Afterburner presents: Nag

Afterburner presents:

Nag

Based around five years of obsessive daily to-do lists; constructed of ancient timber from a defunct mental institution and some very tricky wiring; set to a soundtrack composed for thirty-five naked speaker cones and entirely powered by vintage racing bicycles, Nag mixes obsession, sweat, light, text, visual art, implicit statistical failure and humour into a coherent whole.

Presented by previous Fringe Visual Art award winners afterburner as part of NZ Fringe 2010 at Toi Poneke, Nag is an installation powered by the artists themselves that focusses on creative obssession and takes sustainability to a bizarre and kafkaesque level.

During the day Nag uses a mixture of vintage technology and electronics to explore the obsessive desire to create, and during the evening the artists will use the installation itself as a studio to produce and produce and produce non-stop, and even create things for their audience. All the while riding vintage bicycles to power the installation and their equipment, and so running the risk of failure if they slow down.

Ceaseless self-propulsion being one way to deal with projects that never finish, with drawings that never look right, with roads that go nowhere. Don’t examine. Don’t slow down. Just nag yourself to make and make and make and make.

Nag
17th-27th February, gallery open 10am-5.00pm
Performances 5.30-7.30pm daily
Toi Poneke Gallery, 61 Abel Smith Street.
Free/koha entry

afterburner is an arts collective founded in 2001 By Martyn Roberts.

Marcus Mcshane (concept artist/performer/producer) is a Wellington based lighting designer and writer who has also worked as a cycle courier, copywriter and translator. He has recieved two Chapmann Tripp theatre awards, and in the last two years has designed lighting for over forty shows. He recently designed Sleep/Wake for AK09, which won the Design Institute of New Zealand BEST spatial design award, and he also redesigned Heat which begins touring with it’s own containerised wind/solar system in July 2010 as the world’s first entirely sustainably-powered theatre. He owns six bicycles and has a mild addiction to Italian steel. His longest cycle trip has been a 7000k solo winter crossing of the United States in 2006. He also has a masters degree in philosophy that he is philosophical about.

Peter Stenhouse (illustrator/performer) is a New-Zealand born and London based designer and animator. His last project was a solo commission by the New York Metropolitan Opera (MET) to celebrate their 125th anniversary. He is currently directing and animating a music video for Icelandic group Sigur Ros. He dislikes any bicycle frame without lugs, and his longest cycle trip has been a 9000k solo circumnavigation of Europe in 2009, on Rose, his 1962 Holdsworth..

Andrew Shaw (illustrator/performer) graduated from Massey University in 2004, majoring in illustration. He can usually be found hunched over his antique swedish drawing desk in the top floor of the Wellington Arts Centre. Andrew cycles his Peugeot ‘Pepe’ every day, has recently bought his first set of lycra, and fills his days with storyboarding and visualising for film and television companies. His grubby pile of 60’s and 70’s prog rock vinyl keeps him inspired. Current interests include surfboard shaping, wheelsets he can’t afford, acrylic polymer glazes, and sketching the elusive ‘Datacom yeti”.

Erin Banks (co-producer) is a Wellington based ‘theatre type’ most recognized for her work as an actor. A multiple Chapman Tripp Award winner, most recently Actress of the Year for A Brief History of Helen of Troy in 2009, she has worked at BATS, Circa, Centrepoint and The Fortune as well as touring with The Bacchanals. Her theatre credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Hate Crimes, King Lear, I.D., Love Song and The Clean House. She has co-designed sets for Eli Kent’s award winning play The Intricate Art of Actually Caring, and can be found working with up-and-coming Wellington theatre company The Playground Collective in roles that range from makeup artist to script advisor. Day-to-day she works at the New Zealand Film Commission, and wakes thousands of New Zealanders every morning by announcing bird calls on National Radio, most notably ‘the little spotted kiwi’.

Thomas Press (sound designer) is a graduate of Toi Whakaari with a Diploma in Entertainment Technology (2005) and a Wellington based sound designer and composer.
In 2009 he designed sound for Wolf’s Lair both at Bats Theatre and at the Basement Theatre in Auckland, which was nominated for a Chapman Tripp award. He also composed the music and designing the lighting for How Big is Blue at Capital E and sound mentored for Young and Hungry. In 2008 Thomas was the composer and sound designer for the Capital E touring production of Kiwi Moon. In 2006 Thomas composed the music and designed sound for Downstage’s Dracula- which was also nominated for a Chapman Tripp award for sound design. He prefers bikes with motors and without pedals.

Joseph Nicholls (construction) Graduated with honors from the Victoria University Wellington school of Architecture in 2001, and has a particular interest in sustainable architecture and in using recycled materials. Joseph has practiced in Melbourne and London, but returned to Wellington in 2006 in order to found his own architecture company. Joseph likes building stuff, and delights in constructing his own designs, particularly if he can use exotic and exhaustive joinery techniques.

Adri Lamprect (costume designer/photographer/baker) completed a bachelor of fine arts at Massey in 2005 and is currently teaching photography at Rongotai college. She is artisticly active primarlily through baking, most recently with themed biscuits for Attack of the Art Beast in 2008. Her last fringe show was 200 Cupcakes in 2006. She has many strange cameras, an overlocker, a cat and a husband.

ENDS