One of my aims of 2010 is to have other people pay for my travel, and so last Friday I found myself in Auckland for 24 hours for an intensive mix of 60 seconds of audio (aka a commercial) and then some free time in a city I love.
And my ulterior motive for being in Auckland, apart from catching up with dear friends for a BBQ and a few drinks, was the knowledge of an exhibition of a few of Len Lyes works at the Gus Fisher Gallery which is now a part of Auckland University & is housed in a building which anyone with some local knowledge will instantly recognise as the old Shortland Street TVNZ studios, an iconic building I’ve visited many times before…
So we wandered in there after lunch on Saturday & after a look around discovered we had timed our visit to coincide with a lecture by experimental filmmaker & lecturer Miriam Harris, who was obviously very interested in relating Len Lyes work to the crossroads of poetry & motion graphics… And fascinating as it was (and I must seek out some of the brilliant examples/references she played) I kept thinking about the sculpture in the lobby… And how while this lecture was going on it would be deserted…. So I quietly got up & wandered off, to ask permission to shoot some photos of it… Usually if there is a no-photo policy it is writ large & I hadn’t seen any signs, so I meekly asked & was given permission…. And set about shooting the following….
While I didn’t have a sound recording kit on me, this particular sculpture was actually very quiet, but the light from the dome window overhead was totally exquisite…. And Auckland being Auckland, the light varied intensely over the five minutes it took me to rotate slowly around the sculpture, shooting as I moved…. So after stabilising the shots as much as I could be bothered in Photoshop, what you see is what I saw… And I sincerely hope the soundtrack I made is not offensive to Lens spirit….
If you live in Auckland, you have until Feb 13th to go and experience the exhibition for yourself and while it is a relatively small scale exhibition compared with what I have seen & heard at the Govett Brewster Gallery in New Plymouth, it is still a very beautiful experience that should not be missed.
ps don’t you love that vimeo happily allows me to make & publish a video in such completely a non-standard aspect ratio! I don’t care how wide-screen your big TV is, its not going to do justice to that little film! Methink youtube is a variation on crappy mass media television, whereas vimeo is far more open minded & creative…
