NZ on Screen: An Archive of Aotearoa New Zealand Screen Culture
"In 2007 NZ On Air initiated the NZ On Screen project as an integral part of its digital strategy. Since 1989 NZ On Air has funded over 15,000 hours of local television production. Much of this content, as well as thousands more hours supported by broadcasters, film investors and other funding sources, is not easily accessible to the public.
NZ On Screen is unlocking the treasure chest, providing access to the wealth of television, film, music video and new media produced in NZ, along with knowledgeable background information."
(New Zealand on Screen)
Fig.1 Murphy, G. (1981). Goodbye Pork Pie. Aotearoa New Zealand, NZ Film.
Fig.2 Tamahori, L. (1994). Once Were Warriors. Aotearoa New Zealand, New Zealand Film Commission
Fig.3 Ballantyne, A. (2009). The Strength of Water. Aotearoa New Zealand, NZ Film.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Better Place Australia: zero emissions driving
"Better Place Australia is part of a global company dedicated to zero emissions driving. We will enable the mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in Australia by providing the infrastructure and services that make it easy, affordable and attractive for motorists to adopt and drive electric vehicles.
The key barriers to the mass adoption of EVs in Australia, and globally, have been 'range anxiety', the cost and risk of battery purchase and the impact of EV charging on the electricity grid.
To overcome 'range anxiety' - the fear of EV drivers that their battery will run out of power - Better Place provides a personal charge spot at home, access to a network of charge spots at work and in public, access to 'instant recharge' through battery swap stations and in-car services to help drivers know when and where to recharge.
The system of battery swapping also helps overcome the cost and risk of battery purchase. The driver's subscription to Better Place covers use of a battery and the ability to swap and go at any swap station. Rather than pay upfront, drivers pay a monthly fee which covers their battery use. Better Place manages the risk and performance of the pool of batteries by tracking their capability and use through the battery swap stations.
Better Place manages the impact of EV charging on the electricity grid by using software that coordinates the charge spots so that the charging needs of customers are met within network capacity constraints. . This helps make the electricity grid more efficient and significantly reduces the need for additional generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure."
(Better Place, 2010)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Passionless Moments: the banality of everyday life
"Passionless Moments, as its title implies, is concerned less with the gathering up of individual scenes into an overall narrative than with their dispersion. And these are moments without deep emotion, without the passion erotic or otherwise that characterizes the later feature films. Instead, here and in Sweetie, Campion engages in what we might term a surreality of everydayness, in which ordinary, even trivial, incidents from a variety of people's lives receive comic evaluation."
(Dana Polan, 23 October 2006)
[1] Campion, J. and G. Lee (1983). Passionless Moments. Australia.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Tailenders: missionary activity and global capitalism
"The Tailenders explores the connections between missionary activity and global capitalism. The Tailenders examines a missionary organization's use of ultra-low-tech audio devices to evangelize indigenous communities facing crises caused by global economic forces.
Joy Ridderhoff founded Gospel Recordings in 1939 in Los Angeles. She remembered how crowds had gathered around gramophones in the Honduran villages where she had worked as a missionary, and decided that rather than compete with this medium, she would use it to preach. The organization that she founded has now produced audio recordings of Bible stories in over 5,000 languages, and aims to record in every language on earth. They distribute these recordings along with hand-wind players in regions with limited access to electricity and media. The Bible stories played by the missionaries are sometimes the first encounter community members have had with recorded sound, and, even more frequently, the first time they have heard their own language recorded. Gospel Recordings calls their target audience 'the Tailenders' because they are the last to be reached by global evangelism.
The missionaries target communities in crisis because they have found that displaced and desperate people are especially receptive to the evangelical recordings. When uprooted from one's home, as in the case of Mexican migrant workers, the sound of one's own language is a comfort. And the audio players are appealing media gadgets. Audiences who might not otherwise be interested in the missionaries' message will listen to the recordings. The Tailenders focuses on how the media objects and messages introduced by the missionaries play a role in larger socioeconomic transformations, such as the move away from subsistence economies toward cash economies based on agricultural and industrial labor.
The film raises questions about how people who receive the recordings understand them. Gospel Recording's project is premised on a belief in the transparency of language to transmit a divinely inspired message. But because the missionaries don't speak the languages, they must enlist bilingual native speakers as translators. There is ample opportunity for mistakes, selectivity, and resistance in the translation. The film explores how meaning changes as it crosses language and culture."
(Adele Horne)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Flagging interest in Nation Branding and National Identity?
"We are a changing, emerging state that no longer seeks inspiration from the present flag. It is part of our history and the role that it has played can be respected. We are moving from a predominantly bicultural society to one that now involves an important component of Pacific island people and also immigrants from Asia.
We must now seek inspiration, visual excitement and stimulus to creativity and excellence from many directions and develop a flag that can be a source of pride to New Zealanders as we continue to impact strongly on the wider world in the many areas of commerce, sport, films, literature, tourism and creative thinking in which we have to strive to excel."
(Ian Prior, 27 February 2004)
Fig.1 New Zealand National flag and state ensign;
Fig.2 Michael Smythe, 'Koru (after Gordon Walters)';
Fig.3 Cameron Sanders;
Fig.4 'Tino Rangatiratanga';
Fig.5 Kyle Lockwood.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
