Breaking Big

Despite a growing list of new writing assignments and good intentions of a productive evening, we couldnt' resist checking out the first episode of James May's Top Toys in which the Top Gear presenter makes really big versions of his childhood toys. First up is the classic Airfix model, the spitfire, which becomes a 1:1 kit, sprues and all - with a cast James May figurine in the cockpit. As overthenet are probably thinking, could be contender for a lookalike - HERE'S one conspicuously big example.

As May notes in the programme, lifesize spitfires aren't rare, there are quite a few replicas balanced on poles all over the place, including THIS recreation of the original spitfire prototype. Or THIS pair fixed in action at Bentley Priory. Even one right HERE in the Waikato. The programme also offered a glimpse of the Sentinel sculpture HERE on Spitfire Island near former spitfire production centre Castle Bromwich, where the episode takes place - nice CARPARK too.

We can't wait for the etch-a-sketch episode.

Special Reserve

[exhibition announcement]

A lot or a little might be said, but in the end there will be something to pass on.

By WilliamHsu and Nick Spratt

For their project at Newcall Gallery, Hsu and Spratt initiate a series of events that position the gallery as site within a trajectory, providing an access point to other spaces in its immediate surroundings. These events in their varied forms explore and reveal parameters of inclusion and exclusion within shared space. They interrelate in a way that might call into question how collective experiences may be instigated and relayed.We invite you to join us for the opening event on Wednesday evening at Glenside Reserve South.

Please join us at GLENSIDE RESERVE (beside Newcall Gallery, see map) 6pm tonight for the opening event.

Weather forecast looks fine but if it rains please bring an umbrella.

Show runs 4 - 20 February

Hours for 2010: 12-5pm Thursday - Saturday

(The gallery will not be open on Waitangi day, Saturday 6 February)

Details about subsequent events will follow during the course of the show.--

NEWCALL GALLERY

Level 1, Newcall Tower

Hohipere St

Newton

Auckland

http://www.newcallgallery.org.nz/

Doctoring time

Fans of Dr Who spin-off Torchwood (we've just finished the second series on DVD) will immediately recognise THIS view of central Cardiff, which plays a prominent role in the series. Cardiff, so the story goes, is in the middle of a rift in space and time and the Torchwood hub, where they deal with rift anomalies, is based underneath the Millennium Plaza (pictured). One episode has them rescuing a warehouse-scale alien meatloaf (built by Barney (son of Wystan) Curnow). Jumping into STREETVIEW, you're practically on location, waiting for Captain Jack to pop up out of the pavement.

Speaking of enormous alien structures, we've just discovered THIS DOOZY just a little north in Birmingham, designed by Future Systems, who are also responsible for the Lord's Media Centre, found HERE.

Transmissions from the Satellite Heart

The strange representations of reality found on google earth (and maps) got even weirder a few years ago when they launched Street View, adding another layer of time slippage and weird glitches to an already complex landscape. Just over a year ago, Google's army of camera cars trawled the streets of New Zealand and we've been fascinated ever since. Whereas once it was cool just being able to zoom in on the roof of your house, or check out nearby swimming pools, now you can check out cats or catch people doing dodgy things. Naturally, suspicious country folk and those wearing tin-foil hats got nervous.

Our latest discovery is then phenomenon of cloaked cameras. You haven't travelled until you've driven the streets of Alaska inside a PLASTIC BAG. Or whatever THIS ONE is.

So there's plenty of fun to be had with Street View, but we never expected to find this.

It seems, when he's not helping Yoshimi battle pink robots from space or spending Christmas on Mars, our favourite musical cosmonaut, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, likes to hang out in a bath tub out front of his Oklahoma home. Seriously though (not really), it's a bizarre installation Coyne and partner Michelle created for Halloween 2007, just in time for a visit from Google's roving camera. You can see it for yourself HERE (notice how it disappears when you take a jump to the RIGHT?).

Double fantasy

With a full moon on both Dec 2 and Dec 31, the first decade of this millennium will end with a blue moon. But before this year is out, weather permitting, we'd like to spend some time at our favourite swimming spot - Bethells Beach on Auckland's iconic West Coast. Heading north, it follows Campion and Caro's Karekare, popular Piha and McCahon's Muriwai.

Of course, Te Henga (Bethells Beach) is a landscape with its own lovers. Most notably, Don Binney frequently returned to this location, often drawing in situ to capture it both vacant and as a backdrop for his bird studies. Interesting to note that Google Maps has it as Te Henga at THIS altitude, but zoom CLOSER and it becomes Bethells. Curious.

Reuben Paterson now joins the list of artists inspired by this coastal treasure, with a work commissioned for the New Artland TV series. Titled There Goes The Moon, Paterson's ephemeral earth work pays tribute to his ancestral home of MATATA, which was devastated by flooding and landslides in 2005. It also recalls his 2004 outdoor installation for Scape, which similarly paid homage to the sacred energies of a local landscape - PUTARINGAMOTU (Riccarton).

Built and destroyed in a day, Paterson's Te Henga piece, like Riccarton before it, is another Narcissus reflection. This time it is an image of the moon, utilising the shimmering sand and surf to reflect the moon above while the installation is washed away. You can watch the entire process here.

Image: Reuben Paterson, There Goes The Moon, 2009, photo: FAT Productions/TVNZ 7.

Endless Summer

A strangely compelling travel piece not so long ago in the NZ Listener describes a blimp-hangar turned holiday resort in eastern Germany. Opened just in time for Christmas 2004 and clearly visible from ABOVE, Tropical Islands is easily as big as some neighbouring villages and has its own airstrip.

The website boasts the world's largest indoor rain forest, a complete tropical village, a Balinese lagoon and Germany's largest water slide. According to Wikipedia, it is one of the world's largest buildings by volume and the biggest hall without supporting pillars. Probably not what Buckminster Fuller had in mind for Spaceship Earth but camping is allowed (for a small fee).

Image: Tropical Islands under construction

"Nature is never finished"

“In my field we’re trained to make condition reports,” said Francesca Esmay, Dia’s conservator, but she added of Smithson’s work [Spiral Jetty], composed of more than 6,000 tons of rock and soil: “Its scale is such that I can’t just go out with a camera and pencil and clipboard by myself and describe it.” So several months ago she turned to the Getty Conservation Institute, an arm of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which has organized and assisted in conservation and monitoring of art and historic sites from Central America to Africa to the Middle East.

After considering nearly every possible way to document “SPIRAL JETTY” from above — Rent a weather satellite? An airplane? A helicopter? Use a kite? — the institute, which often works in countries where conservation projects are carried out on shoestring budgets, came up with a remarkably simple solution: a $50 disposable latex weather balloon, easily bought online.

(Story and image extracted from The New York Times, November 17 2009)

The Zero Island

Via the Starkwhite Blog, we discover the Cactus Dome of Enewetak Atoll, a cracked concrete cap more than 100m across, covering a radioactive dump left after US nuclear testing in the Pacific Proving Ground. The dome fills a crater left HERE by the 'Cactus' blast, preceded by 'Ivy Mike''s world-first test of a hydrogen bomb in 1952 as part of Operation Ivy, which completely atomised the island of Elugelab, leaving a 2km-wide hole HERE.

"What you have just seen was an awesome turning point in history..."


Image: Ivy Mike makes the cover of Life, found here.

An art opening

"New Zealand painter Andre Hemer’s unique umbrella art project recently came to life on the front lawn of the AUCKLAND GIRLS GRAMMAR SCHOOL with 256 students standing in formation holding umbrellas aloft to form the word CURE. From the air the work had a “digital precision” as first the C, then the U, R and E opened to form the word. A collaborative event involving the artist in Berlin, together with Art for a Cure curator Paul Baragwanath, AGGS and David Ponting Architecture which provided the architectural drawing. The event, part of the "Art for a Cure" exhibition, was documented from a helicopter thanks to Bayley’s Real Estate agent Marnie Adams. To be part of this living, moving artwork that flowers in the rain, buy the umbrella designed by André Hemer from here."

The Art for a Cure exhibition is now on at Hopetoun Alpha, Auckland, culminating in a closing event and auction on Friday 30th October. Exhibition catalogue downloadable here.

Image: Andre Hemer, Art for a Cure, courtesy of the artist and Antoinette Godkin Gallery, Auckland.

Remap Berlin

"Remap Berlin spreads a thin geographical virus in Google Earth and deals with different levels of reality. The project introduces a series of b&w photographs shot in Twinity, a mirror world that reproduces a realistic 3D replica of Berlin. The photos shot in Twinity, are then geo-localized in Google maps, re-mapped from virtual to real and positioned in the exact point where they have been shot in the mirror world. Once uploaded in the photo sharing community Panoramio, the pictures are mixed up with other ones shot in the same geographical point from real life users. Many of these pictures have been selected by Google and can now be found as “Popular photos in Google Earth”: his became a little geographical virus, parts of our memories of the real world. The photographs are cityscapes, shot by Marco Manray roaming around the still empty streets of Berlin in the beta version."

Internet landscape photographer Marco Manray's Remap Berlin project is currently featured at Window.

Image: Leipziger Platz, found here and HERE