Murray Hewitt

A Party Political Broadcast (2017)

30 secSingle channel / Digital Video / Colour / Sound

Artist Statement:
"And you will miss sunrise
If you close your eyes
And that would break
My heart in two"

- Townes Van Zandt

From the series Party Political Broadcast, presented on www.circuit.org.nz 19-22 Sept 2017, new works at 11am and 3pm daily. Presented by CIRCUIT and The Physics Room, Party Political Broadcast is a collection of 8 video works inspired by the format of the televised party political broadcast.

Featuring new work by Janet Lilo, Murray Hewitt, Li-Ming Hu, Mark Harvey, Terri Te Tau, Miranda Bellamy, Fantasing, Callum Devlin, each of the artists in Party Political Broadcast were given a time limit of 30 seconds in which “to offer their vision for (New Zealand’s) future”. Originally developed in the 1960s for television, a Party Political Broadcast typically featured one politician speaking direct to camera, or a montage of images suggesting New Zealand as a country engulfed in economic and social peril, or on the cusp of prosperity for all. The Party Political Broadcast would screen in the regular television ad breaks, between commercials for butter, deodorant and other consumer products. Usually the clip would end with a tag line ‘This Election… ‘Vote Social Credit’ etc.  Some of these ads simply featured ‘ordinary New Zealanders’ talking about their hopes and dreams. The Party Political Broadcasts will be added online on circuit.org.nz from Tuesday 19 Sept-Fri 23 Sept, and will be screened at events in Wellington and Christchurch.

Other works in this series

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leading voice
for artist moving image
practice
in Aotearoa New Zealand,
distributing works,
critical review and
dialogues
which reflect our unique, contemporary
South Pacific context.