TRANSLATE ’10.
March 20, 2010

Last night was the big Tiger Translate art & music celebration. It's pretty amazing to see how far this concept has travelled and evolved, from its humble beginnings as a small culture event organized by Morgan and Atip in Auckland '06 to the juggernaut cultural festival & party that it is today, hosted in over eighteen countries worldwide annually. Naturally, being the spiritual home of the event, Tiger went all out to impress, holding the event this year not in a nightclub, alleyway, or a typical contemporary art gallery/party setting, but in the archaic multi-level Masonic Lodge on a quiet street close to the CBD area. It didn't stay quiet for long.

We were commissioned by Tiger to build an installation for the event. Since I wanted it to represent our organization, we chose photography as our medium of choice, a common interest between those who are involved in the creative arm of our organization.

The brief that was handed down to us was to create an installation based on the theme of "BALANCE", and the Tiger Beer motto of "EAST MEETS WEST".

We separated our installation into two parts. The first, titled "FACES" was a series of portraits that I shot, and a combination of the two basic themes of Balance and East Meets West. You can see the finished work below in detail.

I uploaded the originals onto my flickr a week beforehand, before deleting them to see if anybody would notice. You could piece them back together yourself if you want.

The installation itself turned out to be a 'balancing' act of its own. We wanted to hang the installation off the wall from a pole mounted quite close to the ceiling, so it took a little bit of brainpower to do this, and to give the illusion of the portraits themselves balancing and floating off the wall. Thanks Reece/Tim.

We had a great response from a lot of people about this part of our installation. Thanks for the kind words, especially those who didn't know that it was our work.

The second half of our installation was titled "THE OTHER SIDE". Again, using photography as a medium the idea was to give six individuals; three from western backgrounds, three from eastern backgrounds, a disposable camera each and for each to shoot their everyday lives for a week. The audience was then invited to look through each roll of film and to see whether or not they can determine whether or not the photographer was from a Western or Eastern background. The underlying message - to see people face their stereotypes of what they believe westerners or easterners see/behave/act throughout their everyday lives.

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It was certainly interesting listening to some of the comments as people peered at the photos. Some of my favourites that I overheard -

"Look, he's driving a Honda. That has to be an asian." CORRECT/INCORRECT
"White people don't do that." CORRECT/INCORRECT
"This one is trying to throw us off with doing the asian peace fingers." - CORRECT/INCORRECT
"I bet this guy works in an asian sweatshop." - CORRECT/INCORRECT

I wish I had a microphone hidden behind the boards. The recordings would've made a great addition to another installation.

If you were there on the evening, here are the results. Did you get them correct?

From Left to Right:

1. Western
2. Western
3. Western
4. Eastern
5. Eastern
6. Eastern

As you can see, we actually separated the two sides square down the middle between West and East. We thought it was rather obvious - evidently not.

Thanks again to all who commented or stopped to have a ponder and be involved. If you had a thought whilst looking through our installation, then I believe we've accomplished our task.

Here's a quick tour through the other exhibiting artists' works and installations.

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Bobby BERST (GBAK TMD). Bobby is really blowing up as an artist right now, and has recently put himself in the forefront of the local and international graffiti circles with a lot of his experimental style and techniques. It gets more and more complex every time. My brain aches whenever I see new works. I love his illustrations.

The Cut Collective. The biggest installation at the event, with the most impact. Brilliant.

Busy Nice (Erin & Leah Forsyth). Look a little closer.

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Askew One. A long time friend of ours and one of the pioneers and now a leading artist in the international graffiti realm. Much like Bobby, Askew also produced a limited run of numbered prints, featuring his signature character. You can read more on his inspirations and the development of the pyramid guy on his content-rich blog. Keep spreading the knowledge my friend!

Andy Morton. Perhaps the most unique medium used - aerosol on felt. The aerosol eats away at the top layer of the felt to create this interesting 3D texture. Andy created three works; two aerosol on felts, and one in-situ, titled "Tiger On The Line". Symbolic of the balancing act with the endangered nature of the big cat.

Alongside the commissioned artists, Tiger also held a competition for upcoming artists to submit their work, with the winner receiving a $2000 grant to produce their work for the event. Here is the winning piece - Michelle Ockleford. Aerosol on Canvas.

Cherry Sprinkles. Incredible detail in this paper sculpture.

Outside the venue, Ololol (Perth, Australia) set up a visual installation projecting illustrations onto the side of the large Masonic building. Aside from drawing their own mural, they gave the public an opportunity to draw their own graphics. There's a lot of dirty minded people out there, that's all I can say.

Of course, it wasn't all about the art, and by 11:00pm the venue was packed wall to wall by music aficionados who had come to see the impressive line-up of artists playing at the party this year. We only managed to catch the first few performances by An Emerald City. Incredible unique acoustic/electronic sound, with a sitar, violin, percussion + drums, guitar, and keyboards. You can catch them next on April 8th at the Auckland Town Hall, where they'll be supporting local legends Crowded House. Listen.

The finale of the evening for a lot in attedance - DJ KENTARO (Tokyo), on the top floor. Great set, and a mash-up of styles. Saw him throw a few of his turntablist tricks into this club set which was pretty impressive, whilst still keeping the tempo alive and uninterrupted. Hands of a robot.

The man behind the Experience. The Reece Jensen Experience. A big thank you to Reece, Angely, Quentin, and Anna from Tiger for asking us to be involved in this year's event, and also to the production crew - Chris & Tim for putting up with all the last minute changes, kooky ideas and helping us with hanging our installation.

Until next year.