Speaker Biographies and Presentations
Jan Wilker
NYC Graphic Designer | www.karlssonwilker.com
Biography
Jan Wilker is the co-founder of karlssonwilker inc., the internationally renowned New York design agency. Recently Wilker and co-founder Karlsson published a book about their studio, TELLMEWHY - the first 24 months of a New York design company which offers an alarmingly honest portrayal of setting up a design studio as well as raising a smile.
Presentation
Jan Wilker will be bringing his story of life as a graphic designer to New Zealand, working with big names like MTV, Puma, Warner Bros., the New York Times Magazine, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in NYC
Beck Cole & Warwick Thornton
Australian Filmmakers
Beck Cole | http://apt5.asiapacifictriennial.com/cinema/filmmakers/beck_cole
Warwick Thornton | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0861610/
Biographies
Beck Cole writes and directs for film and television. She has worked extensively on CAAMA productions and is an AFTRS gradate. Her documentaries include: The Lore of Love, Wirriya – Small Boy which won Best Film at the 2004 Women on Women Film Festival in Sydney. Her short drama Flat was shown at the Sundance and Edinburgh Film Festivals in 2004.
Warwick Thornton is a writer and director who commenced his career as a cameraman for CAAMA in 1990. He graduated in cinematography from AFTRS in 1997. Later that year he shot his first feature film, Radiance. In 1998 he was cinematographer on the award-winning short dramas My bed Your Bed and Promise. Green Bush won Best Short Film in the Panorama Section of the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival and two Dendy Awards at the Sydney Film Festival.
Presentation
Warwick Thornton (DP) and Director, Beck Cole discuss the art of collaboration, and the ways in which key creatives can work together to establish a common stylistic film-making approach.
Peter Williams
NZ TV Presenter | www.tvnz.co.nz
Biography
TV ONE News veteran Peter Williams brings the news to Breakfast viewers each morning. Well known for his sports coverage, he also has a wealth of experience across ONE News. He brings to Spark a glimpse of life behind the scenes in television.
Nova Paul
NZ Film maker | www.telecomprospect2007.org.nz/artist/nova-paul.shtml
Biography
Nova Paul is a filmmaker and senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology. Her films and video installations deal with the production of space and its representation on the screen. Her recent film Pink and White Terraces, a 16mm film that uses the early cinematic technique of three colour separation (technicolour) to explore spaces of reflection in her local cityscape, has been exhibited in Telecom 2006 New Zealand International Film Festival, Telecom Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington and screened at The Physics Room, Christchurch.
Presentation
Nova Paul will present her most recent films and talk about her work.
Anna Miles
NZ Art Dealer | www.annamilesgallery.com
Biography
Anna Miles established Anna Miles Gallery in Auckland in 2003. She has taught at Elam School of Fine Arts and Unitec School of Design. She is now Senior Lecturer in the School of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology where she has responsibility for the theoretical component of the final year of the Bachelor of Visual Arts degree. In 2006 she curated the exhibition, Bespoke: The Pervasiveness of the Handmade for Objectspace, Auckland.
Presentation
Edith Amituanai, Allan McDonald and Darren Glass are three artists working predominantly in photography who Anna Miles represent and their work will be the subject of Anna’s presentation.
Elisabeth Smolarz
NYC Photo/Video Artist | www.elisabethsmolarz.com
Biography
Elisabeth Smolarz is an artist who explores her environment using photography and video, focusing on digital manipulation to examine the borderline between reality and imagination. Growing up in Eastern Bloc Europe and moving to West Germany after the falling of the Iron Curtain in ’89 has informed the focus of her work: how the environment impacts on the individual. Now living in NYC she explores the experience of her cultural background against a new backdrop.
Presentation
Elisabeth Smolarz will talk about her life and work as an artist from Poland living in New York.
Lucia Koch
Brazilian Installation Artist | www.luciakoch.com
Biography
Lucia Koch’s works take architectural space as their starting point, both in their form and function, where she works with the experience of space. Through various interventions and additions, she lays the ground for a reflection about the framework that the architecture itself constitutes. Lucia Koch lives and works in Sao Paolo Brazil.
Presentation
Lucia Koch will present a set of projects and works that deal with temporary alterations in architecture, activating light and air circulation using semi-transparent surfaces that operate as filters. Though some works have been done in domestic spaces, recent projects are related to the nature of exhibition spaces, always adapted to display a concept of some author (architect, curator, etc.) that mediate the art pieces to be exhibited. The works are the situations created.
Joe Lambert
LA Digital Storytelling Activist | www.storycenter.org
Biography
Joe Lambert is the founder and director of the Center for Digital Storytelling. This California-based centre evolved a method of participatory media practice that has spread around the globe as a new communicative genre. Lambert and colleagues have worked on innumerable projects involving educators, social services, broadcast organizations, activists, artists, and large and small organizations. His latest effort, storymapping.org integrates their traditional practice with efforts in locative media.
Presentation
Joe Lambert will present a history and overview of his digital storytelling practice.
Daphne Carr
NYC Music Journalist | www.ethnocenter.org/carr
Biography
Daphne Carr is a music journalist, critic, and ethnomusicologist living in New York City. She is the Series Editor of Best Music Writing (Da Capo 2007, 2008), author of Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine (Continuum 2007), contributor to the books Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs (Da Capo 2007) and Listen Again (Duke University Press 2007). She is a staff writer for Club Systems International, columnist for Paper Thin Walls and a frequent contributor to the Associated Press. She is currently pursuing a PhD in ethnomusicology at Columbia University and runs a listserv for women music writers, Girl Group.
Presentation
Attention music trogs, snobs, plebes, elites: Bad may be better when writing about popular music. Those with "bad" taste make a more compelling subjects than those with "good." In this talk I will look at my roles as a writing curator, scholar/researcher, commercial press author and critic/journalist to discuss the role taste plays in choosing creative projects, methods to approaching taste in an objective way, examples of how "bad" taste can be the inspiration for great art, and the role taste will play in the 21st century mediascape. Are you ready to get good at bad?
Malcolm Rands
Malcolm Rands is the founder and CEO of Ecostore Company Ltd. | www.ecostore.co.nz
Biography
Since 1994, Ecostore has researched and bought to market NZ’s leading range of eco friendlier household cleaners, body care, pet care and organic gardening products. These are now available in most supermarkets and health stores throughout NZ. They are also available in over 400 stores in Australia, plus outlets in Korea, Singapore Hong Kong and the UK. Malcolm has been awarded the Green Ribbon Award from the Ministry of the Environment plus two environmental awards from the ARC. For two years he appeared weekly as “ecoman’ on TV1’s Good Morning Show offering advice on how to ‘green up’ your life. Malcolm has been active in the sustainable scene for over 25 years. He co-founded NZ’s first permaculture eco-village in 1986 and was a foundation member of the sustainable business network. Malcolm is the chair of the Fairground Foundation, trustee of the Te Wairoa Trust and on the voting assembly for GreenPeace. He is also a director of Carpool.co.nz Ltd.
Malcolm is still a keen organic gardener.
Presentation
Malcolm Rands will be talking about his work with Ecostore and what’s involved in working towards 'restoring the health and wellbeing of the planet by making it easier for people to be green.' He will be inviting the audience to participate in a discussion at the end of his talk.
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins
NZ Design Writer | www.writersfestival.co.nz/authors/douglaslloydjenkins.asp
Biography
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is a creative force in NZ design. Described by Wallpaper magazine as one of the most influential design writers in the Southern Hemisphere, he is one of New Zealand’s best-known and most highly respected design writers. He has specialised throughout his career in restoring to prominence, overlooked practitioners of the arts architecture and design who contributed enormously to the creation of contemporary New Zealand culture.
Presentation
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins will base his presentation on his views on interior and architectural design.
Luke Thompson
NZ Singer Songwriter | www.lukethompsonmusic.com
Biography
After completing high school, Luke took himself to Hamilton on a Rockquest scholarship where he studied music and song-writing at the Waikato Institute of Technology, graduating in 2004 with a Bachelor of Media Arts. Luke's debut single Morning Light was released to radio and music television late 2005, enjoying 11 sunny weeks in the NZ Radio Top 40 chart. The Morning Light music video placed in the Juice TV Top 30 chart for 6 weeks and received several Top 5 ratings on C4's Select. The clip was also finalist for Best Solo Artist at the 2006 Juice TV Awards, having been directed by the award-winning Adam Jones (Elemeno P, Steriogram, Pluto) of Zoomslide. Luke's follow-up single Perfect Drive, which is in the top 40, suggests recent influences like Dashboard Confessional and Bernard Fanning. But as you escape into the song, you begin to appreciate Luke's own developing style, which is grounded in the masters: Don McLean, James Taylor and Johnny Cash—all of whom have inspired Luke.
Presentation
Luke Thompson will be talking about his life and work in the music industry in a question and answer session after playing solo at the Spark Finale.
The Spark Festival Office
phone: 07 858 7508
email: spark@wintec.ac.nz
Or contact Susanna Wilford, Spark Festival Organiser
susanna.wilford@wintec.ac.nz
Jan Wilker
NYC Graphic Designer | www.karlssonwilker.com
Biography
Jan Wilker is the co-founder of karlssonwilker inc., the internationally renowned New York design agency. Recently Wilker and co-founder Karlsson published a book about their studio, TELLMEWHY - the first 24 months of a New York design company which offers an alarmingly honest portrayal of setting up a design studio as well as raising a smile.
Presentation
Jan Wilker will be bringing his story of life as a graphic designer to New Zealand, working with big names like MTV, Puma, Warner Bros., the New York Times Magazine, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in NYC
Beck Cole & Warwick Thornton
Australian Filmmakers
Beck Cole | http://apt5.asiapacifictriennial.com/cinema/filmmakers/beck_cole
Warwick Thornton | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0861610/
Biographies
Beck Cole writes and directs for film and television. She has worked extensively on CAAMA productions and is an AFTRS gradate. Her documentaries include: The Lore of Love, Wirriya – Small Boy which won Best Film at the 2004 Women on Women Film Festival in Sydney. Her short drama Flat was shown at the Sundance and Edinburgh Film Festivals in 2004.
Warwick Thornton is a writer and director who commenced his career as a cameraman for CAAMA in 1990. He graduated in cinematography from AFTRS in 1997. Later that year he shot his first feature film, Radiance. In 1998 he was cinematographer on the award-winning short dramas My bed Your Bed and Promise. Green Bush won Best Short Film in the Panorama Section of the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival and two Dendy Awards at the Sydney Film Festival.
Presentation
Warwick Thornton (DP) and Director, Beck Cole discuss the art of collaboration, and the ways in which key creatives can work together to establish a common stylistic film-making approach.
Peter Williams
NZ TV Presenter | www.tvnz.co.nz
Biography
TV ONE News veteran Peter Williams brings the news to Breakfast viewers each morning. Well known for his sports coverage, he also has a wealth of experience across ONE News. He brings to Spark a glimpse of life behind the scenes in television.
Nova Paul
NZ Film maker | www.telecomprospect2007.org.nz/artist/nova-paul.shtml
Biography
Nova Paul is a filmmaker and senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology. Her films and video installations deal with the production of space and its representation on the screen. Her recent film Pink and White Terraces, a 16mm film that uses the early cinematic technique of three colour separation (technicolour) to explore spaces of reflection in her local cityscape, has been exhibited in Telecom 2006 New Zealand International Film Festival, Telecom Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington and screened at The Physics Room, Christchurch.
Presentation
Nova Paul will present her most recent films and talk about her work.
Anna Miles
NZ Art Dealer | www.annamilesgallery.com
Biography
Anna Miles established Anna Miles Gallery in Auckland in 2003. She has taught at Elam School of Fine Arts and Unitec School of Design. She is now Senior Lecturer in the School of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology where she has responsibility for the theoretical component of the final year of the Bachelor of Visual Arts degree. In 2006 she curated the exhibition, Bespoke: The Pervasiveness of the Handmade for Objectspace, Auckland.
Presentation
Edith Amituanai, Allan McDonald and Darren Glass are three artists working predominantly in photography who Anna Miles represent and their work will be the subject of Anna’s presentation.
Elisabeth Smolarz
NYC Photo/Video Artist | www.elisabethsmolarz.com
Biography
Elisabeth Smolarz is an artist who explores her environment using photography and video, focusing on digital manipulation to examine the borderline between reality and imagination. Growing up in Eastern Bloc Europe and moving to West Germany after the falling of the Iron Curtain in ’89 has informed the focus of her work: how the environment impacts on the individual. Now living in NYC she explores the experience of her cultural background against a new backdrop.
Presentation
Elisabeth Smolarz will talk about her life and work as an artist from Poland living in New York.
Lucia Koch
Brazilian Installation Artist | www.luciakoch.com
Biography
Lucia Koch’s works take architectural space as their starting point, both in their form and function, where she works with the experience of space. Through various interventions and additions, she lays the ground for a reflection about the framework that the architecture itself constitutes. Lucia Koch lives and works in Sao Paolo Brazil.
Presentation
Lucia Koch will present a set of projects and works that deal with temporary alterations in architecture, activating light and air circulation using semi-transparent surfaces that operate as filters. Though some works have been done in domestic spaces, recent projects are related to the nature of exhibition spaces, always adapted to display a concept of some author (architect, curator, etc.) that mediate the art pieces to be exhibited. The works are the situations created.
Joe Lambert
LA Digital Storytelling Activist | www.storycenter.org
Biography
Joe Lambert is the founder and director of the Center for Digital Storytelling. This California-based centre evolved a method of participatory media practice that has spread around the globe as a new communicative genre. Lambert and colleagues have worked on innumerable projects involving educators, social services, broadcast organizations, activists, artists, and large and small organizations. His latest effort, storymapping.org integrates their traditional practice with efforts in locative media.
Presentation
Joe Lambert will present a history and overview of his digital storytelling practice.
Daphne Carr
NYC Music Journalist | www.ethnocenter.org/carr
Biography
Daphne Carr is a music journalist, critic, and ethnomusicologist living in New York City. She is the Series Editor of Best Music Writing (Da Capo 2007, 2008), author of Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine (Continuum 2007), contributor to the books Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs (Da Capo 2007) and Listen Again (Duke University Press 2007). She is a staff writer for Club Systems International, columnist for Paper Thin Walls and a frequent contributor to the Associated Press. She is currently pursuing a PhD in ethnomusicology at Columbia University and runs a listserv for women music writers, Girl Group.
Presentation
Attention music trogs, snobs, plebes, elites: Bad may be better when writing about popular music. Those with "bad" taste make a more compelling subjects than those with "good." In this talk I will look at my roles as a writing curator, scholar/researcher, commercial press author and critic/journalist to discuss the role taste plays in choosing creative projects, methods to approaching taste in an objective way, examples of how "bad" taste can be the inspiration for great art, and the role taste will play in the 21st century mediascape. Are you ready to get good at bad?
Malcolm Rands
Malcolm Rands is the founder and CEO of Ecostore Company Ltd. | www.ecostore.co.nz
Biography
Since 1994, Ecostore has researched and bought to market NZ’s leading range of eco friendlier household cleaners, body care, pet care and organic gardening products. These are now available in most supermarkets and health stores throughout NZ. They are also available in over 400 stores in Australia, plus outlets in Korea, Singapore Hong Kong and the UK. Malcolm has been awarded the Green Ribbon Award from the Ministry of the Environment plus two environmental awards from the ARC. For two years he appeared weekly as “ecoman’ on TV1’s Good Morning Show offering advice on how to ‘green up’ your life. Malcolm has been active in the sustainable scene for over 25 years. He co-founded NZ’s first permaculture eco-village in 1986 and was a foundation member of the sustainable business network. Malcolm is the chair of the Fairground Foundation, trustee of the Te Wairoa Trust and on the voting assembly for GreenPeace. He is also a director of Carpool.co.nz Ltd.
Malcolm is still a keen organic gardener.
Presentation
Malcolm Rands will be talking about his work with Ecostore and what’s involved in working towards 'restoring the health and wellbeing of the planet by making it easier for people to be green.' He will be inviting the audience to participate in a discussion at the end of his talk.
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins
NZ Design Writer | www.writersfestival.co.nz/authors/douglaslloydjenkins.asp
Biography
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is a creative force in NZ design. Described by Wallpaper magazine as one of the most influential design writers in the Southern Hemisphere, he is one of New Zealand’s best-known and most highly respected design writers. He has specialised throughout his career in restoring to prominence, overlooked practitioners of the arts architecture and design who contributed enormously to the creation of contemporary New Zealand culture.
Presentation
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins will base his presentation on his views on interior and architectural design.
Luke Thompson
NZ Singer Songwriter | www.lukethompsonmusic.com
Biography
After completing high school, Luke took himself to Hamilton on a Rockquest scholarship where he studied music and song-writing at the Waikato Institute of Technology, graduating in 2004 with a Bachelor of Media Arts. Luke's debut single Morning Light was released to radio and music television late 2005, enjoying 11 sunny weeks in the NZ Radio Top 40 chart. The Morning Light music video placed in the Juice TV Top 30 chart for 6 weeks and received several Top 5 ratings on C4's Select. The clip was also finalist for Best Solo Artist at the 2006 Juice TV Awards, having been directed by the award-winning Adam Jones (Elemeno P, Steriogram, Pluto) of Zoomslide. Luke's follow-up single Perfect Drive, which is in the top 40, suggests recent influences like Dashboard Confessional and Bernard Fanning. But as you escape into the song, you begin to appreciate Luke's own developing style, which is grounded in the masters: Don McLean, James Taylor and Johnny Cash—all of whom have inspired Luke.
Presentation
Luke Thompson will be talking about his life and work in the music industry in a question and answer session after playing solo at the Spark Finale.
The Spark Festival Office
phone: 07 858 7508
email: spark@wintec.ac.nz
Or contact Susanna Wilford, Spark Festival Organiser
susanna.wilford@wintec.ac.nz
SPEAKERS
Jan Wilker
Beck Cole
& Warwick Thornton
Peter Williams
Nova Paul
Anna Miles
Elisabeth Smolarz
Lucia Koch
Joe Lambert
Daphne Carr
Malcolm Rands
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins
Luke Thompson
Events
The Bolivarian Dream
Seraphine Pick
onedotzero
Urban Cartography
Film Showcase
Music by:
The Weather and The Gills
Previous Sparks
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
SPONSORS
Jan Wilker
Beck Cole
& Warwick Thornton
Peter Williams
Nova Paul
Anna Miles
Elisabeth Smolarz
Lucia Koch
Joe Lambert
Daphne Carr
Malcolm Rands
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins
Luke Thompson
Events
The Bolivarian Dream
Seraphine Pick
onedotzero
Urban Cartography
Film Showcase
Music by:
The Weather and The Gills
Previous Sparks
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
SPONSORS