oppressive regimes of past liberalism……by fact of who I am (a white Western male) I have that with me… ". Discusses Slavoj Žižek's statement that 'the most important step to begin is a ruthless self-critique' 07:00 (MS): "The big takeaway for me from this conversation is the kind of privilege that Art offers… the privilege and joy of being able to ask questions and not resolve them" (SG): Discusses 8 years writing a script which addresses "the fundamental schism of liberalism". Describes the plot of a group of political agitators seeking to establish a utopia. Describes the films theme as " … the double sided nature of the liberal ideology….in the one hand you have market liberalism and on the other you have political liberalism… but they’re intertwined… you’re free to do what you want and live the life we choose, but you have to do it within a market economy that essentially has no community or compassion about it…at the same time you have to compete for resources" Discusses eight year script writing process “I think it could still be a relevant work because the screws are getting tightened so much now" 11:30 (MS): Do you think the pandemic has exposed the fallacy of ... the market economy? ... Is your new movie more hopeful?" 13:30 (SG) Discusses the need to resist cyncism. Discusses US/UK liberal politicians of the past 20 years (Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Thatcher / Reagan & Blair / Clinton) “Liberals in power are the ones who deserve the most scrutiny…they’re the enablers…" (MS): "One of the most amazing things about your work is how you’re able to have these Macro level concerns with politics, philosophy, language and society, and yet you’re able to bring them down to earth with characters, plot lines, music and cinemtography" 17:24 End of Part 3

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 Lynch as counterpoint - "… his movies speak to... the mask of normality in American suburbia...Your film is more about questions of technology, what is the human, and language itself?... What is the risk of accepting that our subjectivity may be be coded in technology?” 04:00 (SG): Language as the pre-eminent tool of communication, but also something hijacked by commercial interests. Notes aspirational commercial slogans ‘Be Yourself, ‘Choose Happiness’ 07:00 (MS): Language, technology and post-humanism. “What you’re saying is language tainted by ideology…in it’s various forms, technological, artistic, natural..." "It’s a deep engagement with the problem of the enlightenment and (the question of) in what way can be become masters of our condition?” (MS) Discusses HADHAD's ambiguous form "Is this thing a projection in their imagination? is this a physical manifestation of language itself? “Is it a concept, is it a metaphor or is it a different type of being?” 12:00 (SG): Describes the HADHAD as … this thing that disrupts but which is potentially creating a new thing…" He discusses evolution. 14:00 (SG) - On the enlightenment; "The idea of progress I find very confusing… establishment powers will manipulate that idea… it can be a very conservative…it can be a tool of oppression” 15:00 (MS) - Discussion on totalitarianism. (MS): "A mode of power where everyone is orientated to 1 way of being, 1 leader, 1 vision, 1 way of communicating." Discusses Frankfurt School philosophers claim that paradoxically the enlightenment had it’s last moment with the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, a rationality taken to an extreme. Discusses white supremacy and technology in 2020. “There is a branch of white supremacism - certainly in the US - which has to do with technological evolution, which poses a kind of transhumanism… in a way the movie was prescient…all these things were there in 2012 but since then have become more acute…the technological monopolies have become more acute…white supremacism has become more overt and more dominant” 18:00 (SG) Discusses the current political moment. Describes HADHAD’S arrival in the movie as “a metaphor for how the totalitarian system is untenable” and how the movies extreme rationality is counterpointed with an alterity (HADHAD). 22:47 (SG) Liberalism and Western-style democracy. "Cynicism needs to be resisted at all times…but what we’re living in fosters cynicism… what happened with World War 2, is this what rationality brings us? Is that what liberalism brings us?" 26:57 End of Part 2

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 Introduction from Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió 02:00 Background to making the work at CalArts in Los Angeles (2011/12). Shoot and location 04:36 Discussion of HADHAD’s high production values. Working on a budget with student labour whilst maintaining the film’s sense of horror and tension. Directing actors. 08:40 On the characters robotic personas. (MS) - “One of the ruses of the movie is that the characters may or may not already be Cyborgs… the tightness becomes a metaphor for the characters belief in the coming technological singularity…everything is stripped down to the bare essentials so there’s no room for human expression… technological determinism is so profound” 10:00 What is this movie about? How to describe what happens? (SG) Describes the plot and the tropes of a traditional horror movie "A group of people, they may be strangers, they’ve gone in vacation to some kind of isolated environment...normally in a horror movie there’s some kind of transgressions, the teenagers will be punished…" Discusses removing stylistic elements of horror and making the intruder “more absurd” 13:00 (MS) - Characters and dialogue. “You remove the emotion, which you could argue is the core of horror..the emotional reaction is what draws audience to this kind of movie…the emotion doesn’t disappear, it gets heightened…why did you so that and why is it so successful?” 15:30 (SG) - Influence of theatre, analytical thinking and English upbringing on the dialogue. "The challenge was using the analytical script on to some other kind of cinematic framework...The tension gets created from putting elements together that don’t work together cinematically in a conventional sense… there’s this kind of humanity that I can’t scrub out…” 18:30 (MS) - Talks about the film discarding emotion but being “saturated with emotion” 21:00 (SG) Talks about Directors, Theorists and Teachers that inpsired the work; David Lynch, James Benning, Claire Denis, Charles Gaines who "rewrote my story of art" . The need to create ”a philosophy that’s embodied”, discusses merging cinema and critical theory to understand “…who are humans, what are they doing, what is our method of living, what is the dynamic between power and subjectivity?” 26:07 End of Part 1

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 visual technique of fleeting images interrupted by black, Brown sought to evoke the nature of memory as a subjective series of affective images flickering across the mind's eye. Interviewed by Mark Williams. Watch the films on CIRCUIT: https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/m-d-brown

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 sculpture through to video and performance, their experience at the Vada Artists Residency in California, and their reference to genre film as a departure point for exploring queer identities. Leading from their work Popular Glory, which came out of the residency, we discuss how the horror movie format—with all its tensions as well as its tropes—is used in ZK’s work to examine the impact of queer coding, classic Hollywood morality and the everyday terror of navigating contemporary media. ZK has previously shown at Artspace Aotearoa, Window Gallery, play_station, and was part of CIRCUIT’s presentation at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2020.   Robbie Handcock is a Pōneke based artist and facilitator at play_station gallery. He is also co-founder of the vlog Glad We Did That with co-host and fellow artist Elisabeth Pointon.

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 discuss her video on Masons Screen. Image: Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka, Kohatu Tipua (detail) 2020. Commissioned by CIRCUIT with the support of Wellington City Council

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 brings together three artists - Judy Darragh, Ary Jansen, Lisa Reihana - to discuss the future of art after Covid 19, and a new advocacy group for artists, Arts Makers Aotearoa. Hosted by Mark Williams. http://www.artsmakersaotearoa.nz/ Lisa Reihana is a multi-disciplinary artist who represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with the large scale video installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected]. https://www.lisareihana.com Judy Darragh is an artist who uses found objects to create sculptural assemblages. She has also worked in paint and film. https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/judy-darragh Ary Jansen is an artist and musician based in Auckland. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCInGwvU7ljDFAouv7Wzm9Cg https://aryjansen.bandcamp.com/

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 Apelu Watch Darcell's video on CIRCUIT here: http://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/darcell-apelu

"(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 need to categorise, Queer Algorithms is conceived from an intersectional viewpoint where gender fluidity and identities are understood as always multifarious and in flux. Walter discusses his work in the show which includes the video 'A Virus walks into a bar' (2018).