________________________________________________________________________________ Travel Report: From China to New Zealand. Or: „So, you must know Vera Yu?" Observations made in Hong Kong, Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland, 16 September - 1 October 2000 by Inke Arns [This text will soon be online at http://www.v2.nl/~arns/HK+NZ including some photos taken in HK and NZ] [Note: I was invited by the Goethe-Institute Wellington to give a series of lectures on current media art projects in Germany. Between 16 September and 1 October 2000 I gave two different lectures in Hong Kong, Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland. The first lecture focused on „Net art in the 1990s and some recent video art productions", and the second one dealt with „Artists appropriating corporate identities, working with the notions of the machinic / the machine, and networks and artists groups in Germany and Europe (including some information about the most important festivals and events in Europe)". I used visual material from the following two publications: „Media Art Interaction. The 1980s and 1990s in Germany", ed. by Rudolf Frieling and Dieter Daniels, prod. by Goethe-Institute and Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, 2000 [book and CD-ROM] and „update 2.0. Current media art from Germany", Goethe-Institute and Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, 2000 [catalogue]. Both of these publications can be obtained directly from the Goethe- Institute in Munich ] What follows are my personal impressions. Hong Kong 17 September 2000, 6 p.m. After having left Frankfurt/Germany yesterday, 16 September 2000 at 2 p.m. (I actually left Berlin at 6 a.m.), we arrive in Hong Kong on time after approximately 10 hours of flight. The flight was OK; I had expected it to be much worse. 7:05 a.m., touchdown at Hong Kong’s new airport Chek Lap Kok. It is built on an artificial island. Yes, an artificial island, created next to the Lantau island. Well, where the airport is now there used to be a small island with a monastery. For building the airport there was a need to „re-claim" land, and so, I guess, they must have piled up tons and tons of stones and earth on top of that small island with the monastery .... I take the Airport Express to Hong Kong Central and then a taxi to the hotel. Interestingly, I do not feel tired at all. The Goethe Institute has reserved a hotel room for me in one of the high rising hotels in Wanchai where I arrive at 8:30 a.m. Floor Number 13, Room number 13. I say to the room boy: Oh, that’s my lucky number, hey? He smiles at me, hesitatingly. In the hotelroom I feel really tired and get a nap. Two hours after, at noon, I leave the hotel; there is so much to be seen. Also, the clouds have cleared up a little bit. When I look at the city, especially the living quarters which are actually crammed 40-floor high rise buildings, from the train, or from my hotel window on the 13th floor, I see Blade Runner city in its purest form out there. Or, maybe, this is William Gibson city. I walk through Central District, downtown Hong Kong. There are all these famous buildings, e.g. Foster’s Hong Kong Bank and Pei’s Bank of China. There’s a multiplicity of traffic layers superimposed on top of each other. Lanes for buses, trams, cars, pedestrians (!). Pedestrians even have their own bridges. The famous building by Foster is closed (it is Sunday). But there are thousands and thousands of Phillipine women sitting on the "floor" of, or below, the building. They are also everywhere else in downtown Hong Kong. It is incredibly loud. They have pickniques together, prepare some BBQ, chat, meet, whatever. On the next day I am told that they are there because it is their only day off. Philippine women seem to be cheap labour forces here in Hong Kong. As I see later, in a book shop, one of them wrote a book about how they started to fight for their rights. My first overall impression of Hong Kong is that there is no public space. Everything looks like Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. OK, there are some public spaces, but very few. Most of the seemingly public spaces are in fact corporate spaces. A gloomy future, because, indeed, Hong Kong is the future. It seems. I discuss this later with Vera Yu from the Goethe-Institute. She partly agrees, but only partly. For sure there is much corporate space, but people also use that space (and they are allowed to do so) and make it their own space, temporarily, of course. Like these Phillipine women I saw on the streets of downtown Hong Kong on Sunday. Nobody chased them away. The city even blocked a street for them to allow activities on that very street. Sunday. The air is incredibly hot and damp. Like the tropical house in the Berlin Zoo. Over 30 degrees. And there’s at least 99% humidity in the air. Actually, the problem is not so much the high temperature and the humidity, but rather the air conditioning systems at work everywhere. I was told to always carry a scarf and a pullover with me, just in case I enter a bus, or a building. Sunday. I decide to get some fresh air and walk to the peak tram station near St. John’s Cathedral. The church is amazing in two ways: With its Victorian style it is completely alien to its surroundings (or should I say the surroundings which are much younger don’t fit to that old fashioned Church style?). Second, inside where one would expect big candelabers there are incountable ventilators hanging from the ceiling, rotating at an incredible speed. It seems almost as if the ceiling is about to be lifted from earth (this reminds me of the Tadshik film "Luna Papa" which I saw recently where the crazy brother of the main actress secretly builds a ventilator- elevating roof which at the end of the film allows his sister to escape the mad village crowd). The eight minute ride with the peak tram ends just below, or near, the Victoria peak which is situated 552 meters above sea level. The view down on downtown Hong Kong, or, more precisely, the Central District, Western District, Wanchai and Causeway Bay, all located on the Hong Kong Island itself, is simply stunning. You can see Kowloon on the other side of the harbour as well, but it is not the same. The high rises on this side look like needles, like giant asparagus sticking in the air. The noisy city retreats, as you can hear it only very remotely. The city and its urban sound background is down there. A distant groaning. I turn around and, behind the inevitable shopping center and the amusement hall I see lots of green. The steep mountain is covered by a forest, and what a forest. There are all kinds of exotic plants (well, exotic for me ;). I decide to walk around the peak. For many Hong Kong citizens this walk around the peak which gives you that stunning view of 360 degrees down on the city while being within nature seems to be one of the favourite Sunday afternoon activities (still, there are less people than in the inevitable shopping center mentioned before. I am quite happy about that). The walk around the peak takes me 90 minutes. It is longer than I had expected it to be, and my feet start hurting. Once I am back at the tram station I decide to get some lunch / dinner. A small Sate and a water cost 150 HK$ (= 50 DM, or 25 US$). This is complete madness. Later that afternoon I take the old Hong Kong Island tram to the Western District, an old shopping district. Hong Kong’s biggest markets are located here. There are also small streets which do not run parallel to the mountain, but which climb the mountain in a very steep way, almost like a ladder (Ladder Street). Here are Hong Kong’s „antique" shops. I think you could find any kind of antiques here. Because, in fact, in Hong Kong even the authentic looking „antiques" are fake. No shortages. Take giant buddha heads, for example. Unfortunately I was a bit late, it was about 6 p.m., and most of the shops were already closed. The old Hong Kong double decker tram on the island – and it is really old – dates back to the beginning of the century. One ride costs 2 HK$, i.e. approx. 80 Pfennig. Hong Kong, 18 September 2000, midnight The morning newspaper reports about a missing autistic boy. The 15 year old Man-hong, who is said to have the mental age of two, disappeared three weeks ago after being separated from his mother at the Kowloon Yau Ma Tei MTR (subway) station on August 24 and was later spotted in Shenzhen which is the border town to "mainland" China. As it seems you can easily get lost in this city. The hotel serves "Continental" breakfast (two croissants, tea, butter, jam, chemical juice) for incredible 88 HK$ (tip excluded). Almost 30 DM, or 15 US$. Madness again. If, at least, there would be plenty of it, the price would be OK. Except that chemical juice. But two croissants .... that was to be the last time I had breakfast down in that restaurant. In the morning I phone Ms. Yu from the Goethe-Institute which is in walking distance from my hotel. It is about 11 a.m. when I arrive there. From their offices on the 14th floor in the building of the Hong Kong Arts Center they have an incredible view: the entire harbour of Hong Kong. The name Hong Kong originated from Aberdeen’s old Chinese name Heung Gong Tsai, Small scented Harbour. This is what Chinese people call Aberdeen still today; Aberdeen being situated on the southern side of Hong Kong island. Heung Gong, which later became Hong Kong, simply means Scented Harbour. At the Goethe-Institute I am told that everything I requested is set up for my presentation. I say hello to Mr. Keil, the new director of the Goethe-Institute in Hong Kong. Then we go into the small screening room. It appears that things aren’t really working that well. There’s no Internet. And the projector does not really project the correct image. I go off to check my e- mail, first in the library, then one floor down into the conference room of the Goethe-Institute which now temporarily is housing the organizing crew of the Festival of Vision Hong Kong - Berlin which is scheduled to take place in November in Hong Kong. I meet one of the festival coordinators, Howard Chan. He promises to come to my lecture tomorrow. Then I run accross Danielle de Picciotto, a fashion designer from Berlin. We are both amazed. About ten years ago I had written an article about her, in the German daily Taz. She’s the curator and at the same time one of the artists of the VJ/club events of the festival. As I understand, she will bring Lillevän from Rechenzentrum, Pole, etc. to Hong Kong in November. She was at the last mikro.lounge to listen to Zeitblom. She really liked it. But she didn’t really know about mikro or the lounges. We exchange addresses, and she promises to put me on the guest list for some event of hers on 2 October in Maria am Ostbahnhof. If I am not too jet-lagged. After all, I will fly directly from Auckland via Hong Kong to Frankfurt, arriving there on 1 October at 6 a.m. By now it is 2:45 p.m. and I decide to go back to the lecturing room. Things get mixed up; first, the new computer has an Internet connection, but its CD-ROM drive is too slow for the Media Art Interaction CD-ROM. The other computer is fast enough, but does not display the projection image correctly and cannot be hooked to the local area network. The usual stuff. Finally, after some hours we manage to adjust everything correctly, and at seven I finally leave the Goethe-Institute. I have some more plans for tonight. Famous Night Market! I take the subway to Kowloon, Yau Ma Tei station. Then I walk back through the really amazing Night Market in Temple Street. At the Tin Hau Temple, at the corner of Market Street and Woodsung Street, professional fortune tellers have set up their stands. Reading the future from the hand costs 100 HK$ (= 30 DM, or 15US$). There are also Chinese Opera singers performing at the street corner Market/Nathan Road. Back through Temple Street. Thousands of stands, offering kitsch, false brand name products, anything one could wish for. It is very crowded. I buy an alarm clock for 19 HK$ and three hand- held battery-driven mini-ventilators for 10 HK$ each. They’re transparent blue, pink, and green which reminds me of i-macs. They are, in fact, i-mac hand-held battery-driven ventilators. They are so amazingly Hong Kong. You can even hang them around your neck! Among the kitsch sellers, there are a variety of food stands selling fresh fried seafood, small octopusses, snails, meat, vegetables. The air is heavy with extraordinary scents. After the Night Market I get back to the major Nathan Road, walking down to the southern tip of Kowloon. It is one big shopping mall. Every ten meters water is dripping onto the pavement. Strange, I haven’t seen any flowers on the buildings ... Then I realize that it’s the air conditioning. The water condensates on the cold air conditioning and falls down onto the street. Nasty. My feet start hurting. It is 10 p.m. Arriving at the Kowloon Public Pier the night view onto the opposed Northern coast of Hong Kong island is amazing. It looks absolutely unreal. The high rising buildings in Western, Central District, and Wanchai are all illuminated differently. It verges on kitsch. It’s great! I do not dare to take one of the small ferry-boats which are offering their transport services at the pier as Danielle had recommended. There are quite heavy waves, and the small boats are shaking heavily. I am afraid of falling into the water. Instead, I walk to the ferry terminal and take one of the big ferries to Central Hong Kong. The ride costs 2,20 HK$ (i.e. 70 Pf. or 35 US Cents). On the other side I walk to the tram station in front of Pei’s Bank of China and get on the next tram. 2 HK$. You get onto the tram in the back, and only when you are getting off at the front door you drop your coin(s) into a special box near the driver. I drop into a seven 11. It’s 10.30 p.m. I get a cold beer, some milk, a dried noodle soup, and some pastry for breakfast. Luckily there’s a water boiler and a fridge in the room, as well as two cups and some tea bags. If I had to pay "normal" Hong Kong prices for the quantity of tea and water I am drinking I would have already spent all my money ;) Back in the hotel room I realize that I do not have a bottle opener for my 0,75 litre bottle of cold Hsing Beer. Damn! I have to take the Carlsberg can from the hotel fridge for 35 HK$ (11 DM or 5,5 US$). Will have to replace in early in the morning, before the cleaning lady comes. I never enjoyed a cold (well, cool) shower more than tonight. I have never been dirtier as after one day in Hong Kong. I have another free cup of tea in my hotel room ;). I go to bed at 2:15 a.m. The next day I go to the Bird Market, the Flower Market, and the Ladies Market, all located in Kowloon, where you can buy birds, flowers, and ... no, no, just ladies garments. My lecture takes place at 7 p.m. in the Goethe Institute’s screening room. It is packed, about 30 people I guess. I later find out that it’s all people working in the fields of video (art), film, academic media studies, artists, etc. I present work by (media) artists working with the notion of the machinic/the machine (e.g. Nicolai, Dittmer, --Innen, etc) and working with the appropriation of corporate identity (Pflumm, Lütgert), and I talk about networks and groups in Germany and Europe in the 1990s. After I finish there’s one question about the Digital City by somebody who is really fascinated by the idea of creating a virtual representation of a city on the Web (as far as I understand, this fascination is somehow connected with Hong Kong’s present political status). I exchange cards with many people who seem interested in what I talked about. Later that evening I meet multi media artist Hung Keung who is a lecturer at the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He gives me a copy of his CD-ROM „Human Being and Moving Images" (actually, 2 CD-ROMs and a website, 1997 - 2001). He’s planning to come to Germany in the beginning of next year in order to spend some time at one of the art schools. On the next day (20 September, actually my last day in HK) I meet up with Connie Lam who is the Assistant Director of the Programme Development & Marketing of the Hong Kong Arts Centre. She’s involved in the preparations for the Centre’s „digitalnow@2001". Connie’s really enthusiastic, especially about the Berlin club culture and how this is getting mixed up with arts – a topic I talked about yesterday. We discuss about a possible future cooperation for some events, e.g. workshops, bringing over some people from Berlin to Hong Kong. Connie Lam shows me videos by a group of young Hong Kong skater kids who are also involved with that whole DJ culture in HK. The videos, especially the most recent one, are great. She also gives me a copy of a CD-ROM entitled „Poor Tech. Y2K and the Millenium Butterflies" by Phil S.M.F. Louis King (concept) and Athena Cheung (programming). Then she shows me the way to the film and video department of the Hong Kong Arts Centre where I meet May Fung, the Assistant Director, and Jimmy Choi, the Director of the Film & Video Department. Jimmy Choi was the one who was asking about the Digital City after my presentation yesterday. We spend one hour discussing the impact of new media on society, and realities and utopias of so-called „virtual" communities. Jimmy will be studying in London for a while, completing his PhD degree. I continue on to the exhibition premises of the Hong Kong Arts Centre. It occupies several floors of the building. At the moment they’re showing the „Very Fun Park", an exhibition featuring contemporary art from Taiwan. In the introductory text the curators explicitely refer to the current situation in Taiwan, and compare it to the situation in Hong Kong. It is not so much about politics as it is about everyday life, commercialisation, pop phenomena, etc. I saw some really good projects. I notice that during the whole day I have been moving inside one building. From the Goethe-Institute I took the elevator down some floors to the Hong Kong Arts Centre, and from there I descend (or did I go up?) a staircase to the film and video department. The exhibition premises are located several floors below, and occupy, as described, several floors. At home, going to these various institutions means that you walk in a street (if you’re lucky they’re in the same street), and you enter one building after the other. Hong Kong, on the other side, is organized vertically, not horizontally. And Hong Kong is very proud to be a vertical city. And, I must admit, it is not such a bad solution at all. As Hong Kong could not spread horizontally, they had to grow into verticality. Like this they are using much less ground. The wild growth is not happening horizontally, like in the States, Germany or the cities in New Zealand (a phenomenon we call „Zersiedelung" in German [urban areas spreading horizontally and thus destroying nature]), but vertically. You see much less sky here, actually. Between 6 and 7 p.m. that day I meet Fion Ng together with her colleague Ellen Pau at the Central train station. Fion is the Managing Director of the media artist collective Videotage. Besides offering production distribution support Videotage also commissions web design and since 1996 organises, amongst others, the Microwave Festival which is the only international video/media art festival in Hong Kong. The fifth annual Microwave Festival will be held in January 2001 in Hong Kong. Videotage invited Tom van Vliet, the director of World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam, as guest curator for Microwave 2001. Artists' videos and CD-ROMs on the themes moving image, VS poetry, and video artists working with sound can be submitted. There seems to be no section for web-based work. With Ellen an Fion we talk about the financial and the overall situation for producing works as well as the festival in Hong Kong. As we do not have much time I promise to send them the two CD-ROMs of Media Art (Inter-)Action (19960-1990s) and the mikro documentation. I have to catch my train at 7 p.m. The plane for Auckland / New Zealand is leaving Hong Kong at about 8:45 that night, arriving in Auckland at 11 a.m. the next day. Wellington (this part written from memory, on 3 October in Berlin) I arrive in Auckland in the morning of 21 September. Immigration procedures are incredibly strict. Not so much for the humans, but much more concerning all kinds of foods and plants. There are signs everywhere that remind you to be honest and declare things that might be considered illegal (i.e. milk and diverse plant products). If you don’t, and you do actually carry illegal plants with you, then you can be fined with up to 10,000 NZ$. New Zealand seems to desperately try to keep things considered alien to its own nature out of the country. This is an understandable wish but also quite a difficult task to reach. Anyway, if you are not sure about the things you are carrying with you, just ask. I brought some pancake cookies with me from Hong Kong. As I am not sure (I mean, for sure there are eggs, plant products and milk in it, and the stuff is from Hong Kong), I ask one of the officers with a dog. He thinks about it for a second, and then tells me to ask one of the customs officers. I say, grinning: „Hey, I got some cookies with me from Hong Kong – would you like to see them?" The lady at the customs thinks about it for a minute, and then says, no, no need to. Phew. I didn’t tell them that they were filled with chocolate. I manage to get an earlier connecting flight to Wellington, where, as we are landing, the runway seems to be a little short. Michael Herd from the Goethe-Institute in Wellington is waiting for me at the airport. We drive into town and he drops me off at the Museum Hotel („Hotel de Wheels" - as it was to be demolished some years ago I guess when Te Papa was built, they put the whole building on wheels and pushed it over two streets to the current location ;). Later that afternoon I walk up to the Goethe-Institute located at Cuba Street, and together with Michael Herd we head off to attend a lecture by New Zealand’s Labour prime minister Helen Clark who is also the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage. The talk takes place at the National Library and is organized by the Friends of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Clark apparently seems to be the darling of New Zealand’s cultural scene because she enlarged the budget for culture from virtually zero (a result of the last fifteen years of National government) to something like 20 million NZ$. In a November 1999 Labour Party press release she said: "Art and culture express the heart of our nation. They play a huge role in expressing our identity as a dynamic, vibrant, innovative nation which has so much to offer the world. But under National, arts and culture have been sacrificed to the free market." And indeed, her talk about the „role of national institutions" is quite enlightening. The way she talks about culture is not very common for a politician. She’s not at all defensive about it, like „yeah culture is costly, but ..." – but rather she talks about it as a „job machine" which, once you start it, will generate more and more jobs. She makes a lot of good points which I now do not remember anymore. Anyway, it was quite impressive. Apart from this prime minister, one thing that struck me most that evening was the fact that there were no security measures being taken: nobody was searched or scanned before entering the Library where the Prime Minister would be speaking. It is like with their homes: many kiwis do not consider it necessary to lock their doors. Like at the airport: here as well, at least for the national flights, there were no security checks for people entering an airplane. Amazing. Scary. I gave my lectures at Te Papa on 22 and 23 September, at 4 p.m. in the afternoon. For both lectures there are approximately 50 people. To me it looks less because my lectures take place in the big auditorium with 200 seats. I’ve never presented on such a big screen. The museum which is correctly spelled Te Papa Tongarewa („Our Place"), New Zealand's National Museum, was opened about two years ago. Two Te Papa curators take me through the museum building on a one-hour tour. Te Papa has quite a great collection of traditional Maori culture. There are also a lot of videos where Maori people talk about their culture. This is really fascinating. I learn that „whakapapa" means family, and the same time it means genealogy and history. This is very important to Maori culture because this is the link to history and the connection to the land. Down in the museum shop I find two great books. First, there’s a great book about Maori moko (facial tattoos), published in 1999. It consists of photographs by the photographer Hans Neleman. The synopsis on amazon.com says that „in April 1997, he discovered moko, the striking facial tattoo of the Maori and was permitted to capture and present images of this sacred art. This text presents a collection of portraits, assembled as a testament to the Maori heritage and culture. The plight of the mokomokai became a significant factor in engaging Maori support for this book; the barbarous and illicit trade in preserved heads of Maori ancestors. Maori are determined to retrieve these heads and lay them to rest." The photographs show young Maori people with facial tattoos in casual leather jackets, in business suits, with dreadlocks, in all kinds of everyday clothing. The quality of these photographs is simply amazing. The photos all have that kind of quiet atmosphere. The people depicted all represent that perfect mix of casual looks and pride in their culture. There’s also that book by Queenie Rikihana Hyland, Paki Waitara - Myths and Legends of the Maori (Auckland 1998). I buy this one and read these myths and legends during the rest of the time I spend in New Zealand. When typing in the search word „Maori" Altavista finds 56,280 web pages on the Internet (some of them listed below in the link list). Te Papa is a strange mix of a traditional art and (natural) history museum (!) with all kinds of Disneyland gadgets. In the „Awesome Forces" you can experience a simulated earthquake, learn about volcanoes and the landscape. A giant reproduction of New Zealand’s founding document is to be found in the history section. Then, in the natural history section there is, among other skeletons, a Pygmy Blue Whale skeleton, and next to it you can experience the Time Warp (virtual reality motion simulator rides). The museum also exhibits Phar Lap’s skeleton (Phar Lap was a famous kiwi racing horse... whose skin is actually kept in some museum in Australia [!]). And then, there is also some contemporary New Zealand art. It’s quite a wild mixture (and I certainly ‘overdid’ it in my short description) – but still (or because of that?) the museum is a great place for families with children to go on the weekend. They just *love* it. In the morning of Saturday 23 September together with Michael Herd we set out on a short journey through the landscape around Wellington. The landscape and the coast are really beautiful. We stop at a colleague’s home near the coast, have a tea, and a walk on the sandy beach. After my second lecture in Te Papa on Saturday 23 September together with Michael Herd, Karen Lowe, Events Co-ordinator at Te Papa, and two friends of hers, Michael Prince and Shaun Scott who are both working for different Wellington media companies as web designers (Mye-Time Productions Ltd and clicksuite) we go out for dinner at some Thai restaurant. The food is brilliant, and so are the discussions. Shaun really liked Daniel Pflumm’s video. Later that evening we end up in the Liquid Bar around the corner. Shaun asks about the situation in the IT business in Germany and Berlin. He promises to come to Berlin at some point and have a look himself. I’ll show you around the city, Shaun, that offer counts! On the next morning (24 September) I fly to Christchurch. Airplane, flight from Christchurch to Auckland, 2000-09-27, 14:10 (now actually passing the canal between the South and the North island) Emma Bugden and Rosemary Forde from the Physics Room wait for me at the Christchurch airport. They have written my name on a paper sign which is barely decipherable at distance. But as they clearly are looking for somebody I approach them. It turns out that Emma has on this very day in the morning returned from a six week long trip to London and San Francisco. At night we go out for dinner, together with Jonathan and Nathan. We go to a great Thai place where you almost have to sit in the kitchen because it is so small. Delicious food. Outside, the temperature is down to two degrees Celsius above zero. There’s also a strong wind. It will stay like this for the next day as well – well, the temperature rises to about ten degrees Celsius during the day, but still. Hell, I tell you. And in the Physics Room they don’t have a real heater ... During my first night in Christchurch in a hotel room on the 22nd floor, at about 1 a.m. there’s strange and distant vibrations shaking my bed. I remember thinking that it feels like back home when the house-owner did all that renovation stuff to the house and when it was a big building site for three years. But they wouldn’t do this in Christchurch at 1 a.m., would they? In the morning I can see Mount Cook from my hotel room, and also the big glaciers located north on New Zealand’s Alps. The air is very clear and it seems as if you could see see anything at any distance. My two lectures in Christchurch on Monday 25 September and Tuesday 26 September at the Physics Room went on OK although there were some minor technical difficulties. The Physics Room where I give my talks is located on the corner of Tuam and High Street, in a former post office building. It is a non-profit community project which is run by Emma Bugden and Rosemary Forde. The audience that came to my lectures was not very big, approximately 15 to 20 people, many of them art, media or film students, but it was enthusiastic. On the second night they kept demanding that I repeat the videos I showed during my first lecture, not only because during that lecture the screening quality was not very good, but also because some apparently really liked what they’d seen. The absolute favourite was Björn Melhus’ "No Sunhine" (1997, 6’). It was shown about four times in Christchurch. Also, the tape by Herwig Weiser ("Entrée", 1999, 9’) was repeatedly shown. "At night when all the malls are closed" by Konrad Welz (1997, 11’) left everybody (including me) deeply impressed. I had never seen it on a large screen actually. The video is made to look like a stream of images taken from a surveillance camera searching for something in a nightly city. It is a very quiet piece. We later discuss about artists addressing the theme of surveillance systems. After the talk on 26 September a group of about ten people went to a Lounge to have a few drinks and listen to a really brilliant DJ. Nathan, who was been studying film at the Christchurch Film School and who has now enrolled into a commercial media/television education, tells me about his plans to direct a short film. The script sounds quite brilliant, and while he tells me I almost feel like seeing the movie. Nathan is also an artist working in the field of installation. He recently exhibited in the High Street Project, an independent project space that’s been running for the last seven years, and promised to send me some documentation on his work. The High Street Project runs two exhibitions every month, i.e. there are openings every two weeks. Their main goal is to promote young artists who just finished art school. Emma Bugden and I go there earlier on Tuesday, prior to my lecture. There’s the exhibition opening of „Cold Eyes, Hot Lead". It’s a great exhibition featuring recent works by the artist Jared Lane. „Cold Eyes, Hot Lead" is done in the style of action comics (he calls it „comics.war.art"), telling the story of a Maori New Zealander who fights in Vietnam with US Troops (on show until 7 October 2000; 130 Hereford St Chch). While we are having „farewell drinks" in that very Lounge I talk to an artist from Christchurch who is deeply into earthquake recordings. She’s been hanging around with all these earthquake scientists, and is highly interested in all that Tesla resonance stuff. Hey, I think to myself, this is just GREAT. I always thought that it was an exclusively boyish thing to be interested in and would have never thought that women artists do get into that as well. She even tells me about still more women artists on the West coast of the US who are really deeply into that thing. I tell her about my experience during my first night in Christchurch in that hotel room on the 22nd floor. Oh, yeah, she says, that was an earthquake, you’re right. On Tuesday morning Emma, Rosemary and I drive to the university campus to have a look at the film school. We’re supposed to meet Bill who is the director of that department, but he has to go to the hospital unexpectedly. He later returns, and gives us quite a heroic mega fast tour through the whole department. All the three of us are fascinated by one student who prepares his final year degree, working on an animation film of a failed bank robbery. In front of the miniature animation studio are lying several dozens of painted heads of drawing-pins depicting the different phases of a mouth in movement – actually a talking human mouth. These must belong to on of the bank robbers who realizes that they somehow locked away their guns in the back of their car ;). There’s so much precision, but also so much craziness in the whole creation of such an animation work ... Back in the car we have some wild ideas about the possibility of exhibiting all the things necessary to make this animation film, all these little props, the painted miniature mouths, the sketchbook, the script, the timecode, etc ... oh, just brainstorming. Emma later suggests that we should start thinking about a possible future cooperation. I am enthusiastic about this, and during my stay in Christchurch there are two ideas for future exhibition/workshop projects coming up. I’d love to come back to New Zealand anyway, and definitely for a longer time. We drive back to downtown Christchurch at high speed, and I get into the hotel almost in time for that live telephone interview I am supposed to have with an Auckland radio station at 12:30 p.m. Yep, I *am* definitely too late, and have to call back. The interview is OK, except that the moderator makes the mistake to read the entire title of my PhD thesis (which is quite something, I myself never do this ;). The moderator also asks questions like „how can you tell, on the Internet, what net art is, and what is not?" – to which I answer that, basically, he was asking about the definition of art in general which would take a little bit too much time to answer right here and now ... Another interesting art space I discovered in Christchurch was actually a „kiosk". KIOSK is a permanent public art site for temporary exhibitions, initiated by the Oblique Trust, and is located on the corner of High and Lichfield Streets (outside Java cafe) in Christchurch. The Oblique Trust is a charitable Trust based in New Zealand, developed with the intention of coordinating public and non-institutional art projects, including site specific installation, print and audio publications, and web based projects. Trust Members are Dan Arps, Emma Bugden, Zita Joyce, Jonathan Nicol, Warren Olds, Julaine Stephenson (chair), and Adam Willetts. Zita actually gives me a ride to the airport on 27 September. I have to catch my flight to Auckland. At the airport we have some tea and share a chocolate muffin. Zita is about to finish her M.A. degree in sociology, writing about the impact of a globalised music industry on the local music scene. She’s planning to come to Europe as well. Auckland (written from memory in Berlin, 3 October 2000, 0:55 a.m.) After that first live radio interview from Christchurch I have another interview right after my arrival to Auckland on Wednesday 27 September. I meet Richard Pamatatau, the Auckland bureau chief of InfoTech, at 5 p.m. in some cafe. I enjoy talking to him. He’s mainly interested in net art. He tells me that his text should appear in either InfoTech’s sections „e- commerce" or „leisure". I say: „Interesting alternatives for net art, indeed". Unfortunately his text never made it onto the website. Perhaps it was published in the printed version. After the interview I walk around in „downtown" Auckland, Queen’s Road down to the harbour, and up again. I hear lots of Japanese and Russian as well. At night I meet all the staff and board of the Moving Image Center for dinner at some great vegan restaurant on K-Road (which is short for Karangahape Road). Here, they serve a mix of Italian, Japanese and other kinds of food. What I really liked about the kiwi way of cooking and of baking pastry is that you would get the wildest mixes, the most unsusual ingredients brought together on one plate, or in one pastry. This is not what I know from Europe, this is real kiwi style of life. That night, together with Deborah Lawler-Dormer, the director of the Moving Image Center, we continued on to another party, a farewell party, actually, of Lara Bowen and Michael Hodgson. Lara is, if I remember correctly, a web designer, and Michael is a musician and member of the Pitch Black group. They do some kind of ambient minimal techno and are quite well-known in New Zealand. Lara and Michael decided to spend the next two years in New York and also in Europe, possibly London and eventually Berlin. Many people who are leaving New Zealand temporarily will never come back. The brain drain is a huge problem for New Zealand. Well, first of all, there’s this feeling of being located „at the end of the world". When I said to people, wondering, marvelling about the fact, „hey, I’ve never travelled so far!" – they would reply dryly with „well, this is almost as far as you can get." Which is true. It is not only the self-perception, but also a hard fact. To get to any other country you have to travel really far. To Europe, it is about 20,000 km, either way round. On Thursday 28 September 2000 I give a live interview at Radio George, a community based radio station located on K- Road/Ponsonby Road at 9 a.m. Later I walk down Ponsonby Road and spend some time in a cafe, drinking coffee and tea, eating a muffin. On K-Road and Ponsonby Road there’s a great multicultural mix of all kinds of shops. No tourists, luckily. It is a relief from all these shopping malls. Not that I’ve been to a lot in the last two weeks, but still. Sitting in that cafe – it had a Russian name, Dizengoff or Dzengoff – I thought that here, Auckland is a city I could be living in. Aucklanders are complaining about the fact that there’s no center in Auckland. Oh, well. I walk down College Hill, and pass the Victoria Market located at the Victoria Park. Here, the tourist area starts. I give my last two lectures on 28 and 29 September at the auditorium of the Auckland Art Gallery. There are about 20 - 30 people in the audience each night. This is remarkably few, given the number of interviews that were done previously. In my first lecture about net art I try to reflect upon the questions that arose in earlier discussions during my trip in New Zealand. Somebody asked: Why is net art so present in Germany? I answered that it is not in Germany that net art is strong, but in Europe (with Russia and Eastern Europe playing an important role). Interestingly enough it was developed mostly by European artists, and not, as usual, by Americans. The other question that somebody had come up with earlier was: why was there no net art in New Zealand? -- I am sure there is some good net art around in NZ as well. Still, I try to develop the following scenario: During my time in New Zealand I noticed that almost everybody is on the Web: even the smallest thrift store has got its own URL („earl" as they say here). The Internet has been commercialized at a very early stage, i.e. since the late eighties or early nineties. This is a process which did not happen in Germany or even Europe until lately. For a long time the Internet has been an almost unused and empty space most companies were afraid to use. In Germany it were mainly artists and other creative people who first started to use the Internet resp. the Web and develop concepts for this medium. In the mid- nineties artists on the Internet were conceptually and technically really ahead of all the rest. This has changed by now. Although, and I have to stress that point again and again, net art is not about finding pragmatic solutions for pragmatic questions (i.e. „how can I get the furniture I want to sell on the Web?" – I was indeed asked this question in the Auckland Art gallery after my first lecture. I thought to myself: „My God, why has he been sitting through all this then?" I replied: „I think you definitely need a web designer. Don’t ask a net artist to do this for you." And I added a smiley which of course he couldn’t see ;-). On Friday, which actually is my last full day in New Zealand, Deborah and I drive out to one of the many beaches, located about 45 min. car ride out of town. The ride is amazing because the forests we are driving through look like from ancient times long gone when the dinosaurs where still around. Funny there aren’t any! There are these great giant fern trees which carry immense 2-3 m long fern-looking leaves which are unfolding slowly. There are also these huge trees that look like giant reproductions of shave-grass (Schachtelhalm). What a difference to forests in Europe. During the ride Deborah and I talk about past projects and about possible future projects. We both agree that, especially for the field of cultural exchange, it would be much more interesting to create working situations allowing for real exchange between participants than to „just" organise and curate an exhibition (although, the Moving Image Center is just moving into a new space where there also will be an exhibition space). We get some sandwiches on the way to the beach, and when we finally arrive we have to walk through some old trees, and then opens up the immense bay in front of us, with really steep and green hills forming the boundaries. We have to walk for quite some time before we actually reach the beach. The wind gets stronger. The sand is black. Volcanic black. The Pacific is blueish-back as well. There are huge waves, and on these waves, so small that you can hardly perceive them, there are small black figures on white surfboards, disappearing and re-appearing again, sometimes even surfing on a wave. We eat our sandwich (which is not so easy with that strong wind) and start walking on the immense black beach. I am deeply impressed, as I’ve never seen such a beach in my life. It is somehow pre-historic. And empty. Oh, as we are walking I suddenly see more and more people. It is not as empty as I had thought. But still. We walk back to the car, as Deborah is already late. They have to work on their house as they are in the process of selling it. We drive to her house, and she makes me listen to some of Pitch Black’s CDs, and also of „The Gathering". It’s both a minimal kind of Trance, with some techno elements. Apparently in the summertime there are great trance / techno parties with thousands of people on beaches like the one we went to, complete with visuals, lounges, and, of course, an immense dance floor on the black sand and under a dark sky which, by the early hours of the morning, is getting more and more colourfully lit by the rising sun ... I get a taxi back to downtown Auckland where I buy the new Pitch Black CD at Real Groovy Recs (Queen Street). Great stuff, actually to be heard on one of these neverending techno (dance) parties on the black sandy beach. At night I give my last talk. It is the one about groups and networks. After this lecture somebody who’s actually an architect, asks me, „but why is the networking culture in Europe so present, so strong, how come that here in new Zealand there is nothing like it?" That’s a difficult one, because it has probably to do with what I mentioned earlier: the smallness of New Zealand and the remote location. I try to find my way through, looking for an appropriate answer. There are, of course, small, alternative institutions in New Zealand which would be absolutely vital for these kinds of networks. And there are, of course, or probably, even networks. In Europe there’s a big variety of cultures and nations crammed together on a quite small continent. If I look at Berlin, and draw something like a „European" circle around it, then one is likely to find such alternative kernels in every big or medium-sized city in or outside Germany: London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris, Zuerich, Vienna, Budapest, Warsaw and Wroclaw, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm. You can do the same from almost every other point in Europe. There is per se a big variety already in place. The smaller a country is the more difficult it gets. If there’s a lot of neighbouring countries around (take, e.g., Slovenia), that’s fine, because there’s a lot of different influences reaching that small country. If not, it really becomes difficult. This is, of course, a geo-determinist (?) argumentation. You don’t need to accept that. I do think that travelling and meeting and getting to know people is the most important thing you can do to develop networks. It is, after all, networks of people. Travelling, bringing experiences back and forth, exchanging, fostering communication, building networks. Getting invited to events and then inviting people to your own event which you have conceived of in the meantime. Making people travel to the place where you live and work (agreed, NZ is really far away). But still. Projects will generate ever new projects. And thus the networks will grow. I am leaving New Zealand on the next day. It was much too short, of course. Sarah Baker of the MIC drives me to the airport. Flight back via Hong Kong and Frankfurt, then 4 hrs by train. I leave Auckland at 12 p.m. (local time) on 30 September, arriving on 1 October at 11:20 a.m. (local time) in Berlin-Zoo, after 36 hours of travel. Berlin, 4 October 2000, 12:10 p.m. I want to exchange my New Zealand Dollars into German currency in the bank. They cannot find the new 10 NZ$ banknote in their currency sample book. The woman at the counter who was already groaning because she had so much work to do (alas, who hasn’t) looked at me as if I were suspicious for trading false banknotes. I ask the clerks why they don’t have an updated version of their sample book – „but we get new versions every 6 months" – „six months? -- c’mon, it should be the easiest in the world to just issue a new sample when a country issues new banknotes, don’t you think so? I mean, this does not happen every year!" – „but it is not my fault" – „of course this is not your fault. you should complain to the management about that". Welcome back to Germany. Of course it is not their fault. ;-) I’ll use that banknote to embellish my fridge. Epilogue On Wednesday 4 October late at night, returning home from the 27th mikro.lounge on the theme of „digital data / files" by chance I meet my neighbour Katrin in the house entrance. I mention to her that I’ve been to Hong Kong and New Zealand for two weeks, and she looks at me in astonishment. I ask her, „Not bad, hey?" She says, smilingly, that she’s about to fly to Hong Kong as well. In the beginning of November. She’ll represent the Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg during the Festival of Vision Hong Kong Berlin. She asks me, „So, you must know Vera Yu?" Well, yes, I do. Another circle ... Berlin, 6 October 2000 * * * Link list Inke Arns’ lectures in HK and New Zealand soon to be found at 1) Net art in the 1990s and some recent video art productions 2) Artists who appropriate corporate identities and who work with the notions of the machinic / the machine, and networks and artists groups in Germany and Europe (including some info about the most important festivals and events in Europe) Goethe-Institut Hong Kong Festival of Vision Berlin-Hong Kong (November 2000) [nice graphical intro on this site!] seven 11, Hong Kong [wild graphics!] Hong Kong dot com Hong Kong Arts Centre [unfortunately no archive, or I haven’t found it] Hung Keung, Hong Kong Hung Keung, „Human Being and Moving Images" (2 CD-ROMs and a website, 1997 - 2001) Videotage, Hong Kong Microwave Festival, January 2001, Hong Kong Goethe-Institute Wellington Museum Hotel (Hotel de Wheels), Wellington Directory Local Websites Wellington, New Zealand Helen Clark: Cultural renaissance versus cultural vandalism. Friday, 5 November 1999, 12:45 pm. Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand's National Museum, Wellington The H.M. Ngata English-Maori, Maori-English Dictionary online Maori Culture on the Net Main Maori Site on the Net! Ko nga Pakiwaitara - the Legends index Ko nga Pakiwaitara - the Legends index: Creation (Legend) Hans Neleman (1999). Moko - Maori Tattoo. Hardcover. Edition Stemmle AG (Switzerland); ISBN: 3908161967. 98 DM / approx. 50 US$. Check www.amazon.com or www.amazon.de for more information. Queenie Rikihana Hyland. Paki Waitara. Myths and Legends of the Maori (Auckland 1998). I’m sure you can get this at any ebook shop. Mye-Time Productions Ltd, Wellington clicksuite, Wellington The Physics Room, Christchurch 209 Tuam St (second Floor), Christchurch, New Zealand KIOSK, Christchurch The Oblique Trust InfoTech Moving Image Centre, Auckland Kog Transmission (music label), Auckland - http://www.v2.nl/~arns/ ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 2000 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. post to the list: mailto:inbox@rolux.org. more information: mailto:minordomo@rolux.org, no subject line, message body: info rolux. further questions: mailto:rolux-owner@rolux.org. home: http://rolux.org/lists - archive: http://rolux.org/archive