ARTS UPDATE

10 May 2019

News

UC Arts at the Arts Centre On Tuesday night we held our May presentation of ‘An Evening With’. This month we were delighted to have Dr. Rosie Ibbotson speaking on ‘Image of the environment: Art, visual respresentation, and ecological violence in the long nineteenth century’. Rosie delivered an interesting presentation touching on visual culture in colonial New Zealand. The audience asked probing questions and a thought-provoking discussion followed.

English

Aotearoa New Zealand Studies Seminar ‘Always blow on the ghost pie’: the curious case of the New Zealand Police’s

Wellington Paranormal road safety videos Dr. Erin Harrington

In late 2018, the New Zealand Police released a series of road safety videos featuring speed demons, UFOs, a zombie with seatbelt problems and a spectral drink driver who just wants to eat his ghost pie in peace. The videos are helmed by fictional characters, Officers Minogue and O’Leary, the good-natured, barely-competent stars of Wellington Paranormal (2018-), a mockumentary series that spun off from the vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows (2014). It is not unheard of for law enforcement agencies to use fictional characters in their communications. However, the NZ Police’s appropriation of these explicitly parodic characters in both promotional and recruitment material is highly unusual, especially as the show’s characters are presented as a bunch of well-meaning idiots. This is complicated by the way that that Wellington Paranormal itself offers a pitch-perfect deconstruction of the way that officially-sanctioned factual series (and recruitment tools) such as Police Ten 7 use stereotypically ‘Kiwi’ deadpan humour, litotes and bathos for narrative and ideological purposes. The multiple registers of mockumentary thus leave open a playful, transgressive space for satirical commentary that, I argue, is not neutralised by the characters’ co-option. This includes an implicit critique of the extensive range of NZ reality series that promote a law and order agenda – especially in Wellington Paranormal episodes that reference poor domestic violence response rates, institutional racism, and instances of police brutality. This talk will thus explore some of the complex relationships that emerge when popular culture, law enforcement agencies, and spectators collide at the slippery intersections of irony, parody, and form.

Soci-Psyc 210, Tuesday May 14, 12—1pm All Welcome!

Media & Communication

Philosophy

Jack Copeland's and Dustin Parry's photographic reconstruction "The Tunny Machine" will be displayed in London from July 2019 to February 2020 by invitation of the Science Museum, as part of the museum's Top Secret exhibition about the history of signals intelligence.

School of Fine Arts Image from Ciaran Begley’s exhibition opening ‘Dirty Entanglement’, show runs till 31 May.

School of Music

Head of School, Associate Professor Glenda Keam, has been elected President of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) in Tallinn, Estonia this week. She is the first female president in the organization's 97-year history, and the first New Zealander! Congratulations Glenda! School of Music Professor Mark Menzies has just returned from an intense series of performances in the United States. Three solo programmes in Sacramento in early April had Menzies play the Bach Six solos for violin, and the premiere of a new duo with electronics written for him by Adam Borecki, who also performed guitar and electronics in a concert held at Cosumnes River College, where Menzies also performed his own compositions with composition and theory professor there, Derek Keller. Also featured on this programme was Reuben de Lautour’s solo violin composition Detritus – de Lautour is UC’s Head of New Music and composition professor. A few weeks later, professor Menzies joined the wasteLAnd ensemble, and their conductor Nicholas Deyoe in a week-long residency at UC Santa Cruz, where 6 new compositions for new music ensemble were workshopped and premiered at the conclusion of the residency. A review of the wasteLAnd performances can be found here.

Menzies was then the featured artist at Claremont College (in Lost Angeles) for a recital on April 28th that included him playing both violin and piano; his duo partner for the recital, Claremont’s piano professor Gayle Blankenburg, gave the world premiere of his commissioned piano piece Papa: descents for John Psathas. Professor Menzies is a member of the Los Angeles-based Formalist Quartet, a string quartet specialising in music from the baroque and previous, as well as contemporary music. The quartet performed the final concert on May 4th in this season’s wasteLAnd series performing the string quartets by Katherine Young, the renowned US composer. Menzies also gave performance workshops and masterclasses at UC Santa Cruz, and the California Institute of the Arts, where he was professor of music before joining the department here at UC.

On Monday night Head of New Music Reuben de Lautour presented landmark compositions of octophonic (eight-channel) electronic music. It was an enjoyable listening experience and we were delighted to see some new faces in the audience.

The first High School Highlights concert for 2019 was held on Wednesday night, featuring students of Rangi Ruru Girls’ School. It was an eclectic programme and a great opportunity for the students to use the facilities in town, with a UC music student as MC. Teece Museum The Greek Pots and Pieces Painting Night: Friday 24 May 2019 from 6.30pm The Teece Museum and UC Classoc present the Greek Pots and Pieces Painting Night - where art and classics collide! The ancient Greeks sure knew a thing or two about painting vases. Want to try your hand at painting a pot, and be in to win prizes at the same time? Join us for the Greek Pots and Pieces Painting night, be inspired by the amazing ceramics on display in the Teece Museum, and put your creative talents to the test. You don’t have to be the next Andy Warhol (or Berlin Painter for that matter) to take part – just come ready to give it a go, enjoy light refreshments and good company, and get to take home your very own potted Greek masterpiece. $6 general public, free for current Classoc members. Registrations for this event are now open - use the link https://www.eventbrite.com/e/greek-pots-and-pieces-painting-night-tickets-61185147423 For more information about upcoming Music events visit our Music events page. Art History and Theory

Megan Wakefield

China in Australasia: cultural diplomacy and the Chinese arts since the Cold war, edited by, James Beattie (Victoria), Richard Bullen and Maria Galikowski (Waikato), has been published by Routledge in its ‘Modern History of Asia’ series. It includes an introduction by the editors, and a chapter by Richard and James on the formation of the Rewi Alley Collection at Canterbury Museum. The book is a result of the symposium held at UC in 2016 on Chinese art and cultural diplomacy, convened by Richard and James, and funded by their Marsden grant.

National Centre for Research on Europe (NCRE) NCRE Student Completes ASEF Internship – Prime Ministers Scholarship in Asia

MEURO Student Megan Wakefield recently finished her internship at the Asia Europe Foundation in Singapore, which she started in October 2018. During her time in Singapore Megan helped with the 18th Informal ASEM Seminar on Human Rights that took place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia from 5-8 November 2018. She prepared an opening speech for the Deputy Executive Director of ASEF, created the seminar information booklet, edited and formatted the background report, and helped with logistical issues on site.

Megan’s comments on her experience: “In addition to thanking the amazing Political and Economic Department here at ASEF I also owe a huge thank you to the National Centre for Research on Europe (NCRE) at the University of Canterbury for providing me with this wonderful opportunity. I'm so grateful to have been able to embark on this internship and I encourage others to explore the many opportunities provided each year by the NCRE, you will not regret it! NEWS AND EVENTS http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/arts/arts-news/

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