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Otago Daily Times

Exploration key for artists

A collaboration between digital artist Kereama Taepa (Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa), and musician Tiki Taane (Ngāti Maniapoto), Mai Te Uira explores the spirit of creativity. The pair talk to Rebecca Fox about exploring new ideas and trying new things. Everything Kereama Taepa creates begins digitally but can manifest itself physically in all sorts of different ways. It is a world away from growing up carving bone, sculpting clay, painting and drawing — his father is a clay artist, his grandmother a painter. But a random choice during his studies for a bachelor of Māori visual arts at Te Pūtahi-a-Toi, in Palmerston North, to take up a graphic design paper changed everything. "I just loved it so much and I really responded with that way of working — it just felt natural to me." From there it snowballed. Taepa began teaching himself to use other programmes, including 3-D sculpting, where the skills he learned carving and sculpting came in handy. Taepa, who grew up in Upper Hutt, calls his practice and philosophy "whakapai", a term he created to acknowledge the carving (sculpting) of his tīpuna (ancestors) and the digital space he works in. The Māori word for carving is whakairo, the process where the kaiwakairo (carver) chips away at the wood to reveal the sculpture hidden within. "Whakairo" literally translates to "be like the grub", eating away at the wood. "Whakapai" is "to be like the honey bee", Taepa says, which excretes wax from its abdomen and builds its hive layer by layer. "It refers to the artist layering and building up [adding] parts of the work bit by bit in which to create it." He first applied it to 3-D printing but found in reality layering is a fundamental aspect of all digital creation software so he uses the term for both contexts. "With a reductive approach to sculpting like whakairo you are restricted by many things, from your materials, your tools and to the environment also. With these restrictions you can only create in a particular way, only when you extend those restrictions can you start to explore the new." But using an "additive approach" in te ao matihiko/mariko (virtual world) means he can create with fewer restrictions, "even gravity is not always a concern". While all his projects begin digitally they manifest themselves physically in different ways, including bronze, concrete, installations, digital projection mapping, artificial reality, virtual reality or even in a game. "It manifests however I need it to in order to achieve whatever is required at the time for the context of the work." Now a father of five and living in Papamoa, he has found working digitally "just clicks" for him. "I'm definitely not a programmer in any way, but learning and using software has always been something I can do easily, very quickly. It also means I don't have to always worry about certain restrictions the real world has. For instance I mentioned gravity, it really is a bummer. "It also means I don't have a big mess to clean up afterwards, other than sorting and arranging my desktop every once in a while." Although making his designs a reality does mean he has artwork "all over the house hidden in cupboards, under couches, even at my former place of employment, wherever I can find space." He sees his work over the years as being about how digital technologies — "while sometimes not good" — can be used to aid in the advancing of whatever message someone wants to put forward. Mai Te Uira has its origins in plans to take Māori art out into marae and communities instead of them coming into galleries. "I was just keen on the whole idea, I really liked the flipping of the engagement with art, taking it to the marae." For this project, a partnership between The Dowse Art Museum and Chamber Music New Zealand, Taepa also wanted to acknowledge the atua Māori he believes governs digital spaces. It is told through the stories of three auta, Te Uira, the atua of lighting, Tāne Mahuta, a creator himself, and Hine-te-Iwaiwa, the atua of weaving. "It considers creativity, innovation, technology and the essence of digital technologies in our creation stories and how we as Māori whakapapa to that space." Taepa, who has taught on and off over the years at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and Waiariki, now Toi Ohomai, believes it is not enough to just fill technological spaces with indigenous people and use the technology. "That's not indigenising the tech space. To me, indigenising the tech space is to view that space through that indigenous world view. It should fit into that world view and not the other way around. For us as Māori it begins with whakapapa and how we genealogically connect to that space, only from there can we work in a way that aligns with a Māori world view." He formed these ideas more than 15 years ago and has exhibited work around them many times but it "made sense" for him to put it out there again in this way as Mai Te Uira was going out to marae and community. "It's a proposal of sorts in that it's ultimately up to Māori to agree or disagree with my thoughts around how we whakapapa to te ao matihiko — the digital world." Taepa wrote a karakia some years ago for the creatives who use digital technologies to create their work that acknowledges the atua Māori he thinks govern digital spaces. "It considers creativity, innovation, technology and the essence of digital technologies in our creation stories and how we as Māori whakapapa to that space." He sees Mai Te Uira, which starts with that karakia, as a conceptualisation of the dialogue between himself and te ao Māori — represented in this project by musician Tiki Taane who responds live and unscripted. "Mai Te Uira is a synthesis of that dialogue that happens during or after an introduction of a new concept that which, in time, becomes a part of culture — or not. I suppose it's a meta artwork in that way." Taepa put Taane's name forward for the project when a live music collaboration was suggested as he was a fan and knew he lived close by. But did not think he would seriously consider it. "I was absolutely stoked when he said yes." For Taane, who has been a leading figure in the contemporary New Zealand music scene for more than quarter of a century and currently mixes making music for a video game and other projects with mentoring emerging artists, taking part is a no brainer as he is always keen to push new sounds and visuals and loves what Taepa has done with the digital art. "I love the concept of exploring atua or Māori gods and karakia from the digital realm and what that would look like, sound like. And also, you know, exploring the concept of artificial intelligence and the effect that that has on indigenous cultures and the world today. So, to be able to put all that into a show and then also add music to it and perform was just an awesome challenge." It meant working out how to create music and sound that represents artificial intelligence (AI) and do it from an indigenous point of view. "The things that have been working is the fact that I improvise live and I basically make music and soundscapes and musical ideas live using all sorts of stuff." Along with his guitar, conches, tambourine and mixing desk, he also uses taonga pūoro (traditional instruments) and industrial tools, such as a drill and screws. "I mean, I can't believe I get paid to do this. It's so much fun. And it's like, I'm probably the person who's having the most fun out of everybody in the whole thing." As most of the show is improvised, no two shows are the same. As well as singing, rapping, doing spoken word and creating the music, Taane also triggers the visuals. "I'm kind of like a mad scientist with all these things. It's weaving back and forth, the conversation between me and the world we live in right now. And then it's a conversation with the digital realm that has been created." Taepa says the collaboration has worked really well, with several meetings between the pair to share ideas and go over the kaupapa of the karakia and the concept. "Tiki is amazing at what he does and can create exactly what you're thinking into sound — so there's full trust that it's going to just work." Surrounding Taane are the projections of Taepa's work (none of which use AI). The visuals or animations took months part-time to complete. At the time he had been experimenting with some new work "just the style, working figuratively". "I had done heaps of small simple animations before, so I had to step up a bit to learn my way around the animation side of things but it was really just time. I already had the vision of what I wanted to create and just got to it and modelled everything for the animation process. It was all then married with Tiki's audio and then that was that." Taepa admits the use of technology and AI in art is a controversial subject as people view it in many different ways. "But really, to me, it's just another way in which we can explore and create, and in a way that we can't always create in the "real world". We currently spend more time in te ao matihiko (virtual world) than we do in the real one. So to me it just makes sense to create from that same space." Regardless of what happens with AI or other technology, Taepa says he will still be making art. "That is the role of the artist, to explore and question the human condition through creative expression. And personally, I think the general population will look first to the artists and their artwork to come to terms with that major humanity shift." To see Mai Te Uira, Glenroy Auditorium, Dunedin, June 18, 7.30pm.