Franz Ferdinand, Iggy, Common... there’s a lot to look forward to in the international line-up at January’s Big Day Out. The local roll call – notably South Auckland hip-hop label Dawn Raid’s plethora of acts – is similarly exciting. ALEXANDER BISLEY meets Brotha D, the independent label’s co-CEO/creative guru, one of the most influential and respected men in South AK.

This exhibition extends and fosters the understanding of New Zealand's unique position in the Asia Pacific region through and in relation to new media and art practices. The works encompass an exploration of the spiritual, ethical and technological challenges that face us in the 21st Century.

Text by Bob Harvey, Photographs by Tony Bridge
Exisle Publishing, HB$59.95

By Lindsay Shelton
Awa Press, PB $39.99 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

Whata ngarongarongo he tangata,
toitu te whenua.

People disappear,
but the land remains.

Kia tupato i nga whakawai
Kia kaha ra, kia kaha ra

Land is all we have
to rest a throbbing heart

By Craig Seligman
Counterpoint, HB$49.95 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

Sontag and Kael: Opposites Attract Me, instantly riveting, has taken me a ridiculous amount of time to review. The first time I read it I didn’t want to make notes, to sully the experience or the physical aesthetic of this exceedingly pleasurable book. Two wonderful (albeit problematic) writers, Susan Sontag and Pauline Kael, are channeled by a delightful scribe, Louisianan Craig Seligman. (Which isn’t to say it is perfect; the critic N.P. Thompson gives it an uneven, sometimes well-argued kicking, notably why Seligman is wrong to criticise Sontag for not politicising her bisexuality.)

With an exciting New Zealand International Arts Festival and Big Day Out lineup recently launched, who better to profile than Fat Freddy’s Drop, one of the premium attractions? Lumičre associate editor ALEXANDER BISLEY interviewed the supergroup’s guru, DJ Mu, at The Drop, his Lyall Bay home and studio.

Big Day Out 2006 Auckland murders Ericsson Stadium on Friday, January 20th. The event's second edition of acts have just been announced; view the first manifest of acts here, or read onwards to scour latest additions to the lineup.

Word from abroad: one of our friends here at Lumičre, performance artist Paul Amlehn, recently had a text work ("Untitled") exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennale. He is currently in pre-production on a feature-length film work we've featured here before, Jeanne Tripier Jeanne d'Arc. In addition, he is developing an erotic/sexually explicit feature film work titled The Tears of Eros, to be shot in The Garden of Monsters in Bomarzo, north of Rome – a phantasmagorical scupture garden by Orsini, the last of the Renaissance artists, and a sort of proto-surrealist (Dali also loved the garden, apparently).

Media Release | November 14, 2005
Cultural Futures: Place, Ground and Practice in Asia Pacific New Media Arts runs in Auckland from December 1-5 - the first significant event of its kind taking place in Aotearoa / New Zealand.

The ground-breaking symposium aims to develop international awareness of locally produced work and link off-shore practices to conversations around New Zealand's shifting cultural and creative identities.