Commissioned by Britomart.
Rainer Weston and Hikalu Clarke have worked together before, producing a two-person show, HOTEL DEVON ISLAND, at DEMO in Tāmaki Makaurau in 2016.
CROWD SOURCE, however, is a newly direct collaboration. Responding to Britomart’s status as a bustling centre of commerce and transportation, the artists have created a monumental video projection exploring ‘notions of sovereignty and group identity’. Their work includes footage of crowds pulled from the internet, simultaneously playing on groups united in physical space and groups connected online. This has been mixed with homogenous computer-generated figures moving in unison, as well as images suggestive of an inundation (a motif of special poignancy in an area of ‘reclaimed’ land that remains barely above sea level).
CROWD SOURCE presents a poetic reflection on contemporary partisanship of the sort found in both sports and politics, hinting at the proximity of kinship and xenophobia, cohesion and sectarianism.
Francis McWhannel
