Toru

Carlo Van de Roer and Taika Waititi

New Zealand artists Carlo Van de Roer and Taika Waititi collaborate on 'Toru', a three channel video installation and an interactive digital experience. Inspired by the significance of Tokotoru, or Trinity, in Maori culture, the work weaves together themes of unity, earth, sea, sky, and references to mythology, including the Maori myth of Tane retrieving three baskets of knowledge: the basket of light, the basket of darkness and the basket of pursuit.

Each film operates as a different interpretation of exactly the same performance. A custom-built filmmaking system captures the same moment under different lighting conditions, resulting in three versions of the same film. This presents a record of the past as photographically accurate, yet fluid and authorable, like myth. The work uses new technology to re-engage with older storytelling systems that shaped collective memory through collaboration and interpretation. Toru also draws from the embrace of art and technology in the Light and Space movement of Southern California where the work was created, not far from where Robert Irwin and James Turrell experimented with the perception of space and material through light. The set was designed to function as a changeable representation of time and place through lighting.

Online the films are presented interactively allowing viewers to control the light. In a physical space, the work is presented as triptych across three screens, sometimes accompanied by functioning lightswitches that invite viewers to experience the mutable nature of recalling these layered records of the past.