Nat Tozer’s Erotic Geologies (2024) is an ambitious new video project described as "a sci-fi parable that seeks knowledge from the underground." Shifting through an otherworldly landscape where rocky outcrops meet tumultuous skies, the setting of the film makes reference to post-earthquake Ōtautahi in Te Waipounamu and the Tongariro Crossing in Te Ika-a-Māui. The narrative follows protagonists Rangi and Liberté, characters inspired by both Māori mythologies surrounding the figures of Ranginui and Papatūānuku’s children, and Greek figures Deucalion and Pyrrha. Archaeology, time and kaitiakitanga are central to the work, which merges a local, contemporary narrative with deep time and mythology.
While several of Tozer's earlier video works were one-person productions shot on her iPhone, Erotic Geologies marks a profound shift in production methodologies, and incorporates actors, technical collaborators and apocalyptic animated landscapes.
In this kōrero, Tozer discusses her expansive practice with Mark Williams, reflecting on "the slippery mess of our built environment."
Erotic Geologies is on view at Gow Langsford in Onehunga, Tāmaki Makaurau from 21 September to 5 October 2024.
List of topics
00:00: Introduction
01:20: Nat discusses her 2020 work Every existent in the world is in my room right now, reflecting on the pandemic lockdown as a productive period for making. She describes making smaller works during post-production for Erotic Geologies. Themes of rubble and dust are prevalent; "the slippery mess of our built environment."
03:26: On the making of Footpath fossil (breathe) (2020) and how the pandemic halted the repair of city infrastructure, making its built history visible; "... there was a lot of detail and beauty." "I love potholes and sinkholes and drainage holes … these portals [to] something quite rich and mythological just bubbling under our city surface.”
05:26: On finding the beauty in the everyday, both in cities and more rural locations. Nat refers to her work Is it a rock, is it a mirror (2023), which captures a community bubble gum collection at Ruakaka.
06:35: On collectivism as an answer to current ecological challenges—"a way to find strength and safety"—and a counter to the logic of capitalism.
07:30: Mark: "Where perhaps some of your other works looked at the present as holding a record of the past, this work seems to project forward—almost as if, as Barry Barclay said, we are 'ancestors of a far future'."
08:21: Nat: "… using my practice to feel the edges of trying to understand the Indigenous, cyclical nature of time as opposed to the Western concept of the straight arrow … time and geology are bound together."
09:44: Nat discusses her research into collectives who are digging into the earth's stories in their work, for example, how the Karrabing Film Collective are sensing something in the ground as opposed to searching for "explicit scientific knowledge."
10:30: The looping nature of video as a way to embody concepts of time and history repeating. Nat describes how the narrative of Erotic Geologies is a circle; half the film is Holocene (natural volcanic rock) and the other half is Anthropocene (rubble of the built environment).
12:30: Who are the characters in Erotic Geologies? Why work with actors for this projects? On inspiration from the story of Hine-nui-te-pō, science fiction, and writer Robert MacFarlane.
15:30: Nat on what makes geologies erotic: "the ground is so mobile and active and it has a liveness to it … maybe our timescale can't see how active geology is, but there is a vitality that is held in the earth."
16:40: On the inclusion of (the ruins of) public sculptures in Erotic Geologies. Nat describes using artworks as wayfinders that lead the characters to a cave, taking reference from works sited around Tāmaki by Guy Ngan and Richard Shortland-Cooper that reference the history of Pacific voyaging.
18:18: On beginning her MFA at Elam pre-Covid, making sculptural works, then during lockdown realising there would be no way to physically exhibit her final works, and this affecting the decision to make Erotic Geologies. On her professional work with LOT23 making long-form video works for artists and how this gave Nat a base of tools and community with which to make her own work.
20.54: On installing Erotic Geologies—a 9-metre, 2 projector, edge-blended installation–at Gow Langsford in Onehunga.
21:41: Nat recalls continuing to work on Erotic Geologies after her MFA hand-in. On showing the work at a festival in Lisbon, and seeing it at scale for the first time. She has since worked with a crew, including Sam Tozer (Director of Photography/Technical Director/Compositor) and others to continue the project. "It’s finished now."
24:04: Film production as the ultimate expression of the collective. The cast and crew had all been in the Ōtautahi Christchurch earthquakes; the shared concept of a mobile earth.
24:53: How tech might evolve to support artists' practice. Nat describes the high cost of technical equipment vs what the artist can charge for their work. On whether artists want to work with an expanded production process and where that support might come from.