Live streams. Introducing the narratives of local waters to Aotearoa/New Zealand media art

Abstract

In this paper, I firstly investigate the role of contemporary media art practice as a catalyst to cultivate ecological sensitivities towards the wellbeing of local water bodies in Aotearoa/New Zealand and secondly discuss my own doctoral research within the field. Recent events, such as the granting of personhood to the Maori-significant Whanganui River stand in contrast to the growing concern around the decreasing health of local rivers due to unregulated agricultural use of land. Moreover, these developments open up new questions about monitoring of local ecosystems and data sovereignty. Local media art practitioners addressing these issues largely situate themselves in an open source, networked context of ecological activism by developing artworks that serve as platforms for public engagement, participation and place-making. In my doctoral research project “Materialising a more-than-human Internet of Things” I engage with local Wellington stream ecosystems that have largely disappeared from the cityscape and now primarily subsist in municipal underground piped storm water networks, and sporadically, in community-restored nature reserves. Departing from the concept of an Internet of Things as a means to give a voice to non-human ‘things’ I work with local stakeholders to develop experimental prototypes for digital networks and electronic devices as artistic interventions, imagining novel ways of (re-)connecting with local Wellington waters and their more-than-human ecosystem.