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Installation view of TERRI TE TAU’s Unwarranted and Unregistered, 2013, multimedia installation with music composed by Rob Thorne, dimensions variable, at “Unwarranted and Unregistered: Te Āhua o te Hau ki Te Papaioea,” The Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland, 2015. Courtesy the artist.
Some geologists posit that humanity’s existence is merely a blip on the earth’s vast timeline, and while our species might self-destruct, the planet will carry on just fine. Though this fatalist thinking might be true, the recently published Palgrave and Macmillan book Animism in Art and Performance (2017) offers more optimistic perspectives, exploring the different ways in which we could recalibrate our future with the earth.
The 291-page anthology of 13 essays aims to reclaim the topic of animism from a legacy of scientific racism that classified indigenous worldviews as relics of the underdeveloped, “primitive” mind. In the introduction, editor Christopher Braddock argues that the book’s authors breathe substance and complexity back into the concept while furthering the discussion of transdisciplinary art practice, and addressing the contexts of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, where most of the writers are based. Braddock further states that this focus on animism unites notions of the anthropocene, new materialism and posthumanism that have fuelled the zeitgeist of contemporary art over the last decade or so.
The first few chapters deliver this aim by plunging deep into te ao Māori (the Māori world). Cassandra Barnett begins with a meditation on the topic of taonga—a Māori term commonly attributed to culturally significant treasures or artefacts. Barnett more accurately explains that taonga can refer to both a material object or immaterial phenomenon, which gains its power through a “great sea of connectivity,” emphasizing the importance of relational, experiential and spiritual approaches to understanding the world around us. According to Barnett, for taonga to become animate, it must engage three key aspects: ancestral hau (life breath), mauri (life force) and mana (spiritual power). Combined, these qualities also endow taonga with the potential to collapse a sense of time, especially between the past and present.
Installation view of TERRI TE TAU’s Unwarranted and Unregistered, 2013, multimedia installation with music composed by Rob Thorne, dimensions variable, at “Unwarranted and Unregistered: Te Āhua o te Hau ki Te Papaioea,” The Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland, 2015. Courtesy the artist.
This philosophically rich essay is concluded through the description of a contemporary artwork by Terri Te Tau. The work in question, Unwarranted and Unregistered (2013), comprises a video wrapped around the windows of a 1980s Suzuki van that has been modified to resemble a surveillance vehicle. Once inside the van, visitors experience a simulation of driving through an urban environment set to the sound of a classic waiata (song) E Hine E. Throughout the video, your attention is drawn to graphic targets that track moving vehicles; the silhouettes of buildings that appear to be traced for some type of pattern recognition; and other forms of data collection. Barnett begins by describing these features in relation to the politics of digital surveillance, particularly of Māori activists by the New Zealand government. In terms of taonga, Barnett further considers the graphic interface—the tracking of digital footprints and recording of outlines and other data—which could also be described as markers of energy and intangible life forces similar to the properties of hau, mauri and mana. Here, Barnett asserts an important distinction: that the qualities of taonga need not resemble “traditional” Māori art forms but can also be embodied within contemporary technologies and aesthetic expressions. As opposed to customary taonga, she emphasizes that contemporary art as taonga has the added proclivity of collapsing time by “breathing ancestral hau into the present,” in a way that “the past is reactivated but does not dominate.”
The time-traveling animacy of taonga is also explored in Natalie Robertson’s text on how photography has become enmeshed within te ao Māori as a sacred medium and mindful practice to engage with one’s whakapapa—a term referring to a complex layering of kinship and environmental relationships. Barnett’s and Robertson’s opening chapters issue the challenge that animism is a subject that Western theorists and philosophers have struggled to articulate. The insinuation is that such thinkers lack the multifaceted understanding of being as something imbedded within a larger construct, alluded to through the Māori concepts of taonga and whakapapa.
AXEL ANTAS, Cloud Formation Suspended, 2006, C-type print, 114 × 90 cm. Courtesy the artist.
It is surprising, therefore, after such a strong start, that the following chapters revert to more of a Western paradigm. In saying so, there are some insightful contributions. Highlights include Edward Scheer’s discussion of atmospheric animacy. Described as a focus on sensorial phenomena, such as weather patterns and gases, attaining animate properties, Scheer argues that this consideration of an atmospheric animacy goes against the discourse that has tended to favor an emphasis on more tangible objects. His artwork examples include the artificial creation of clouds as event-based projects, and photographic works by artists such as Berndnaut Smilde and Axel Antas. Through their ethereal and fleeting work, Scheer considers the human tendency to control the ether while ultimately submitting to its untamable life force, and suggests that such artworks might enable us to respect the fragility of our atmosphere. The investigation of sound fossils by Amelia Barikin is similarly intriguing. Barikin explores the scientific and artistic recreation of sounds and “immortal signatures” found in geology and throughout the universe.
Also of note is an interview with Amelia Jones, who talks about the work of performance artist Cassils, among others; Christopher Braddock’s examination of self-portraits by Darcell Apelu; and Martin Patrick’s focus on the performance work of David Cross, Catherine Bagnall and Shannon Te Ao. In varying ways, Jones, Braddock and Patrick each delve into enfacement and indeterminacy as methods artists use to attain agency, arguing that this is a form of reclaiming animacy for people who have been objectified and dehumanized through oppression, violence and trauma.
Animism in Art and Performance issues plenty of concerns about our current political and ecological condition, but the overall voice is suggestive of the potential for humanity to form a more holistic relationship to the earth. While more indigenous insights could have been included, especially from Australia and across Asia, the publication is a strong contribution to the international discourse on contemporary art practice and our relationship to the earth, its environments and its ecosystems.
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