Archive News
A breath of wind - 14 Aug 2009
Blasts of hot air and visions of musicians drifting through the air were the inspiration behind Phil Dadson’s installation, Breath of Wind, opening at Tauranga Gallery on Saturday 22 August.
The installation is a sound and video work featuring 17 hot-air balloons and the Levin Brass Band.
"I awoke early, one still air, Sunday morning, to hear the calm broken by a mysterious expulsion of air above the house, and then another, and clambered out onto the deck to witness a glorious floating balloon directly above, the morning stillness punctuated by the occasional blast of hot air to keep it afloat,” says Dadson. “I had the vision right then of musicians in balloon-baskets, drifting, their music floating, like a sound-cloud across the landscape".
The project was initially launched for NewArtlands as a TV-Spaceman production, directed by John Hagen & fronted by Chris Knox for TV1’s new Channel 6 art series. The event was realised as part of the Levin Hot-air balloon festival in 2008.
Seven video cameras documented the event, three by operators on the ground and in the air, including Dadson himself, and four cameras were suspended from balloon ropes. The two-channel video and stereo sound installation was produced from the resulting footage.
Phil Dadson is one of New Zealand’s most innovative inter-media artists and experimental music composers whose work includes solo performances and exhibitions, building experimental instruments, video and sound installations, music composition and graphic scores, sound sculptures and improvisations on his invented instruments. He was also founder of New Zealand’s most original rhythm and performance group, From Scratch.
Breath of Wind will be showing at the Gallery until Sunday 11 October.
© 2009