mattblomeley

Archive for the ‘Commissioned writing’ Category

Mind the Gap

In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Lopdell House on 18/03/2009 at 12:26 AM


There is no reason to deny the reality of progress, but there is to correct the notion that believes this progress secure. It is more in accordance with facts to hold that there is no certain progress, no evolution, without the threat of “involution,” of retrogression. Everything is possible in history; triumphant, indefinite progress equally with periodic retrogression. (1)
- Ortega y Gasset

Observed from a distance the earth’s landscape and our interventions upon it are at once mysterious and obvious. Modern technologies such as GPS devices combined with satellite imagery allow us to navigate land and ocean in unprecedented detail. Whether it be obtaining navigational directions to the supermarket or ‘geotagging’ hiking adventures over distant mountains, we now more than ever before perceive the landscape topographically. From this unique perspective areas of mystery from past eras are exposed to us conclusively, in photographic detail. Unresolved details of the land have become more or less reduced to heavily vegetated areas, along with vertical terrain and the underground.

The quality of topographical imagery available varies considerably within popular web applications, most notably Google Earth. Enticing our imagination to complete unseen spaces, the flaws and imperfections in these images highlight the limits of photography (at least the limits of imagery we are allowed access to in the public domain). In a sense, working from these images offers a ‘plein air’ painterly pretense for the painter, who is engaging with the outside world but at one remove from the traditional model of an artist towing his or her easel through a field.

Gaps have at one time or another invoked imaginative responses in us all. Whether it be cracks in the pavement or the narrow spaces between domestic decking floorboards. In this new series of paintings, Adrian Jackman is considering gaps in the landscape. Investigating the agricultural technique known as circular irrigation, two of the three paintings in this exhibition, entitled Detail, and The Fall, refer to an ongoing discussion for Jackman whose earlier works occasionally explored the landscape from a similar point of view. Relating to his works which were based on the manicured landscape of golf course fairways, these new paintings observe the land similarly, but this time tended on a massive scale for agriculture.

Describe circular irrigation to most people and they will no doubt recall the crop circles depicted in Hollywood extraterrestrial films and conspiracy theories. Circular irrigation is easy enough to explain as the pattern created by massive irrigation sprinklers. Jackman’s physical brushstrokes suggest a Courbet-like approach (2) echoing against the impermanence that we see in satellite photographs of these assembled landscapes. Rough painterly gestures in certain areas are contrasted with carefully measured lines and sections of sfumato (3) indicating where the photographic image fails to capture the details.

In these fields seen from directly above there is no qrandiloquence of nature, as in old paintings; the sublime is replaced by a matter of fact, topographical view of our invasion upon the land. Looking closer, the arrangement of forms appears hastily constructed. Roughly slotted in between arterial roads, circular crops take in as large a space as they are able. In most fields the irrigation circle is only partial and missing sections of the pie shape are taken up by conventional rectangular paddocks and buildings. These abstract and slightly haphazardly arranged shapes are perhaps epithets, for Jackman, of our engagement with nature.

The titles of the two larger scale works (Detail and Inset) in Jackman’s exhibition deliberately borrow straightforward photographic terminology. These titles, lowly technical definitions in the realm of photography, imply a conditional status upon the works, in effect freeing painting from historical jargon inasmuch as they suggest the potential importance inherent in any image, photographic or otherwise.

With the largest work, Inset, the topographical idea that initiated the series appears to have been exorcised and provides Jackman licence for a new investigation in the same theme: tractor tyres. While Detail and The Fall depict and also abstract the images of our interaction with land, Inset goes one step further in arranging a pile of future archaeological objects.

Taking in the visually jarring effect of a pile of tyres forming the monochromatic composition of Inset – a large map-like painting spanning numerous linked-up sheets of paper – brings to mind the work of 1960s optical artists. While that is partly a historical refence by Jackman, this work belongs to his on-going drawing practice, which operates alongside and occasionally conjuncts into his painting practice. Possibly inspiring or challenging a new direction for Jackman’s current investigation, Inset is in effect a counterbalance to the two topographical paintings; the detritus of agricultural machinery forming an emblem for this project.

Matt Blomeley
Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Mind the Gap will be on show at Lopdell House, 18 April – 24 May 2009.
(Satellite image courtesy Adrian Jackman.)

Adrian Jackman website http://www.adrianjackman.com/

Footnotes:
1. Ortega y Gasset, José, The Revolt of the Masses, W.W. Norton and Co, New York, 1930 (1993). (pp79)
2. Harrison, Charles, Conceptual Art and Painting: Further Essays on Art & Language, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 2001 (pp85,86). Harrison discusses Fried’s study of Gustave Courbet, interpreting the physical nature of Courbet’s painting: “Foremost among the defining preoccupations of Courbet’s work, Fried diagnoses an urge – necessarily and significantly doomed to frustration – to transport himself bodily into the painting taking shape, and thus to close the gap between painting and beholder … Courbet’s attempt to eliminate the distinction between painting and painter beholder is seen by Fried as a means to defeat theatricalization, and thus preserve the integrity of modern painting.”
3. A painting technique of merging multiple colours without a hard edge, sfumato is derived from the 19th century Italian definition which literally translates as ‘shaded off’.

Indian Fortunes: Bronwynne Cornish

In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Masterworks on 10/03/2009 at 9:26 PM


A favourite holiday novel of mine returned to several times over the years is set in an idylic university town. There is of course something asmiss with this place, not that many locals would even notice: a powerful spiritual presence lingers in the surrounding landscape. To the few who are destined to see it, this admirable yet malevolent looking character takes the form of a giant black domestic cat, cursed by a local witch to linger around the town and its surrounding hills. (1)
The spell which binds the old tomcat to the town is also an invisible leash, occasionally tripped over when visitors to the town and locals happen to cross his path. The central character in the story becomes entangled with the cat in this manner. She meets him again after passing to the ‘other side’ and, upon discovering his endless multitude of physical forms, has the following conversation with him: “ ‘Schrödinger’s cat!’ ‘That’s only a concept, more than that.’ Was it against the law of the universe for anything to be only what it seemed? ‘Nothing is against the law. The law is its own violation. That is the core of all events, that is Schrödinger’s cat.’“ (2)

Heavy dialogue for a popcorn novel, which no doubt passed right over my head as a teenager. I was surprised, in returning to the novel recently that it would actually have some relevance to me as an adult reader. The common superstition, explored in this novel, that we are predestined to a certain path (that can even account for when fortune or misfortune prevails upon us and we are confronted by our ethics in making decisions!) returned to me upon visiting Bronwynne Cornish’s ceramic studio and considering her most recent work.

Fortunate to undertake a 2008 residency in India, this experience has greatly influenced Cornish. Speaking about one of the repeating forms that is due to feature in her 2009 exhibition at Masterworks gallery, she relayed to me the story of a remarkable place in India, which she was unfortunately unable to visit first hand during her time there, for logistical and geographical reasons. In this place is a library that apparently holds a detailed pre-written record about anyone who wishes to know their path or fortune in life.

Cornish’s shapeshifting works, related to the story she told me – reminding me of the karmic premise as well as the imposing creature of my novel – are a series of six legged beings. Standing proud on four solid, powerful looking legs, their arms with palms cupped together servant-like hold forth your fortune cards. Although there is an overhanging air of mysticism to these works, Cornish is offering more than just an effigy of ethereal worlds and beings. Her investigation also concerns the present, the future, and our place in it.

The maker of ceramic objects which literally wear the skin of her subject(mysticism), like an unbiased contemporary theologian holding the subject of religion at arms length, Cornish explores in-depth and with an open mind the desperation with which we sometimes cling to beliefs and presumptions that have been held for millenia, all the while looking for underlying questions. The questions, and possibly answers, that Cornish is posing with these works are deliberately left open for the eyes and minds of the viewer to ponder and decode, as she is not presumptuous enough to suggest otherwise.

Of any subject or idea that comes to mind upon considering Cornish’s new works, perhaps the most important is the notion of Self. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek observes that “if we penetrate the surface of any an organism and look deeper and deeper into it, we never encounter some central controlling element that would be its Self, secretly pulling the strings of its organs … there is effectively no self … A true human Self functions, in a sense, like a computer screen: what is “behind” it is nothing but a network of “selfless” neuronal machinery.” (3)

To know that ones Self is not governed by something other pulling its ‘strings’ is refreshing, yet it does not negate the enjoyment of lyrical objects, which often engage in a language that predates western science and philosophy. Cornish’s works operate interestingly and fluently in this context; contemporary objects – enjoying a growing, appreciative audience – in an age where it is more common to see artists exploring science and genetics than pre-European belief systems.

Bronwynne Cornish’s years of pushing clay through her fingers are combined with intriguing ideas and relevant subjects to make a convincing artistic statement, reminding one that we each exist as a conflation of our bloodlines and our learned experiences. As Žižek notes, “what makes me “unique” is neither my genetic formula nor the way my dispositions were developed due to the influence of the environment but the unique self-relationship emerging out of the interaction between the two.” (4)

Matt Blomeley
8 March 2009

Essay commissioned for Bronwynne Cornish’s upcoming exhibition Horn, Beak and Claw at Masterworks)

1. Strieber, Whitley, Cat Magic, Grafton, London, 1988.
2. Ibid. (pp323,324)
3. Žižek, Slavoj, Organs Without Bodies, Routledge, New York and London, 2004. (pp117,118)
4. Ibid. (pp118)

Head in the Clouds

In Commissioned writing, Design, Object Magazine on 06/03/2009 at 3:38 AM


Phil Cuttance says of this work, “Similar to the rough diamond (another recent Cuttance lightshade), the cloud city shade’s pattern was inspired by simple pop-up book patterns. This shade is created by cutting and then folding flat shapes to create the volumetric form of a mythical ‘cloud city’.” Since graduating in 2002 with honours in Industrial Design from Massey University, Cuttance has established a unique brand of quirky and quick witted design objects for production. Lightheartedly describing himself as a “design bogan”, Cuttance pays homage to this Australasian social archetype with an impressive variety of works which have been exhibited in Auckland, Sydney and Milan. Having moved to London in early 2009 to further his career, we can expect big things from this talented young Kiwi designer. www.philcuttance.com

Matt Blomeley, 6 March 2009

Renee Bevan’s ‘Blooming Big Brooches’

In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, Object Magazine on 06/03/2009 at 3:32 AM


A recent series of work, by New Zealand jeweller Renee Bevan, goes by the boldly self-explanatory title of Blooming Big Brooches. One can confidently claim that Bevan is currently obsessed with flowers, “specifically the rose; its manufactured sentimentality, vast symbolism and its long-standing history in jewellery and adornment.” These brooches, soon to be exhibited at Inform Contemporary Jewellery in Christchurch, engage in a distinctive new conversation regarding dimension, subject and adornment. Renee Bevan is at the forefront of a new generation in Australasian jewelers. Having graduated in 2002, her work has been featured in a number of important exhibitions at institutional project spaces and dealer gallery’s over the past few years, culminating in her selection for the international jewellery exhibition, “Schmuck 2008”.

Image: “Bill Riley wearing Blooming Big Rose Brooch,” courtesy Renee Bevan

Matt Blomeley, 6 March 2009

Speaking In Ramas

In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Physics Room on 06/02/2009 at 11:02 PM


“Numismatology, pharmacology and archaeology have been reformed. I understand that biology and mathematics also await their avatars…. A scattered dynasty of solitary men has changed the face of the world. Their task continues. If our forecasts are not in error, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred volumes of the Second Encyclopedia of Tlön.”
- Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, 1962.

When I heard the title of this new painting installation by Kirstin Carlin and Krystie Wade, I was momentarily confused as to whether I was meant to be associating the ‘Rama’ in Hindu mythology, or the ‘–rama’ in panorama and diorama. In some sense both are equally applicable, as painting, even in its most factual moments, is able to freely dip into fiction or mythology, often embodying a Borges-like feeling of empiricism and liminal exploration.

Confusion about the meaning of the exhibition title was doubtless not the point they were intending, as I know both artists are aware the painted panorama is a peculiar moment in both history and art history, so it was most likely this definition. Anyhow, the conjunctive apprehension of multiple usages, as suggested above, is perhaps a fitting analogy for the exhibition, Speaking in Ramas, for reasons that will follow.

Prior to the advent of photography and the moving image, the painted panorama was a significant and popular simulacrum of the real (and imagined) world in nineteenth century Europe. The most impressive of these were installed in gigantic purpose-built circular rooms replete with artificial fragrances and breezes to stir the imagination and satisfy the vogue for ‘Grand Tour’ experiences. The visitor would enter the panorama via a staircase and be greeted by a handrailed circular viewing platform and a dizzying, continuous painting surrounding the platform.

The paintings produced by surveyors and botanists which were used to peddle the idea of immigrating to New Zealand, paintings which we now hold dear within institutional collections, would have seemed tame by comparison to the fecundity of the panorama which was then all the rage in European cities. Until photography and the moving image, painting was considered as much a mechanical art as a tool for the imagination. The panorama amplified this view, accentuating the desire of many people for instantaneous travel to historically poignant places and past events.

More recently photography has been employed in the realisation of these often massive panoramas, but painting remains of course the only tool appropriate for conveying the information at such a scale. Although panorama painters often relied on technologies like photography and the camera obscura to capture the sense of a real place, just like those early panoramists Carlin and Wade also draw upon the imagination and a plethora of images (now freely available online) to imagine their own places. Although not recreating the 360 degree panoramic spectacle in their works for Speaking in Ramas, both artists have nonetheless engaged with the manner in which panorama pulled together elements that could not be seen in a single painting or photograph.

Having attained a similar command of the ‘hairy stick in mud’, as our art school lecturer once described it, several years down the track into their respective careers Carlin and Wade are ensconced within the mutable history of painting. Both artists, in their own way, envisage panoramic mise-en-scènes using a variety of techniques and mediums in their drawing and realisation processes.

Carlin’s latest paintings utilise Google image searches in a series of works which here interpose the Christchurch Botanic Gardens with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London. It is an effort by the artist “to create [her] own fantasy gardens”. Bringing together elements that, like the panorama, are “isolated or scattered around an area too vast to be perceived in one go,” Carlin revisits the conservative vision that Europeans had for New Zealand cities with her own eyes, prompting the viewer to wonder whether new vistas need not always be a glass, stone and concrete simulations of another place, but perhaps have just a strong a validity when their representations emerge merely from flights of the imagination.

Wade’s paintings combine all the twists and tangles of the three dimensional landscape, drawing the viewer into an experience of imagined natural settings that exist within the frame of the canvas. The feeling of movement is an intentional characteristic of her works, which often feature plateaus and garden elements haphazardly linked into path-like constructions, drawing the viewer around a space deliberately held within the constraints of the canvas. Wade quotes the artist Laura Owens: “It’s odd to think of paintings as static, they are so much more. They don’t move like film but seem to have a lot more movement than photography.”

Digital technology, with its potential to faultlessly distort the truth captured within photographic images, often uses drawing and painting inspired ‘tools’ within computer applications like Photoshop, and as such seems to have loosened the captivating, alchemical mantle that technologies such as the panorama and photography originally displaced, but could not replace, from the medium of painting. In as much, the majority of digital drawing technologies used to manipulate images do not seem to have moved beyond emulating collage-like drawing and photographic retouching techniques.

If digital media has freed or reinvigorated public perception of the painting, it also seems to be responsible for other ‘mechanical’ or ‘technical arts’ regaining status in the challenging and decidedly panoptic world of contemporary fine art. It is not uncommon now, for instance, to see ceramic, textile and jewellery practice exhibited alongside painting and installation art within contemporary art galleries and major exhibitions. The panorama may no longer be relevant as a specific optical technology but the role it has played and the influence it still represents remains omnipresent.

Matt Blomeley
07 February 2009

- Speaking In Ramas is a new exhibition at Physics Room gallery in Christchurch, 18 February – 14 March 2009.

- Image courtesy Kirstin Carlin and Anna Miles Gallery.

Pests in the Tool Shed

In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Object Magazine on 22/01/2009 at 9:11 PM



The colligate relationship between material, skill and local identity is something which holds particular gravity in the object making scene. There is for good reason for this, as creative practice would be all the poorer were we limited to makers whose modus operandi is international in scope yet oblivious to the rich vein of potential inherent in local history and materials. This relationship to material is often slightly obsequious in the contemporary arts, yet a small number of New Zealand artists in recent years have managed to successfully blaze a path which blurs the line between craft and contemporary art. Whether or not intentional, it would appear that material has reasserted itself as a central factor in our understanding of many arts practitioners and two fine artists that have a foot in this particular canon are Regan Gentry and Ben Pearce.

Based in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand, Ben Pearce’s practice is testament to an inherited compulsion for tinkering and making. Pearce has made a name for himself though a consistent stream of exhibitions over the past few years. On exhibit have been a range of unusual sculptural objects that you would not be likely to find elsewhere. These objects are more often than not comprised of various timbers that have been crafted into smooth and sinuous forms and then skillfully combined with locally found objects and occasional small machinery components.

Pearce’s ever expanding and evolving repertoire of works is inspired by childhood and suggestive of mostly harmless cyborg-like beings that have perhaps willed themselves to life by employing the detritus and abandoned things found in a disused shed. In his 2007 window installation at Objectspace in Auckland, titled Mr Moorhouse’s Garden, the artist collated a menagerie of retro toy inspired sculptural objects.

Featuring funnel-esque wooden appendages that resembled early hearing aid devices or ‘His Masters Voice’ gramophone speakers, the objects in Mr Moorhouse’s Garden were arranged so as to advance the notion that they were communicating with one another. Pearce noted that they were “solemn and lost, yet in search of each other for cues and dialogue”. Pearce’s upcoming March 7 to May 17, 2009, exhibition at Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery in Napier, Utterance, promises a selection of intriguing new works that expand upon his earlier premise.

Regan Gentry is a contemporary fine artist whose range of exhibition projects has investigated the ingenuity, DIY ethos and colonial history of New Zealand. Gentry’s 2007 series, Of Gorse, Of Course, exhibited at the New Dowse and The Sargeant Gallery, featured an exhaustive selection of works, all of which were fashioned from gorse. Imported to New Zealand during colonial times as a hedge, gorse doggedly spread its way around the country fast becoming a nationwide pest. Conceived during his four months in Invercargill as a 2006 William Hodges Artist In Residence, Of Gorse, Of Course drew attention to Gentry outside of the regular art channels as much for the variety of objects on display as the artisan skills displayed by the maker.

There is a vein of dry wit running through all of Gentry’s exhibitions, in particular with the Gorse series, which communicate particular mannerisms and gung ho nature of the antipodean lifestyle. Other recent works by Gentry have included several major public sculpture commissions as well as a 2008 exhibition for the Sargeant Gallery in Wanganui, Near Nowhere, Near Impossible, developed while he was 2007 Tylee Cottage artist in residence.

Matt Blomeley
23 January 2009

Images above by Regan Gentry (top) and Ben Pearce (Bottom)

Writing commissioned by Object
Ben Pearce website http://www.benpearce.co.nz/

Metonymy exhibition

In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art on 11/05/2008 at 11:42 PM

Italo Calvino once asked: “Whom do we write a novel for? Whom do we write a poem for?” Calvino answered his own question: “For people who have read a number of other novels, a number of other poems. A book is written so that it can be put beside other books and take its place on a hypothetical bookshelf.”

The proposition behind the Metonymy exhibition is to my eyes a similar question and it is a fitting project for our post-everything social climate. One problem in literature and the fine arts is that each is so finely enmeshed in its respective “hypothetical bookshelf” that the audience – often peers – draw conclusions which are often way off the mark from what the writer, poet or artist may have intended. Metonymy addresses this gap.

When words and visual arts occasionally collude the results are perhaps even more unpredictable than each would be on its own. As noted above, writers, poets and artists, similar to a degree through holding creative occupations, employ differing methodologies which relate intricately to the shared traditions and received wisdom of their respective crafts.

Combining authorial voices, as proposed by the instigators of the Metonymy project, has allowed artists and writers to develop an understanding of each others languages in the process of teaming up on a project. The sharing of knowledge in this peer reviewed environment appears to have had a largely positive flow-on in this instance and a number of great new works are the result.

Not taking anything away from academic endeavours, the purpose of the Metonymy project has the simple aim of creative people enriching one anothers knowledge. In many ways it is more generous – both for the participants and the viewer – than most art exhibitions and for this the organisers should be commended.

Matt Blomeley

Metonymy. Cross Street Studios, Auckland, 14-24 May 2008

Pick Up Your Cave And Run

In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art on 10/03/2008 at 8:20 PM


The artists featured in Pick Up Your Cave And Run suggest alternative positions from which to view our notions of home. A fundamental trait that apparently defines man from beast, the strong desire we all have to construct a private space serves as a repository of all manner of things meaningful. Not merely a shelter for sleeping, our “caves” are also a social space and necessary for emotional wellbeing. As our oldest ancestors discovered, caves are great places to store objects of personal relevance.

Bar the occasional ascetic individual (an indulgent position nowadays), we all have a desire to furnish personal space. But space is not only physical. Our contemporary existence as liminal, internet-based ‘social networking’ machines indicates that times are changing and that our perceptions of personal space may also be changing. For many individuals, including the artists in this exhibition, the definition of home is determined more by work and current circumstances than how space is furnished.

Free online services mean that even those among us whom society would like to ignore are now able to exist in multiple social circles off the grid. Of course this is part and parcel of a proviso that one is willing to exist online as a social avatar of oneself. If so, it is quite easy to exist socially with negligible personal contact to anyone in ones sphere of influence. With access to permanent free digital services and land line phones becoming a thing of the past, perhaps we will one of these days no longer be required or in fact want to actually maintain a physical residence?

The relationship between objects and our sense of place is opened up for examination by the artists in this exhibition. Explorations range from our continued obsession with handicrafts to consideration of the urban and natural environment. The role of objects and materials is a central factor in each of these projects. Pick Up Your Cave And Run reflects on domesticity from a generation of New Zealanders who have matured in a rapidly changing post colonial economy.

Matt Blomeley

Pick Up Your Cave And Run features the work of artists Chris Hargreaves, Andrea Du Chatenier, Tim van Dammen, Andrew Rankin, Rachel Bell, Nick Taylor, Kate Barton, and Danielle Clayton and will be on show at RAMP gallery in Hamilton March 18 – April 4, 2008.

Top Tens exhibition PDF

In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, My art practice, Snowhite on 05/03/2008 at 2:31 AM

From Top Tens at Snowhite, August 2005 curated by Matt Blomeley. A PDF catalogue of this project can be downloaded from here. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth already but it’s worth a download. Top Tens features ‘anonymous’ writing/top ten lists from twenty one artists and academics; Dan Arps, Eu Jin Chua, Danielle Vermeer Clayton, Yasmin DuBrau, Richard Fahey, Elspeth Fougrere, Jennifer French, Vincent Lum, Grace Peters, Miriam Harris, Joel Kefali, MJ Kjarr (Matt Blomeley), Alethea Nathan, Janine Randerson, Nicholas Spratt, Tim Thatcher, Hannah May Thompson, Mandy Thomsett Taylor, Vegard Toresen, Krystie Wade, Kathy Waghorn.

Redefining Agility: Craft – Science – Sport

In Commissioned writing, Curatorial projects, Design, Objectspace on 23/02/2008 at 1:59 AM

“Nature crafts materials of a complexity and functionality that we can only envy” – Janine Benyus

The designers and engineers featured in Redefining Agility apply contemporary manufacturing processes and materials to the production of specialist sporting equipment. Their objects expand the notion that craftsmanship and new technologies may go hand-in-hand. Henry Petroski has observed that “engineering is the art of compromise.” Many designers and engineers, including those featured in Redefining Agility, are fusing new scientific and material developments.

It sometimes appears that life never really changes. The modern Tour De France athlete conquering an alpine pass on a cutting edge carbon composite bicycle could well be an ancient warring Assyrian drawing forth a finely crafted ‘fist of god’ (a composite bow that was constructed of layers of horn, leather and wood) and laying siege to his enemy: both rely on objects made of composite materials. Layering and compositing materials together to build and enhance the performance of functional objects is a key component in contemporary design and engineering, just as it was for the Assyrian bow maker.

In the early 1980s if you asked a bicycle racer to describe his or her dream machine, the response would most likely have been a frame made by an Italian artisan fitting and brazing together double butted steel tubes into custom made arabesque lugs. The fantasy of this period was the delivery to your doorstep of a 3-4lb frame, replete with the logo, from one of a handful of elite European family businesses. A couple of decades on, the brand name and on-road feel remain relatively consistent, yet the resulting frame is likely to be a jewel-like 2lb carbon fibre object of desire.

The last four decades have seen major advances in the development of polymers and manufactured fibres. A 1950s invention originally estimated as potentially costing millions of dollars per pound to manufacture, carbon fibre matting soon found its way into the aerospace industry and was quickly applied to sporting equipment design, an ideal testing ground for carbon composites. Akiko Busch writes, “Objects, like people, can live double lives. And contemporary sports equipment thrives – with subtlety, wit, and pure exuberance – on its rich double life. The new materials and technology of such equipment have redefined the way sports are played, enhancing speed, force, distance, height. At the same time, however, their forms spell out clearly and consistently our cultural profile. For all the energy and vitality this equipment represents, what it may do with the greatest agility and grace is serve these two functions at once.” (Design For Sport, 1998)

One of the most exciting recent developments in equipment design is ‘female moulded composite tubing’, consisting of custom engineered half section tubes which are faultlessly bonded due to precisely interlocking lips. The svelte-looking resulting equipment answers the demand for optimum performance and eye appeal. Southern Spars, an international company founded in New Zealand and based in Freemans Bay, Auckland, is a world leader in carbon fibre yacht componentry. The firm employs ingeniously designed female moulds to create precisely engineered carbon fibre spars with load bearing characteristics specifically tailored to the most high stress sections. The technology is identical to the latest methods employed in bicycle design. The casual observer of these products would not notice anything other than the aerodynamically engineered outer shell of the construction.

Another innovative Auckland based company involved with the marine industry is C-Tech. Founded several years ago by yachtie and engineer, Alex Vallings, C-Tech’s carbon fibre sail battens were used by every syndicate in recent America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race competitions. Sail battens reside within narrow sleeves built into sails, enabling the sail to maintain optimum shape and increase speed. The latest developments in this equipment are leaning towards inflatable battens and C-Tech is once more at the forefront, having recently developed inflatable battens made from extremely durable polymers that are reinforced with a manufactured fibre used predominantly in the aerospace industry.

The demand for precision, simplicity, safety and performance is a reflection of the obsession with pushing boundaries. Whenever outright performance is the consideration, form is defined by function and surfing is one pursuit where the form factor hasn’t changed in many years. Several new international companies have been busy promoting alternative construction methods for performance short boards, but the jury remains out on many of these products. However, Whangamata based, Pete Anderson‘s surfboards are well proven, the familiar ‘@’ logo having shredded waves around New Zealand beaches for many years. In his latest project, Anderson‘s team riders have been strenuously testing the specific handling characteristics of new generation styrene/epoxy short boards featuring carbon fibre outer rails and a PVC stringer that has replaced the traditional narrow wooden strip running down the centre of the board.

The growing appeal of objects that feature a discernible utilitarian aesthetic reflects a desire for quality construction, convenience and outright performance. Hummer recreational vehicles and Leatherman tools are exemplars of this desire. A utilitarian concept also typifies the design of Murray Broom‘s high performance foldable kayaks. Broom’s Dunedin based company Firstlight Kayaks produces an award winning range of performance craft. Constructed of interconnected carbon kevlar tube sections, these spring-loaded frames support a durable urethane skin. The lightweight vessel is able to be disassembled into a portable backpack in several minutes. Broom’s foldable kayak design has won numerous awards and since 2004 has been featured in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The collaborative nature of equipment design is exemplified by highly specialized performance projects. The legs Wayne Alexander created for double amputee climber and athlete Mark Inglis’ successful 2006 Mt Everest climb, along with the team responsible for Sarah Ulmer’s 2004 Olympic gold medal pursuit bicycle are examples of equipment placed under high stress that must perform exactly as designed, with no exceptions. Milton Bloomfield, of Christchurch based Dynamic Composites, was part of the team that developed Ulmer’s bike, together with Mark Hildesley of Auckland consultancy Materials Optimization, Ulmer’s partner Brendon Cameron, SPARC and The University of Canterbury. In these design collaborations each member contributes to the highly specific attributes required of the end product.

Sport is a global spectacle and equipment is responsible for around 15% of the sporting industry’s international revenue. In a market with total annual sales figures in the hundreds of billions, the trickle down to the mass market of new technology from elite athletes is inevitable. Carbon composites are no longer exclusive to large budget high performance objects. Product and furniture designers have taken advantage of the many unique characteristics of this material, just as aerospace, sport and medicine were able to draw upon and inadvertently share the original discovery.

The innovative New Zealand based designers and engineers featured in Redefining Agility are part of a new generation of ‘craftspeople’, actively utilizing the characteristics of fibres and polymers to create highly specialized bespoke objects. Prototyping new equipment for unforgiving scenarios, they are applying their skills wherever boundaries of agility need to be redefined.

Curated by Matt Blomeley, Redefining Agility is at Objectspace 1 March – 5 April 2008.


(Image courtesy of Mark Inglis and Wayne Alexander)

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