I guess my life reflection of a lot of
people’s lives as we live in these
heavily urbanized places covered in
concrete cars technology all around us
but we aspire to sort of go to those
back to those natural places and it’s
something that I’m constantly searching
for you know live in the city and then I
come out to places like this and look
for nature or just look for that
solitude so it’s just a combination of
the things I enjoy sir my name’s Joseph
Michael and I’m a media artist what I do
is combine a mixture of say photography
video moving image ESP digital artwork
my passions in life I’m passionate about
exploration adventure
first and foremost but I really love
photography the most simple and
simplistic form of art when I’m taking
photographs that’s just me and the
camera always learning everyday
art is about doing complex things for a
simple reason so in terms of what I’ve
created on the Museum it’s a very simple
idea it’s an iceberg it’s in the city I
mean think about it simple but it’s such
a complex process
I enjoy the technical challenges I enjoy
things that push me further in terms of
what I’m learning and what I’m
discovering
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we chatted a boat sailed across the
Drake Passage and we spent a month
around the entire tip Peninsula and the
idea was to photographically meant
icebergs
the scale and or of the place it has an
aura has I don’t know it feels
otherworldly and it’s it’s kind of
unnerving
in terms of environmental message I try
not to be too forceful with what I’m
creating I’d like to present an idea
not give too many answers to my
interpretation of what’s going on so in
terms of the iceberg it’s just placing
it in an urban environment so people can
see the size and the scale of an iceberg
people got to ask their own questions
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it’s hard to get someone engaged with
obviously sustainability or looking
after our environment based on practical
science you know and ideas connecting
people with a feeling of grandeur or the
aura of nature from in my mind you know
connect some of the deckle ever but if
you’re not connecting at the heart
you’re not really engaged in the topic
the whole project from start to the end
of the installation in Auckland took
four years it took us two years to mount
the expedition to Antarctica funder crew
it get down there film the content and
in the next two years we spent in
creating the installation it was pretty
exciting to start to see the digital
work come into a physical space you’re
sort of in a in a physical world in
Antarctica and then I’m in a digital
virtual world for months and months and
months
editing looking at a screen and then to
see give it a physical present and the
real world was pretty exciting
with our projections we did like test
projections on scale models because
otherwise you don’t have a chance before
you put it on the building you need to
sort of get closer to knowing that it’s
going to work because you you take
photographs we did like a three billion
point scan of the building which gave
the building scan and you sort of never
really entirely certain that’s going to
match up perfectly and so we do a series
of scale models to get us close to
projecting on that final building
I guess it’s like peeling an orange
you’ve peeled the skin off the iceberg
when we photograph it it’s like an
orange peel and we pull it off and then
we wrap that back on onto the building
process isn’t that simple what goes
through several layers to get to that
process essentially it’s like putting it
back on the biggest thing I’ve learned
over the last few years is how important
sound is for the emotional connection
and especially with art it’s really
important that people feel something so
you can put whatever visuals you like
adding that sound element and paying
close attention to the sound really
makes a difference
I think the composition was designed to
transport people to how I felt in
Antarctica I had no idea that each
iceberg would be completely unique and a
sound signature I took a sound recordist
knowing that there would be potential to
capture things but I had no idea that
diverse nature of the sound down there
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this is the biggest thing about being an
artist or a creative is you’ve got to
have that lack of fear of failure
because an hour you don’t succeed all
the time and as a creative not every
project is going to be successful you
just have to start and see where it
leads
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