Something Out of Nothing

Giving Up the Ghost - an installation / event / residency / performance / non-event at  water damaged shop 18 within Queen Street's Strand Arcade.

 

Themes of haunting and ghosting, presence and absence, abandonment and decay were explored through unannounced live performances of movement and sonics, objects transmitting signals, dead performances, and unflattering lighting. Occasionally human collaborators were  visible and audible. Non-human collaborators bore the brunt of performative labours.

 

The idea that "the artist(s) may or may not be present at any given time" applied to the physical presence of Kristian Larsen, and his melancholic notion of the decaying relevance of that artist at that time in that location. Conceptual ambiguities and tensions of attendance and non-attendance also applied to audiences: people who responded to Facebook events but never showed. The random passers-by who looked in or ignored the shop space. The performers who never engaged directly with any onlookers. The artist's deliberate ignoring of the arts market.

Collaborators Jane Smolira, Jess Quaid, Jess Robinson, Alys Longley, Jeff Holdaway, and val smith brought practices of contemporary dance, experimental music, improvisation, visual art, and documentation into relationship with the shop space and the arcade itself which is largely ignored by Auckland central business districts dwindling population.

 

 

More sound and video artefacts will appear over time.

 

Acknowledgements to Ross Liew and Auckland City Council