Kiwi by day, but stateless online?
An exhibition questions who we are as New Zealanders, in culture and digitally,
H"Where do we belong online? Where does our data live and how important is that to our sense of national identity?" Bronwyn Holloway-Smith
ow do our internet lives define our nationality? It’s a question being asked by Wellington artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith who, for the past four years, has investigated the 30,000km cable that carries 95 per cent of Kiwis’ internet data to the world.
Through her latest four-piece project The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour, Holloway-Smith explores Kiwis’ digital citizenship as part of City Gallery’s latest exhibition This is New Zealand, the Gallery’s first exhibition since opening after a four-month restoration.
Curators Robert Leonard and Aaron Lister said the exhibition reflected on how Kiwis perceived themselves, then and now, and critically questioned, ‘‘who and what has been included and excluded? And who is this mythical ‘we’?’’
The idea of the exhibition was inspired by New Zealand’s participation in the Venice Biennale, which we’ve been attending since 2001.
Some of those invited to attend the prestigious event, considered to be the Olympics of the art world, used the opportunity to discuss New Zealand’s identity.
They include Michael Stevenson’s 2003 project This Is the Trekka, Michael Pareko¯ whai’s carved piano, He Ko¯ rero Pu¯ ra¯ kau mo te Awanui o te Motu: Story of a New Zealand River in 2011 and a component from Simon Denny’s 2015 show, Secret Power, which takes a creative look at the Edward Snowden leaks and New Zealand’s involvement in the Five Eyes alliance as an official statesanctioned show. Holloway-Smith uses a contemporary form to delve into such a question.
The artist has been researching landing sites of New Zealand’s Southern Cross cable in New Zealand for the past four years, and is presenting a four-piece exhibition of her findings.
It includes footage of her at the bottom of the Hauraki Gulf touching a cable, an experience she trained to scuba dive for.
She has also made a small explanatory video of the landing station Whenuapai, which connects to Snowden’s leaks alleging that the Southern Cross cable was tapped.
‘‘I’ve been aware of this tapping of the Southern Cross cable, this narrative that’s out there and a lot of the discussion at the time was pointed at the Government and that this wasn’t democratic.
‘‘There was a bit of focus directed at the Waihopai Spy Base, as well as the main, known GCSB Base, but there wasn’t any attention given to Whenuapai, because it wasn’t mentioned in the documents,’’ Holloway-Smith explained.
‘‘But I found a document from much earlier on, a list that came out of more than 300 sites that the US considers critical infrastructure – that if they were damaged it would affect the way they operate – and they’re all international sites. The only two New Zealand sites on this list are the landing sites and the Southern Cross cable – Whenuapai and Takapuna.’’
Her exploration into New Zealand data came from a project to restore E Mervyn Taylor’s ceramic mural representing Maui fishing up the North Island.
Her project explores New Zealanders’ national identity in an age of globalisation, or ‘‘perceived globalisation’’, she explained.
‘‘We’re spending a lot of time online engaged with international issues and media content and all sorts but, at the same time, those national boundaries are sort of becoming more drawn in, in some ways, in terms of being able to cross physical borders,’’ HollowaySmith said.
‘‘Our digital citizenship is something I’ve been thinking about, because when we go online and visit the most popular websites in New Zealand, which is of course Facebook and YouTube, the data for all of those is housed offshore, so if these cables went down we’d lose access. New Zealand doesn’t have any large data warehouses like they do in Australia and the US.
‘‘So, where do we belong online? Where does our data live and how important is that to our sense of national identity?
‘‘I suppose you see cases more recently like Kim Dotcom, where he was prosecuted under American copyright law, despite the fact that he was in New Zealand and was a New Zealand citizen.
‘‘That’s a real landmark case in terms of, ‘if we are engaging with the internet, this online behaviour, does that open us up to being prosecuted under foreign laws?’ and when we’re online, are we still New Zealand citizens? Or are we seen differently?’’
The exhibition is aptly titled This Is New Zealand, as a nod to Hugh Macdonald’s 1970 short film, but curators said it was also supposed to be a provocation without a question mark.
‘‘All our exhibits are skewed views that exclude more than they include,’’ Leonard and Lister said in a statement.
‘‘However, you could also say that these works, collectively, in their very exclusions and distortions, speak of the tensions that define our sense of place.
‘‘Perhaps it’s this bumpy, warts-and-all compilation of mixed messages that makes up New Zealand.’’
❚ This Is New Zealand is on display at Wellington’s City Gallery until July 15.