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Imogen Taylor: Glory Hole

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Imogen Taylor Glory Hole

15 October - 22 November Preview Wednesday 15 October 6-8pm

Michael Lett is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Imogen Taylor, her third solo exhibition with the gallery. Continuing her interest in balancing between abstraction and representation, these works carry the artists signature forms and colour palette although on a much larger scale than seen before. Taylors ongoing appreciation for a camp sensibility is apparent in this show as macho gesture of proportions; in Glory Hole size does matter.

Imogen Taylors works hold an ongoing conversation with histories of painting, both internationally and locally. References to historical movements of the 20th century, such as Futurism, Dada and Cubism, filter through her work. As large, nebulous movements, they are given more particular acknowledgment through references to the work of New Zealand painters and the histories of painting in this country. Nods to Tony Fomison, Philip Clairmont and Rita Angus create a dialogue about the lineage of painting in New Zealand that may often be considered unfashionable or irrelevant in contemporary art discourse.

Taylors revelry in what is off trend and what is mannered and ostentatious is also manifest in her material choices. Combining bright and artificial colour with hessian canvases, she creates a juxtaposition of the organic and alien. This tension produces a sense of vulnerability that is humorous and awkward. Emphasising this are the human forms and suggestions of bodily functions - penetration, secretion and taction that push through her layers of abstraction. The sensuality and potential sexuality in Taylors work is light yet enthralling. Camp, says Susan Sontag, is a solvent of morality. It neutralizes moral indignation, sponsors playfulness. In Glory Hole Imogen Taylor presents a world where erotics are arousing, not for their anonymity or discretion, but rather their resolute presence.

Imogen Taylor (b. 1985, Whangarei) graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2010 and lives and works in Auckland. Recent exhibitions include Girls Abstraction, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington (group) 2014; From the Vault, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland (group) 2014; New Paintings, Michael Lett, Auckland (solo) 2013; and Blow Hole, Kalimanrawlins, Melbourne (solo) 2013.

_____________ [1] Sontag, Susan. Notes on Camp', Against Interpretation and Other Essays. London: Penguin, 1966.

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Imogen Taylor: Glory Hole

Interview: Christopher Nolan talks on his 'Interstellar' challenge and tackling final frontier post 'Dark Knight'

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After recasting the superhero genre with a dark realism in the "Dark Knight" Batman trilogy and dissecting dream manipulation in "Inception," director Christopher Nolan is tackling the final frontier.

"Interstellar," out in U.S. theaters on Friday, has taken Nolan into what he described as the furthest exploration of space in film. The movie balances an intimate father-daughter relationship within the backdrop of an intergalactic journey to save mankind.

Nolan, 44, talked to Reuters about casting Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey as his leading man, the challenges of constructing "Interstellar" and the effect of "Gravity."

Film review:Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar' is compelling but too cheesy

Q: What does Matthew McConaughey embody as Cooper?

A: He has the right stuff. Cooper, he's a pilot, and the great thing about the American iconic figure of the pilot, the Chuck Yeager, (is that) there's a little of the cowboy about him. And I think Matthew embodies that wonderful, earthy sense of an everyman who has great integrity and is extremely competent, somebody you trust to guide you through this story and take you through this journey.

Q: What was your biggest challenge in balancing an intimate family story with an intergalactic journey?

A: The biggest challenge in that respect is creating a reality on set so that the actors, who are very much the human element of that - they're the intimate, emotional element of that - so that they can actually connect with the larger scale of the film, they can see it, touch it, taste it.

So we tried to build our sets not so much like sets, more like simulators, so the actors could look out of the windows and see the real views of what would be going on there, they could experience the ship shaking and reacting as they flew it.

Q: Why did you choose to set 'Interstellar' in a future that bears close resemblance to the present world?

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Interview: Christopher Nolan talks on his 'Interstellar' challenge and tackling final frontier post 'Dark Knight'

5 Big Reasons Why 'Interstellar' Will Not Disappoint You

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[Warning: Small spoilers and plot details, like descriptions of settings, are mentioned.]

1. Full Scale and Miniature Model Spacecrafts Were Used, Not Special Effects The connecting theme of Nolan's work is his devotion to creating movies that feel real. In Interstellar, the director carried that notion into the design process of the space station and shuttles used in the film."For me, the starting point of the movie is a familiar Earth. We didn't put a lot of futurism in the designs," says Nolan. "I wanted to carry that tone into the spacecraft, not jump too far in the future." Nolan and his production designer, Nathan Crowley, constructed detailed models, like in Star Wars, for some exteriors and they even built full scale versions of the ships for landing sequences. Along with Star Wars, Nolan has cited 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, and Blade Runner as inspirations.

The shuttle and space station used in Interstellar. (Paramount Pictures)

4. Nolan Created a Virtual Reality for His Actors

Nolan also created the film's visual effects in advance of shooting so he could project those images for the actors. When they looked outside their spacecrafts, they saw the dark of space instead of a green screen. Anne Hathaway, who plays astronaut Amelia Brand, told USA Today, "...When you see us looking out the window at a celestial body, there is a celestial body projected onto a screen outside a practical window. I don't know of any other filmmaker who can inspire people to do that."

Nolan and McConaughey talk Interstellar on set. (Paramount Pictures)5. Hoyte Van Hoytema For the first time in his career, Nolan used a Director of Photography not named Wally Pfister (who was busy directing Transcendence). Enter Hoyte van Hoytema, the eye behind Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In, as well as The Fighter and Her. In short, Van Hoytema's work is awe-inspiring. The shots of the celestial bodies (especially Saturn) will take you there, and the cinematographer did it with old fashioned ingenuity. Under the careful eye of Nolan, who used more IMAX shots in this movie than any of his others, Van Hoytema modified an existing IMAX cam to make it handheld for certain interiors. He also installed an IMAX cam in the nose cone of a Learjet for some of the space sequences.

Nolan on the set of Interstellar. (Paramount Pictures)

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5 Big Reasons Why 'Interstellar' Will Not Disappoint You

Exclusive: Steve Aoki & will.i.am Fight Verne Troyer in 'Born to Get Wild' Video

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A few months after dropping his new album Neon Future I -- a record that topped the Electronic/Dance Album chart -- Steve Aoki is pressing forward in his quest to release a futuristic music video for every track on the project (part two is still forthcoming).

Now, Billboard is excited to exclusively premiere the latest video, a clip for his will.i.am collaboration "Born to Get Wild."

The video for this dubstep-flavored track imagines a future where technology and the human body/mind interact in strange ways.

The "Born to Get Wild" world is a future dystopia ruled by Verne Troyer (yep, Mini-Me from Austin Powers). We see ruthless men in black outfits playing with video game controllers that move human bodies around like they're spastic toys.

As the hero of the clip, Aoki is the human who attempts to break free of his walking coma. While he's knocked out, his strike gives other people enough time to stage their own rebellion against Troyer and his henchmen.

Speaking to Billboard a few months ago, Aoki explained how his vision of the future influenced Neon Future. "I believe that eventually we'll get to a point where we'll be able to live indefinitely through our technology," Aoki says, citing work by Aubrey de Grey. "That concept of futurism is underlying the full process of the album."

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Exclusive: Steve Aoki & will.i.am Fight Verne Troyer in 'Born to Get Wild' Video

These Killer Husqvarna Concepts Are Retro Futurism Done Right

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Husqvarna has a certain cachet, even if you remove the overblown Steve McQueen connection. Combine that with the recent interest in lightweight, entertaining rides (see: Ducati Scrambler), and you've got a recipe for success. And that's exactly what we have with this menacingly beautiful pair of 401 concepts.

Created for Husqvarna by the industrial designers at Kiska the same Austrian company the shaped the KTM X-Bow the two 401s go by the Swedish names Vit Pilen (White Arrow) and Svart Pilen (Black Arrow), and were inspired by the Silver Pilen, one of the lightest, fastest, and smallest bikes of the 50s. But that's where the nostalgia stops.

Both bikes weigh in at 397 pounds and use an exposed trellis frame, combined with upside-down TP forks, and 17-inch wheels. The neo-retro body work flows into the incorporated fuel tank and both bikes wear a dual-LED headlamp with a lit halo surrounding the outer bezel just like the Scrambler.

The Vit Pilen is the more road-focused of the two, embracing the stripped-down cafe racer vibe and adorning it with a clean, ovoid exhaust, bronze and yellow detailing, a swept-back seat, and semi-slick tires.

The Svart Pilen adds knobby, street-legal rubber, an incredibly trick high-mounted exhaust, dirt bars, skid plates, and a pair of racks one on the tank and another on the tail to strap down some gear before tackling the trails.

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These Killer Husqvarna Concepts Are Retro Futurism Done Right

Good ol' future boys: Interstellar and sci-fi's obsession with Americana

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Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck stand amid the cornfields in Interstellar. Photograph: Legendary Pictures/Allstar

Before Interstellar got anywhere near the CGI labs, Christopher Nolan went back to the land. Maize is the Earths last viable crop in the films near-future, and before filming began the director decided his team would go the full Jolly Green Giant. After consultation with respected agricultural authority Zack Snyder, who had grown a field of the stuff for Man of Steel, Nolans team laid down 500 acres just south of Calgary, Canada. They mowed down some with a 4x4, burned a fair load of the rest. But there was still enough maize left that Interstellar actually ended up making money on its farming offshoot.

The endless green sea of crop, the white clapboard homestead, Malick magic-hour glow breaking over the top of good ol boy narration. Interstellar, from the very first trailer, seemed so rooted in the homespun imagery of the American heartlands, I half-expected Matthew McConaughey to enter the wormhole in a rocket-boosted combine harvester.

But its only the latest in a recent group of films to cloak sci-fi futures in classic Americana: Rian Johnsons Looper (2012) posits a world dominated by China, but its climax boils down to a telekinetic dustup on a Kansas homestead; in 2011s Real Steel, Hugh Jackman and his clapped-out robot fly the flag for troubled US rust-belt industry in an age of hi-tech automaton fighting bouts; the denizens of 22nd-century Los Angeles in In Time (2011) may have potentially infinite lifespans, but they still drive around in Lincoln Continentals and loiter near the Sixth Street viaduct, noirish backdrop of choice since the 1970s. Even Transformers has been getting down-home, with Age of Extinction picking a backwoods Texas farm to host the first epic robot battle. Well see what kind of spin the forthcoming Westworld TV series, to be developed by Interstellar screenwriter Jonathan Nolan, puts on wild-west Americana.

This new wave of sci-fi Americana isnt quite retro-futurism as we know it (though Interstellars pseudo Dust Bowl-era talking-head interviews flirt with that, as do Loopers blunderbuss-armed hitmen and In Times noir fetish). Its much more austere and earnest, an assertion that timeless American values can play just as much a part in shaping the future as technological prowess.

The same self-reliance and ingenuity that hauled Americans across their continent will get them across the cosmos is Interstellars message. Its mission to the stars is led by the remnants of Nasa, and the films simple white spacesuits and blazing atmosphere-exit footage are meant to suggest continuity with the 1960s and 70s space programme, the last great period of US frontiersmanship. America can still do this, Nolan solemnly cheerleads throughout the film; his mouthpiece is McConaugheys character, Cooper, a maverick manqu who belongs among the envelope-pushing hotshots of The Right Stuff.

Alfonso Cuarn presumably agrees about the land of the free: in Gravity, Sandra Bullock might be headed for the Russian and Chinese space stations (symbolism alert!) the emerging economies of our time but only under the guidance of George Clooneys yarn-spinning, country-music-listening, old-timer space cowboy, the literal touchstone amid the void who opens the film.

Back in the real world, theres one pressing practical reason for the Americana revival. The countrys dynamic cityscapes and wisecracking gumption were once the default blockbuster mode, but the physical and spiritual presence of America on screen has been watered down as Hollywoods audience has become more global. You can see films like Gravity, Age of Extinction, Interstellar and its mentor-in-agronomics Man of Steel (which also majored in midwestern imagery) as attempts to keep the US audience on side by returning to hallowed classic scenery, while still cranking up the technological CGI blast that now powers the global blockbuster industry.

If Hollywood is working out how much allegiance it owes to America, its not surprising that Americana sci-fi also displays a worrisome side regarding the national identity. Farming, that midwest mainstay, is linked with a kind of perilous subsistence thinking in Interstellar depending on the land for food, rather than striking out in search of bold new possibilities. Cooper only practises it reluctantly. Meanwhile, Loopers hip young hitmen, sent their instructions by time-travel from crime syndicates in the future, are the ultimate US consumers. To the extent of consuming themselves: they live it up in the short term on their criminal proceeds, with the knowledge that they will one day themselves be sent back in time to be killed. Suddenly, the Kansan sugar-cane fields where they off their victims look like a regressive dumping ground for the films hi-tech, Chinese-dominated future. The hitmens retro, cravat-fetishing affectations are mocked by their paymaster: The movies that youre dressing like are just copying other movies. Do something new, huh?

Interstellar, Looper and Real Steel in which Hugh Jackmans obsolete robot Atom is forever on the verge of annihilation by newer models all pose the question: is it the end of the line for American trailblazing? Nolans film amounts to 166 minutes of agonising about whether further expansion is possible for mankind; in business terms, Hollywood currently faces a parallel dilemma of trying to find unsaturated markets and new creative paths in order to keep growing. One solution is to not to expand at all, but to rejuvenate the US economy from within. Like the post-credit-crunch boom in small business entrepreneurs detailed by New Yorker writer George Packer in his 2013 book The Unwinding; folk returning to the land and repurposing it for 21st-century needs, like biodiesel.

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Good ol' future boys: Interstellar and sci-fi's obsession with Americana

NTSB: Virgin Galactic Spacecraft Tail System Deployed Prematurely Before Crash

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Lorenda Ward, investigator-in-charge of the SpaceShipTwo accident. (Credit: NTSB)

A press briefing by the National Transportation Safety Board regarding its investigation into the crash of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo revealed new information and more questions about its surrounding circumstances.

On Sunday night, NTSB Acting Chairman Hart explained that SpaceShipTwos tail section has the ability to feather, which enables the spacecraft to make a safer descent. He then revealed that shortly prior to the spacecraft breaking up in flight, the feathering system deployed prematurely.

According to the spacecrafts flight procedures, said Hart, there are two steps required for the feathering system to deploy. First, the system must be unlocked by one lever, then a second needs to be moved to deploy the system. The system isnt supposed to be unlocked until the spacecraft reaches a speed of Mach 1.4, however it appears that the co-pilot moved the lever to unlock at a speed of just over Mach 1.0. The second lever was never activated but it appears the feathering system deployed anyway.

During the briefing, Hart emphasized on several occasions that this is a statement of fact, not of cause, and that determining exactly what happened still requires a lot of analysis.

To that end, Hart noted that the NTSB has recovered nearly every important part of debris from the spaceship crash. In particular, both the fuel tanks and engine were recovered intact, with no indication of breach.

This is of interest because since the accident, a lot of attention and speculation has focused on whether an engine failure caused the crash, as this was the first flight of SpaceShipTwo with its new fuel mix. Hart indicated that the engine data gathered so far appeared to be normal.

Of course, as Hart stated, investigators are a long way from finding the cause. The NTSB still has a number of people to interview and a lot of data to go through. It will be months, possibly even a year, before the agency issues the final results of its investigation.

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NTSB: Virgin Galactic Spacecraft Tail System Deployed Prematurely Before Crash


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