CIRCUIT CAST

For the second episode of ‘Ka Mua Ka Muri – Walking Backwards Into the Future’ we present a conversation between Maria de Lima (UK/ Brazil) and Alex Monteith (NZ), two artists using moving image in a time of fragile ecologies as a platform for global knowledge exchange, deep time awareness and human rights. Hosted by Mark Williams. From 9-22 March 2026 we will be presenting Alex Monteith's, ‘Deepwater Currents’ (2020) alongside Maria de Lima’s ‘This Map of Affections’ (2024) on LUXScotland.org. This podcast series has been made possible with support from the British Council and their programme Connections through Culture. Image: Maria de Lima, ‘This Map of Affections’ (2024). Courtesy of the artist.

Tessa Laird: Cinemal “All film is made out of hooves”. Mark Amery speaks to writer Tessa Laird about her new publication Cinemal: The Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film, and discusses the various animal qualities of cinema, like scratching and sniffing, vibrant colours, and voices. 00:00: Introduction 01.52: What is a Cinemal? On the hybrid of Cinema and Animal. Inspiration of films by Australian film-makers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill. The idea of 'a cinematic animal...(while watching a film) the human viewer may also become animal...” The subtitle 'the becoming animal of experimental film', where does that come from? Tessa discusses the book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980) by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, Tessa's resistance to reading it, discovery of the books assertion that “all art comes from the animal… when we are engaged in artistic production we are at our most animal”. Discusses our “current hyper separation from the natural world". 7.14: What is experimental film? Discusses non-narrative film, the work of Australian film-makers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill. 9.52: Meeting the Cantrills, following research into work by Nova Paul, discusses three colour separation, “the lingering of ghosts”. Seeing the Cantrill films in the original format, understanding the tactility of film. Understanding celluloid film as a dying medium, much as natural species were dying out. Mentions the Cantrills'film in new Zealand, 'Bubbling mud pools in Rotorua'. 15.29: Community of film-makers around the Cantrills from the 1960s onwards, the magazine Cantrills Fllm Notes, which included New Zealander Phil Dadson, Nam Jun Paik and others. “They were a network”. 16:40: In what way is film like animal? Discusses how celluloid includes a gelatin component. The book Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (2009), and how animal parts have furnished the rise of capitalism. “All film is made out of hooves”. “You can’t have a vegan cinema that’s made out of celluloid”. Film being full of toxic chemicals. The colour, grain and translucency of film. Question of whether the interest in film is just a nostalgic medium. “I think it’s more than that but I’m prepared to be challenged on that”. 20:15: Film being animal. Technological analogy between watching animal movement and media. Discusses the book The Squid Cinema From Hell: Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulumedia (2020) and animals as screens. Animal attributes as technology. 23:00: The sixth sense and our bodily feel for cinema, the inexplicable - spirit, energy. The human and the non-human. 25:20 The eye of the camera. 25:50: On film programme accompanying the Cinemal book launch. The work of Nova Paul, and her phyto-filmic practice, working with trees. Vegan Cinema. On Sriwhana Spong working with film, realising the specificity of the medium in her practice, film as an entity.

“The smile goes away the longer they experience the work” - John Vea Comic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image. In this conversation, Joe meets Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-born, Ōtautahi-based artist John Vea, whose work uses humour as a device to draw viewers into deeper dialogues around Pasifika identity. Image: John Vea, Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025) (detail) List of Topics: 00:00: Introduction 01:34: What is Talanoa? John - “a holistic way of experiencing information... a learning mechansim”. 03.20: On the video work Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025)' included in the exhibition Ini Mini Mani Mou (2025) at the Christchurch Art Gallery. John describes the genesis of the work; coming from the real life experience of being mistaken for someone else. In the video, friends “narrate their experiences of these stereotypical events. “It’s funny… it’s not sort of funny”. 05.50: Was the humour in the video intentional? John - “We’re used to laughing at our trauma, which is sad cos we glaze over it... especially when we're kids”. 07:30: John on the nature of Pacific humour generally; and then on integrating it into his work. He discusses the 2019 installation If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back? shown in Sydney. Humour as a 'Trojan horse'. 10:00: On adjusting a work for different social and class contexts "If it has to be subtle... because of the community, then I'll change it up". The difficulty of reinstalling works in a new space, a new context. 12:30: The line between poetic and humorous. How does John "walk that line?" John - “It starts off quite heavy”. 14:30: Joe on the effect on him as an audience member of watching Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025). John discusses the common Pasifika experience of changing one's name to “fit in”. 16:30: On site specificity; and showing the video Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? to Christchurch audiences. 17:00: Is the current political climate influencing new work? John - “It's sad that my practice is almost relying on trauma“. 18:00: On John's recent move to Otautahi from Tāmaki Makaurau, being Pasifika in Otautahi. 20:30: John on making Tribute to American Samoa and Tonga (2009); combining sculpture and video, objects as projection surface. The story of the making of the work, and the first installation releasing salt water from the sea into the gallery. 24:00: On conceptualising the work and discarding various sculptural options during this process. 25:30: “Is it a problem if someone comes out of a work and just goes, oh, that was so funny, and then that's it?" John discusses how viewers absorb the work the more time they spend with it. 26:30: Using the body in John’s videos. On the work Finish this week off and that’s it! (2009). John - "I wanted (the audience) to just experience working for two hours... not working in terms of the physical, but... to make them sit there and engage with the work for that amount of time". 28:00: John discusses how the audiences limited attention span for the two hour work is analogous to the lack of interest in acknowledging the cost of labour on Pasifika bodies, and the poor wages for this work. 29:00 On eating below the poverty line for six weeks whilst making Finish this week off and that’s it! 30:00 Comedy as a vehicle for hard conversations. Joe - “...what's interesting is the uncomfortable laughter... is that something you purposefully go for?" 31:00 Joe - "Is it okay for people to laugh at your work?" John - "Humour is welcomed in my practice. But expect the humour to be wiped off your face once you experience the works longer."

Brett Graham's exhibition Wastelands opened at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in June 2025. Featuring a monumental sculpture of the same name that was commissioned for the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, the haunting installation is expanded to include a new multi-channel video work, titled Whangamārino (2025). Re-working footage shot by news company Aukaha of a 2024 fire in the Whangamārino wetlands, Graham's new work adds layers of animation, personal history, and an ominous soundtrack. The resulting installation addresses both the history of colonial exploitation and our contemporary ecological crisis. Over 1.2 million acres of Waikato-Tainui land were confiscated by the colonial government following the Waste Lands Act (1858), the Waikato War (1863–64), and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863), with devastating consequences for tangata whenua and te taio. In this exhibition, Graham powerfully addresses the resulting degradation of the Waikato River and its surrounding wetlands, a precious resource and taonga for his iwi. In this kōrero with Kathryn Graham, Brett discusses Wastelands, his earlier work Tai Moana Tai Tangata (2020), and presenting Wastelands at the Venice Biennale in 2024.

"There is a vitality that is held in the earth." Artist Nat Tozer and CIRCUIT director Mark Williams talk archaeology, deep time and kaitiakitanga on the occasion of the Aotearoa premiere of Erotic Geologies, Tozer's most complex work to date. Nat Tozer’s Erotic Geologies (2024) is an ambitious new video project described as "a sci-fi parable that seeks knowledge from the underground." Shifting through an otherworldly landscape where rocky outcrops meet tumultuous skies, the setting of the film makes reference to post-earthquake Ōtautahi in Te Waipounamu and the Tongariro Crossing in Te Ika-a-Māui. The narrative follows protagonists Rangi and Liberté, characters inspired by both Māori mythologies surrounding the figures of Ranginui and Papatūānuku’s children, and Greek figures Deucalion and Pyrrha. Archaeology, time and kaitiakitanga are central to the work, which merges a local, contemporary narrative with deep time and mythology. While several of Tozer's earlier video works were one-person productions shot on her iPhone, Erotic Geologies marks a profound shift in production methodologies, and incorporates actors, technical collaborators, and apocalyptic animated landscapes. In this kōrero, Tozer discusses her expansive practice, reflecting on "the slippery mess of our built environment."

"Whanaungatanga is this gift we have as Māori to connect and to relate" Hihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a screening programme of six moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day. In this kōrero, Emma talks to artist Sandy Wakefield (Ngapuhi, Ngāi Tahu). Emma and Sandy discuss the making of Sandy's film 'Nakunaku' (2020), a "wairua journey" to Rakiura supported by local iwi wāhine, which is included in Rematriation. Sandy also discusses her earlier works, which appropriated Disney and b-movie footage to tell Māori stories.

How is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland City described outside of official city maps? Is it possible to navigate off-road, off-grid? What discrete spaces exist in the plain sight of everyday work, life and commerce? How are these activated by people, flora and fauna? In front of a live audience, artists Layne Waerea, Leala Faleseuga, Gavin Hipkins, Jae Hoon Lee, Gabriel White, and Tia Barrett discuss their video works for Wild Wild Life, a public art project commissioned by Auckland Council, curated by Mark Williams for CIRCUIT, and presented as part of the 2024 Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival. Installed at a series of site-specific locations across the inner city, the artists’ works were presented in proximity to the construction of the City Rail Network, a massive engineering project that has temporarily remapped downtown Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland as a construction site, and, when completed, will fundamentally alter its psycho-geography.

"Dwelling in the void space" — a conversation between Selina Ershadi and Dani McIntosh, the second part of the CIRCUIT Cast series Sites of Connection. In this podcast, artist Selina Ershadi discusses three films: Hollywood Ave (2017), Amator (2019) and The hands also look (2020), alongside a new work in progress, The Blue Dome (forthcoming). In conversation with artist Dani McIntosh, Selina reflects on navigating personal and family histories as guided by Chantal Akerman, Maya Deren and Derek Jarman; ideas of dwelling, homemaking and displacement; oral storytelling traditions and the poetic potential of decentering the visual.

A conversation with writers Tina Makereti, Gregory Kan, and Gwynneth Porter, on the dynamic possibilities for writing to respond to art beyond the essay, chaired by Thomasin Sleigh. Recorded at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery.

In this pod Horowhenua-based artist Leala Faelseuga speaks to Mark Williams about her new work Vessel: Dissolution | It's in the milk. Commissioned for Masons Screen, It’s in the milk reflects on "visceral motherhood", photography and memory. Leala discusses her iterative processes, what it means to exhibit personal work in public space, and inspiration gathered from the films of MD Brown and her collective 7558.

Sampling, reuse and copying have long been strategies and approaches in artistic practice and is a thread you can follow through art history. But who owns art? Should culture be under copyright? What are the limits of fair use? These questions are explored in the recent artworks exhibited at City Gallery Wellington in Josh Azzarella: Triple Feature. Picking up and expanding on these conversations, Josh and artists Bronwyn Holloway-Smith and Eugene Hansen discuss this and more. Moderated by Caitlin Lynch.

"What are the legacies that make us who we are?" In this pod we discuss Legacies, CIRCUIT's 2022 programme of artist cinema commissions; featuring new films by Edith Amituanai, Martin Sagadin, Ukrit Sa-nguanhai, Pati Tyrell, Sriwhana Spong. CIRCUIT Curator-at-large May Adadol Ingwanaij and Thai artist Ukrit Sa-nguanhai (Todd) speak to host Mark Williams about May's curatorial process, Ukrit's film on a Cold War-era mobile cinema propaganda unit, and the other artists works in the programme.