Gavin Hipkins

The Port (trailer) (2014)

1 min 27 sec (excerpt)Single channel / Digital Video / Colour / Sound

The Port features the 18th century astronomy instruments, Jantar Mantars, from New Delhi and Jaipur, India. These structures are presented alongside abstracted and naturalistic New Zealand landscape motifs, suburban architecture and street scenes from Auckland's current master-planned community Stonefields. The fragmented and repeated audio montage is taken from passages of H.G. Wells’ 1895 science fiction novella The Time Machine.

In the gallery, the sound and image play unsynchronized, their different durations causing an ever-changing relationship between audio and video, creating narrative slippage between image and voiceover.

The Port has been described as ‘apocalyptic’ and aims to negotiate a plurality of spaces including utopian urban planning, charting of the solar system, time travel, ecological fragility, the hesitancy of memory, and an uncanniness of revisiting sites.

Other works by Gavin Hipkins

CIRCUIT is the
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.