Toshi Endo,
Terrence Handscomb, Sean Kerr, Michelle Lawrence, Amanda Newall
Push the Button is a group exhibition of recent digital and media
art produced by New Zealand artists. It is presented by The Physics
Room for the 2003 Christchurch
Arts Festival. This noisy and playfully interactive
show features works by Toshi Endo, Terrence Handscomb, Sean Kerr,
Michelle Lawrence and Amanda Newall.
Artists have used video and computer technology increasingly over
the past four decades - as technology continually changes there
is a corresponding opportunity for innovation in the arts. Using
digital video, flash animation, sound and interactive software,
the artists in this show draw equally on reality TV, music videos
and retro computer gaming technology alongside art/film history
and contemporary cultural theory.
Toshi Endo presents a projected version of his web-based animation
work Safeplaces. Working previously as a designer and creating
internet artworks in his spare time, this is the first gallery
exhibition to include the Christchurch artist, who has been acclaimed
internationally as one of our best internet artists.
Michelle Lawrence is a Christchurch VJ and video artist who works
locally as an art teacher and has exhibited / performed previously
at the McDougall, CoCA and Creation. Her work in Push the Button
plays on local reality TV show Colonial House, presenting a new
media work in a Victorian gallery setting.
Sean Kerr and Terrence Handscomb are two of the foremost practitioners
of new media and digital arts in New Zealand. Sean presents an
interactive work for Push the Button, google eyed monitors greeting
visitors to the gallery, tracking movement through a hidden camera
and spouting computerised visitor comments back to the audience.
Terrence Handscomb's pair of DVD works play back to the viewer
like a video diary, documenting mundane yet squeamish details of
life.
Amanda Newall presents two related works, Tree and Blobs Game,
both allowing the audience to enter into an exchange with the machines
and also includes a mix of physical objects with virtual worlds.
Amanda is currently completing Masters studies at Auckland University
and has exhibited frequently in the South Island.
Push the Button is kindly supported by Magnum Mac and Technology
Leasing & Computers Ltd.
The Physics Room receives annual funding from Creative New Zealand.
Reviews, Essays & Articles
A watching brief
The Press, 2003 July 30, p. C2
Duncan, Margaret.
Push the Button: Toshi Endo, Terence Handscombe, Sean Kerr, Michelle Lawrence,
Amanda Newell.
Up the Arts
Canta, #15, 2003, p.24
Roger Schulbeuys
Push the button
RDU with Cult v(a)ult presents....
The Exhibitionist: Chatting to the Curators
interview with curator Rosemary Forde (7' 51")
Originally broadcast on RDU 98.5fm
MP3 (7.3Mb) ~ Real
Audio (1.9Mb)
Push the Button
Essay by Rosemary Forde
in The Physics Room Annual 2003
ISBN: 0-9582359-7-X
Wassabi
The Package June 11, 2003
<available online via the Physics Room Archive>
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