4 Capítulo IV Resultados
4.4 Las prácticas experimentales, el lenguaje escrito y las TIC, herramientas que median la
In 1962, New Zealand artist E. Mervyn Taylor was commissioned by the New Zealand Government to create a mural for the foyer of the Commonwealth Pacific Cable (COMPAC) landing station in Northcote.
Following shifts in the structure and ownership of New Zealand's communications industry, the mural Te Ika-a-Maui was largely forgotten until, as a result of the research for this tour, it was found: stacked in cardboard boxes in the disused COMPAC landing station, having been hidden from the public for an estimated 20 years.
As a result, the project
Te Ika-a-Akoranga
was undertaken. Each of the 398 tiles in the mural (sixteen were found to be missing) were cleaned, photographed, the digital file edited, and reproduction photographic tiles printed in duplicate – a process that took months – each of the tiles taking roughly an hour to process.The images of each tile are publicly available as a free download, under a Creative Commons Attribution license on bronwyn.co.nz
The mural itself (in the collection of the Spark Arts Trust) is undergoing restoration work, with the intent to reinstall it in a publicly-accessible space in proximity to the mural’s original location on the North Shore of Auckland.
Te Ika-a-Akoranga (Alteration)
This site-specific installation will be the final step in the Te Ika-a- Akoranga project: once again allowing the public to view the wall where the Te Ika-a-Maui mural was installed in the COMPAC landing station in Northcote (albeit from outside the complex). A glass door will be fitted in place of the existing door to the COMPAC station, the canopy and bars will be removed, and the windows and space will be cleaned.
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The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, February 2017
Site 3: Whenuapai
In December 2010 a US Government report was revealed that listed over 300 foreign sites that were considered “critical infrastructure and key resources located abroad”. Only two New Zealand sites made the list: the two undersea cable landing sites of the Southern Cross Cable (listed as “Whenuapai” and “Takapuna”).
Later, on 15 September 2014, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and whistle-blowing anti-surveillance advocate Edward Snowden took part in an event at the Auckland Town Hall titled “Moment of Truth”, arranged by media mogul Kim Dotcom in connection with the New Zealand national election.
Greenwald and Snowden presented information about "Project Speargun", suggesting that New Zealanders are subject to mass internet surveillance under the GCSB with the full knowledge of then-Prime Minister John Key (leader of the National Party). The surveillance was said to take place via a tap on the Southern Cross Cable.
Anthony Briscoe, CEO of the Southern Cross Cable Network, dismissed the claims as “nonsense”, saying it would have impossible for probes to be inserted without his company noticing an impact on performance.
To date, no further evidence has come forward to support these allegations.
For The Good Of The Land / Ipurangi (working title)
This installation will gently respond to this important story associated with the SCCN, and will also pick up on themes intertwined through all the works in this series.
A billboard will be installed outside the Whenuapai landing station, depicting a collection of historic aerial imagery of the site.
As well as referencing concepts of surveillance, this will mark the proximity of the landing station to the Royal New Zealand Air Force base (this aerodrome was also Auckland’s international airport from 1945-1965 when the COMPAC mural was
completed). The use of a tile motif will echo this mural. Additionally, the Maori word for “Internet” is “Ipurangi”, which translates as “container for the sky”.
This work will remind viewers of the changing landscapes we live in, and the histories that surround us.
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The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, February 2017
Site 4: Muriwai
Like Takapuna, Muriwai is a site with a rich cultural history. However, unlike the gentle shores of Takapuna it is a wild, dramatic landscape shaped by the surf of the Tasman Sea.
Although primarily known for it’s gannet colony, it is also a site marked by the dramatic spectacles of whale strandings and shipwrecks. Celebrated New Zealand artist Colin McCahon captured some of the spirit of this in his Muriwai series’, produced while he worked from a studio in the area.
Lesser known is the fact that Muriwai has long been a landing site for communications cables, with no fewer than eight cables having been landed at the beach (the first dates back to 1902). Muriwai was also the site of the first Trans-Tasman airmail flight in 1934. Although largely unmarked (there is not a “cable” marker like at Takapuna), the landings can be identified by three high voltage marker posts - warning the public not to dig due to risk of electrocution. These are spaced along the beach access way on Coast Road, with an additional post further inland marked “NZPO” (dating back to the era when the New Zealand Post Office managed these cables). From this road, the public may walk 200 metres up Muriwai Beach to the Okiritoto stream mouth, where an old communications cable is visible, having been exposed due to erosion.
The Long Walk (working title)
The tour will conclude with a walk punctuated by posts that chart various events in Muriwai’s history, including the unseen cables under the sand at Muriwai (see the current draft of the timeline in Appendix I).
The walk will begin at the beach access carpark, and culminate at the point where the cable is visible coming out of the sand.
The posts will imitate the look and feel of the High Voltage posts, so as to function as a subtle addition to the landscape, and will be painted in a manner that references McCahon’s “Walk C”.
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The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, February 2017