"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail"
In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body.
00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt
1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure.
3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?"
5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.
7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton
8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.
9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting.
12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha - "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".
13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".
15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke".
16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.
17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself?
18:10: Social media as influence
19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024).
21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".
22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere.
23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery.
24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome.
26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries?
26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".
27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation.
28:58: END
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"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail"
In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body.
00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt
1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure.
3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?"
5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.
7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton
8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.
9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting.
12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha - "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".
13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".
15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke".
16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.
17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself?
18:10: Social media as influence
19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024).
21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".
22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere.
23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery.
24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome.
26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries?
26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".
27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation.
28:58: END
How do moving image artists work with visual effects? In this follow up podcast to CIRCUIT Cast 123: Brett Graham, interviewer Kathryn Graham speaks to Sam Tozer from LOT23. They discuss Sam's work on Whangamārino, a six channel video by Brett included as part of his installation The Wastelands at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Sam discusses the process of working with Brett, the digital challenges of adding visual effects to documentary footage and working through ‘impossible lenses’.
List of topics:
0:20 How did you first get to know Brett? Sam discusses making one of Nat Tozer’s works (Erotic Geologies (2024)) and forging a mutual connection with Brett via Gow Langsford gallery, and the inclusion of a Fred Graham sculpture in the video.
2.30: Sam describes the original documentary footage which Whangamārino is based on.
3.25: The unusual size of the six screen video installation - “11 times wider than it is high…immediately really exciting”.
4.00: What was the process of choosing not to use the original footage?
4:30: Sam discusses ‘impossible lenses’, and the difference between showing The Wastelands in Venice in 2024 versus the 2025 Auckland Art Gallery installation which features the video work Whangamārino.
6:00: How LOT23 work with artists - technologically and learning about the artists' kaupapa, looking at previous works, examining narrative and aesthetic threads in existing works - “so we’re part of a continuum”
7 :00: The technical challenges of making a work “12 times wider than it’s high” at a resolution of 11,500 pixels wide
8:25: Brief discussion of unusual screen sizes in projects with Lisa Reihana and Nat Tozer
10:00: More discussion of working at large scale, Kathryn makes anology of working on a mural and the impact of scale on the viewer
12:30 Sam discusses beginning with grass, rock and trees as "touchpoints for a scale reference” Different lens sizes with a virtual camera. The process of creating natural environments. Using NASA Lidar data, using images of the actual sites in Brett’s video.
15:00 Working with Brett - suggesting inclusion of other details, thinking about depth of field “you get to play God with it…to create something larger than life…that is hyper real”.
18:00 “There’s all sorts of Easter eggs of meaning…” Discussion of Brett’s personal references to whenua in the work.
19:30 Ends
CIRCUIT CAST
"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail"
In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body.
00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt
1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure.
3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?"
5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.
7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton
8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.
9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting.
12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha - "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".
13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".
15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke".
16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.
17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself?
18:10: Social media as influence
19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024).
21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".
22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere.
23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery.
24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome.
26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries?
26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".
27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation.
28:58: END
