Multi-media performance a first for Scapa

By GILBERT WONG

SCAPA, Auckland - Hard to believe, but this biannual event celebrating the work of multimedia and performance artists had its 12th birthday at the weekend.

Perhaps as a sign of things to come, Interdigitate was the first performance event to be held at the newly opened School of Creative and Performing Arts, Auckland University, in Shortland St. Founded by artist and lecturer Phil Dadson, Interdigitate is now the domain of the Moving Image Centre.

Film-maker and choreographer Morag Brownlie was first up with Untampered Original. It began with unearthly chanting, fed through amplified feedback loops. Video projections behind the performers revealed fluid water imagery.

As the piece progressed, more performers appeared, dropping in slow motion via ropes from the ceiling. The video images' intent became more obvious: an assault on the dehumanising impact of genetic engineering. As a finale the performers mounted a spiralling ladder mimicking the shape of DNA. Beautiful but about as complex as a rock video.

Antarctic Heart by Virginia King came next. Her project, inspired by a visit to Antarctica, has been previewed in these pages. Sculpture-based, the work features massively scaled diatoms that form the basis of life in the icy continent. She has combined these with video footage of Antarctica and recordings of Weddell seals. Her diatoms, carved from macrocarpa, fluoresced in the pitch darkness of the performance space, floating and turning in a positive statement about the tenacity of life in the extremes.

Gears crunched for the finale by the Montreal avant garde group, Battery Operated. Their works Chases through Non-place and Vecuum, created from found video and audio recordings, delighted in the banal and pounded our eardrums. They looked well-pleased, even as they left many nonplussed.