relaunch

well, i've had some serious difficulties with my website (particularly the hosting - more about that later in an intraspace review). but now i am getting things sorted and that means an up-coming relaunch of the 'safe little world' website.

i'm taking the down-time as an opportunity to redesign some parts of the site - hopefully that won't take too long. stand by for more info.

meanwhile, i've been assisting roly on a photoshoot for the jamie strange album cover art. we had about a 15 hour day on saturday, starting with a dawn shoot at 5.30 am. there has been all kinds of strangeness (excuse the pun) as we transport a mannequin to all kinds of locations. and the adventure continues this weekend with more locations.

SP07: the souvenirs

i went to the semi-permanent design conference in auckland on saturday. it was great - i'll be reviewing the event on intraspace soon. meanwhile here are a couple of souvenirs i scooped up during the event. oh, and if you are trying to find my work, my www.andrewkillick.com domain is temporarily down and is accessible through the domain name www.safelittleworld.com.

here's the first little bit of goodness. this is the annual semi-permanent book that comes out with the conference. they open it up for submissions from around the world, and this year one of my photos was selected for inclusion - you can see it there in the photo (the little bird-watching hut, not the dude with the dumbbell on the facing page).


the second little piece of goodness is this rather cool looking konica range-finder camera that i snapped up for $5 at the markets in aotea square in front of the conference venue. the thing has a metal construction and seems to be in working order. i'm looking forward to chucking a film in it and giving it a go soon.

always nice to come away with a few things to remind you of an experience like that where most of the impact is physically intangible.

on the headphones: 'nautilus' by loscil, from the album 'submers'.

bowhunter

in the strange but true file...

we had a few running jokes on our brothers' road trip recently. one was based around the camo jacket that i bought from the warehouse prior to the trip. i love camo, not because i'm a redneck but for more fashion-orientated reasons. however some folk see camo differently. i was accused by my brothers of causing a cafe proprietor to look down on us because i was wearing this jacket. my brothers said it was because i looked like a bushman just back from pig-hunting. "bowhunting," i replied.

i've long been struck (n.p.i) by the idea of bowhunting - the least effective but most rugged of all common animal-slaying methods. i'm also intrigued by the way evangelical christianity has become intertwined with gun and hunting culture in the usa - it's one of the most bizarre amalgamations i can think of. so you can imagine my excitement when, in reading an article on stuff.co.nz about how camo bibles are the topselling product from an outlet called 'the christian outdoorsman', i discovered that there is actually an organisation in existence called 'christian bowhunters of america'.

i quickly visited their site. currently they are holding a Spiritual Retreat Hog Hunt at Bowhunter Paradise, in Texas - archery only. i'm putting on my jacket and buying my plane ticket as we speak...

the great nz road trip (highlights package)

[picture: andrew (left) and dave getting rained on while walking on a jetty, taupo. picture by rob]

over the weekend i went on a road trip with my two brothers - rob and dave. i think this was the first time the three of us had been away together on a trip like this, so it promised to be an interesting social experiment. back in the day, when they were roadtripping as younger men i was only about 10 years old. 20 years later we set about planning to drive down to the central plateau of nz to see what we could see. and it turned into rather a good trip. here's the highlights package...

day one: south of rotorua we went to a place called orakei korako (aka hidden valley) - a geothermal area that is supposed to be pretty good. we shelled out our $28 per person (tourist prices) and went across a catchment lake (part of the waikato river) on a little ferryboat to the other side. then we looked at sulphuris formations and various subterranean bubblings. the highlight was a big open cave surrounded by native bush with a blue tinted thermal pool at the bottom.

stayed that night in taupo.

day two: we set out from taupo and headed to the famed horopito motors. weatherwise this was exactly the same type of day as when lance and i went there earlier in the year, except now it was winter - so it was about 9 degrees colder. horopito is always good. and afterwards we took quite a lot of photos in the surrounding landscape. from there we headed to ohakune.

in ohakune we got a brilliantly cheap lunch from the bakery and drove up mount ruapehu. at the top of the road, dave's 'snow warning' went off in his car. it was 1 degree outside and raining/sleeting. well you can't not get out and touch snow when you're up the mountain so we braved the stinging rain for a few minutes. back in the car we decided that the only sensible thing to do in weather like this is to go for a bush walk.

we went down the road a bit and found a nice track to some waterfalls (the waitonga falls to be exact). being in the bush was ok - wet but not windy - until the track crossed open tundra that looked like the marsh scene out of lord of the rings, but colder and without the faces and lights. we got lashed with more sleet and had to concentrate on not getting blown off the boardwalk. back in the bush we descended into a valley. the path ended far too far away from the actual waterfalls for these kiwi blokes, so we bush-crashed up the valley until we were standing right beneath the main waterfall. so now we were being thrashed by the waterfall as well as the rain - refer to mention of temperature earlier to appreciate comfort level - but it was exhilarating and literally breath-taking.

after 2 hours of being out in that charming weather we finally got back to the car and cranked up the heater, which did a surprisingly good job of keeping us warm in our 1 degree celsius rain/waterfall water-soaked trousers.

stayed that night in turangi after driving north up the desert road.

day three: we drove north to a road that travels up the west side of lake taupo. we stopped at an old jetty and took more photos (pictured above), getting more rain on us and spying a picturesque village across the water with a waterfall and church with a high steeple. we worked our way around the lake until we came to the sign to waihi village - the place we'd seen. anyway, further up the road was a big handpainted sign telling us to keep out. before the sign were a couple of great-looking little 1950s holiday cribs which i had to photograph for my safe little world stuff.

standing on the edge of the grass in front of the places, i had taken a couple of photos when i heard a vehicle behind me. anyway, to cut a long story short, it was lady telling me off for photographing private property - the locals clearly sensitive about outsiders in this area. i explained to her that i wasn't doing anything wrong. she told me i had to ask for permission to photograph the buildings. i said, "can i photograph the buildings?" she said, "yes" and drove off. the old killick charm clearly paid off.

then we went further north up the waikato river, taking in a couple of quite impressive dams until we came to arapuni and the enormous swing bridge that i had forgotten was there. we parked the car and walked across the bridge feeling like it was going to collapse at any moment and send us hurtling into the rapids over 50 metres below.

that night back to my parents' place in kaiaua, then back home the next day.

a classic trip accompanied by dave's rather eclectic ipod library (everything from audioslave to hot chocolate and portishead); and apart from one 'discussion' about politics, no arguments...

on the headphones: 'the underdog' by spoon, from the album 'ga ga ga ga ga'.

skoda

quite a while ago i went on a road trip with lance to the central plateau, and in particular to a little place called horopito that boasts a particularly impressive graveyard of old cars.

the other day, i got back a roll of transparency film from the photolab. given the cost and hassle of getting film processed these days (they send film away for E6 processing - there is apparently no one in the bay of plenty or waikato that does it) i treat film very sparingly. so this roll had been in my lomo camera for nearly six months.

sadly i discovered that an on-going problem that i've been having with my shutter sticking is still going on. it is an intermittent problem, so i lost about 9 random shots out of the 36 exposure roll. anyway, among the photos i got were some dating right back to the horopito trip. a number of them were duplicates of digi photos i took the same day, but with the distinctive look of the lomo camera.

one of them was this photo of a skoda wreck:

one of the things i like about this photo is that it is a picture taken of a soviet-engineered vehicle with a soviet-engineered camera - and both pieces of russian technology are miles from home in a paddock in the middle of new zealand.

i scanned the image on sunday, and today, quite by chance, roly emailed me a photo he'd been working on. he had taken a picture of his late model skoda (yes, skodas are back if you haven't heard). the photo was taken in his driveway, and then to expand his photoshop skills he made the image look like something out of a car commercial - complete with beautiful orange-tinged light and motion blur to make it look like it was travelling through autumnal countryside.

to counter his rather air-brushed interpretation of skodas, i emailed him my skoda picture. within the hour he returned with this bit of genius:

beautiful. oh and, this weekend i'm off on a road trip with my brothers - back down towards the central plateau. maybe i'll get to see my skoda again.

one the stereo: 'none shall pass' by aesop rock. get it free here.

hot milk

our friends roly and lisa ebbing (lisa in particular) found themselves in the spot light this week. lisa has an innovative range of maternity underwear that is designed to look good, under the brand name 'hot milk'. anyway they got accused by someone of using soft-porn to market their product (see the article from the sunday star times here). lisa and her business partner ange appeared on campbell live on wednesday. see video etc of 'hot milk' on the tv3 website... entertaining. meanwhile you can be the judge by visiting their site.

speaking of roly - his photography graces the front cover of uno magazine. actually he's been quite a busy boy because in a couple of weeks he and i are doing a photoshoot for the album cover of jamie strange's forthcoming album.

rumbling into print plus more

well, here i am rumbling into virtual print for the first time in quite a while. who has stolen all our time? it is actually becoming a discipline to create spaces for creative work - i used to do it for fun. all kinds of other things sap your energy. i think we have a basic energy pool - and different things require different energy but they pull that power away from other activities. so for example the energy you expend in your day job pulls power from the energy you use for creativity or the energy you use for caring about someone else etc, and vice versa.

i'm fond of saying at the moment that if i stopped my paid job today and just started working on creative projects i have in my mind right now, i would be working on those projects for about a year (without adding any new ideas).

it's been ages since i wrote a poem but the other day i did. i'm always trying to think of ways to combine my various creative interests, so i started thinking about how i might put that poem into a design-format. normally i would have put the idea at the end of the mental queue of other ideas that are waiting to be executed. but i decided to try and strike while the iron was hot and just get down and do it.

here is the result - the poem is based on the story in genesis about joseph (who wore a particularly colourful coat) getting beaten up by his brothers and thrown down a pit... (click on the image to see it bigger)


in other news: my friend jonathan nalder and cyber-friend nick landbeck have completed an audio-visual art project based on their 'everyday beautiful' concept. they are having a multimedia event in brisbane this weekend (and projecting some of my images in the process). to see more about the 'everyday beautiful' concept, visit their site.

on the headphones: 'among plants' by mosaik. nice ambient electronic - get it free here.

this american life

forgive my tardiness with regard to posting on this blog. there have been much goings-on going on at my other blog intraspace - which i heavily recommend you subscribe to.

here's a post replicated from intraspace...

podcasting is great. i mean, basically a lot of it is people doing amateur radio shows - kind of the radio version of blogging actually. but of course there are lots of 'official' podcasts as well - and some are by actual radio stations.

one of these is called 'this american life'. it is a radio show that has run on american public radio for over 10 years - apparently now it is also a tv show. but the part i love is that they release their weekly radio show as a podcast.

'this american life' is a very eclectic [liberal] show, but it has as its heart an examination of american culture. i personally think it is very useful for us non-americans to study the american culture in this way because it influences the rest of the world so much. i think it gives us useful insights into this dominant cultural force.

each week, 'this american life' has a seemingly random theme and then people are interviewed, tell their stories etc based on that theme. some recent themes include: 'road trip' (about the american road trip tradition), 'big wide world' (mainly about a young iraqi guy who works as a translator for the western media in iraq - excellent episode) and 'notes on camp' (people telling their stories about summer camp).

but the episode that inspired me to write this review was one about guantanamo bay. i really and honestly think everyone should listen to this podcast - whether or not you think you are interested in the goings-on at america's terrorist prison. the episode is somewhat mysteriously called 'Habeas Schmabeas 2007' (all will be revealed when you listen to the podcast). it is a rerun of an episode that 'this american life' aired last year (i think), with some updates. in this episode they interview some actual past detainees of guantanamo bay and some of the attorneys that are representing current prisoners. it is very enlightening.

the original episode won a peabody award - whatever the heck that is (oh, here we go). which means, that is it very very good. a quick hunt reveals that unless you were a 'this american life' podcast subscriber (free, through itunes, or by using this link http://feeds.thisamericanlife.org/talpodcast) when the episode came out, then you can no longer download it for free - very sad. but you can stream it for free online. i recommend doing that at your earliest convenience my friends.

sermonising: the questions God asks

early last month, i did a short sermon for the evening service at church... it was tag team preaching, i did the first part and my mate nathan miller did part two. we preached on 'the questions God asks'.

if you want to have a listen, the audio files are below. left click on the links to listen in your browser (files are 8 - 12 meg) or right click and 'save as...' to download.

Part 1: Andrew Killick

Part 2: Nathan Miller

safe little [bourgeois] world

i have just finished reading h.r. rookmaaker's 'modern art and the death of a culture'. i've reviewed it over at intraspace - check it.

one of the things that rookmaaker talks about is that modern art is opposed to suburban bourgeois culture. the point he makes is that christians should be opposed to it as well.

as i've mentioned before, my 'safe little world' concept contains a paradox and i love rookmaaker's critique of suburban life (this is part of longer passage):

"These thousands, millions live a normal human life. They play it safe. They evade any real problems. They are nice people living a nice life. They have their little melancholies, unfulfilled dreams of youth - but life is like that... So they live their lives fairly happily, even if not exactly adventurously, and look for fulfillment in their career, a nice home, a bit of affluence and some kind words at retirement." p210

my beautiful world

i should have posted this a few days ago... my mate malcolm (colm) is playing a live gig at the kings arms in auckland tonight. he is playing alongside flabotonum and mr slackjaw, for the release of a short film by shaun garea called 'my beautiful world' (click on the link to see the trailer and news clip about the film).

colm plays post-rock and i think this might be his first live outing for a few years (since the days when 'his' band humber were gigging). his work is featured on the film's soundtrack.

oh, and head over to intraspace - now called 'intraspace: the review lounge'. it is now functioning in its new expanded form. there is a new review of a book by brennan manning, a review of the new(ish) album from air, and a review of what it's like to be 32, by jonathan nalder. subscribe to it!

the dawn of a new blogging era

some changes are afoot at intraspace (my review blog). tired of just reading my own reviews of books that i've read, i've decided to open up the blog to other contributors and have also opened up the scope of the site.

so, now there will be reviews on all manner of things (books, films, albums, concerts... you name it) - well, that's the aim anyway. the majority of the authors will be christian in their worldview, although this won't necessarily be overt (sometimes it will be). we should end up with a rather interesting array of topics, opinion and content.

this is my first venture into team blogging so i suspect this will be an evolving process, including making a few adjustments to the site to make it more streamlined and suitable.

the best way to stay up to date with new content is to go to intraspace and sign up to the automatic email feed on the right. when a new review is posted, it will automatically be sent to your email. don't worry, you won't be inundated - i'm sure all our writers have a better things to do than post endless reviews to intraspace! and, if you find that you are getting too much email, you can always unsubscribe later.

on the headphones: 'angelica' by lamb, from the album 'between darkness and wonder'. www.lamb.tv

bytemare

and now, for your viewing pleasure, you can head over to youtube, and watch some amazing b-grade (c-grade? d-grade?) footage from a film i had a hand in back in 2000.

the film ('bytemare') was directed by my mate john butterworth, and i think my initial roles on the production were: "director's assistant" and "cinemagraphic advisor"(?!) - however i'm not sure what i am listed as officially. in the end i was only present for about half the filming because i took off to the uk for seven weeks.

the amazing thing about bytemare was that it was shot in 2000/2001 and has been in post-production ever since. but word on the street is that it will be released one day.

i would tell you what the film is about, but maybe john b is still guarding that secret, so i won't.

there are three clips on youtube: a behind the scenes (in which i make a brief appearance), a trailer, and montage thingee.

enough talk! go here for the clips.

fascinating book

i've just finished reading a fascinating book called 'no god but God: the origins, evolution and future of islam' by reza aslan. i've written a bit about the book over on my review blog, intraspace.

the review. check it.

30th

my 30th birthday party went down last weekend. it really went off and i think everyone had a good time.

i set up fluorescent tube lights in the trees as a light installation that lit half the lawn. we also strung up lights in the garage which was cleared to put the food tables in.

in the lounge i set up an exhibition of some of my artwork, printed up as A3 and A2 posters, and had a slide show of my photography on the computer screen.

from an artistic perspective it was a complete 'safe little world' production - having trialled a few things here, i hope one day i'll get to stage a bigger installation.

thanks to everyone who came to the party and to those that helped out with various stuff.

go here for flickr set that shows the shenanigans at the party.

the greatest game ever...

jonathan emailed me from australia yesterday to see if i thought that nz's victory over australia in hamilton was the greatest game of cricket i'd ever seen...

on tuesday i drove over to hamilton in my father-in-law's little green barina to go to the cricket with jamie. nz had already secured a historic series victory over australia with their wins in auckland and wellington in the days before. so i was off to see if we could do the impossible - make a clean sweep of the series. of course, when jamie and i got our tickets months ago we had no idea that this would be the scenario.

in the event, australia batted first and scored an enormous total - 346 - featuring a history-making innings of 181 n.o. from matthew hayden. this set nz a target well beyond anything that has ever been accomplished in nz before. nz lost early wickets to be 4-41 at one stage - not a dream start. but incredibly, the remaining batters got up and we defeated australia in the final over. craig macmillan's 117 was something special. the highlight of the game was when brendan mccallum hit a 6 off the first ball of the final over - giving nz 5 balls to score just 1 run - which we did.

the crowd went absolutely ape - there was dancing and hugging and kissing everywhere. 3-0 in the series.

when nz were 4 wickets down, i text aaron to see what score he thought we'd get - 249 all out he said. jamie thought 300. i thought 180. i can't vouch for the other guys, but the reason i thought we'd only get to 180 is that when you demoralise a nz cricket team they often give up. well, at least, they used to. this season we have seen a nz team that doesn't give up. in the game early in the season where nz got thumped by sri lanka, craig macmillan refused to quit - i wonder if that was a turning point? i thought to myself then - if this team's form catches up with their new determination, we're going to be good. i think this latest series is the fruition of that. we are now watching a nz team that is playing like an australian team and beating them at their own game.

needless to say, nzers are celebrating this victory. it means a tremendous amount to us - every time nz scores a big sporting victory we know that we are a nation of only 4 million people that has taken down a giant. when we beat australia in the cricket, one reason we celebrate so hard is because of their perceived arrogance. nzers don't like arrogance and we harbour a belief that if you get too cocky your fall is around the corner. nzers like to celebrate those falls... at the beginning of the commonwealth bank series in australia (a tri-series between australia, nz and england), australia made comments to the effect that nz and england wouldn't provide any serious opposition and so they were setting goals against themselves - aiming to score 400 during the series. if that doesn't reek of arrogance i don't know what does. as far as nzers are concerned australia deserved to lose.

at the end of the game i secretly took a photo of every fan in an aussie jumper that came near me. i planned to post them on this blog with a little caption saying "disappointed aussie fans". when i got home and looked at the pictures, the looks on their faces were too sad and i couldn't bring myself to do it. one guy looked straight into the camera as i took the photo - it is actually quite heartbreaking... the formally invincible aussies have shown they have a weakness. having lost about 5 games this season, australian fans are beginning to know what it feels like to be a cricket fan the world over.

so, was tuesday night the greatest game i've ever seen? honestly, for me the best game was game one of this series - our 10 wicket victory over australia - a complete performance - catapaulting nz cricket into what i hope will be a new era.

pictures: jamie keeps hydrated in the hamilton sun; peter "two-metre peter" fulton fielding on the boundary; the lights on, nz batting and battling; victory - the black caps on a lap around the field.

album art

this image (click to see it full cd-size) is the first in a series i am doing for jamie strange's album cover... the album is coming out maybe end of this year... the artwork will have about 8 similarly themed images.

we are still playing around with the concept - but yeah. (the photo was taken at the top of mount maunganui - on slide film - scanned in on my film scanner. i did the outline figure in illustrator and then overlaid, rasterized and filled it in photoshop.)

on the headphones: 'homesick' by the finn brothers, from the album 'everyone is here'. www.finnbros.com

charleston

my grandmother was a very staunch christchurch woman - didn't take no nonsense, and didn't suffer fools gladly.

i remember one day when she was staying with us, i was giving her some lip about something, getting smart as teenagers do. when all of a sudden she looked me straight in the eye and said "yeah? well i'd like to see you do this:" right there in the middle of the lounge my 84 year old grandmother busted out a flawless charleston. i'm not sure what the charleston had to do with what we were talking about, but her response was definitive. and i never messed with her again.

for your viewing pleasure, he is some old footage of some guys doing a 1950s charleston set to daft punk...

music retreat

last weekend our church music team headed off to a farm outside of te awamutu for a retreat. anyway, here are some digi pics that i took when we got up at 6.30am...

for the full set of 12 images, head over to flickr and feel free to leave comments... here!

on the headphones: 'should i stay or should i go' by the clash, from the album 'singles'. www.theclashonline.com

redneck botox

did you know that for the oscars red carpet, some celebrities inject botox into their armpits to disable the sweat glands so that they don't get embarrassing stains on their designer frocks?

in other news: there is a website on the internet that will translate any web page into one of the following dialects: redneck, jive, cockney, elmer fudd, swedish chef, moron, pig latin or hacker.

entertainingly, if you click here, and then click the 'Dialectize!' button you will see the 'about' profile from my website translated into redneck.

click here to try a web page and dialect of your choosing.

on the stereo: 'first breath after coma' by explosions in the sky, from the album 'the earth is not a cold dead place'. www.explosionsinthesky.com