Interactive exhibition popular amongst its audience
Exhibitions are a common occurrence for the Waikato Museum, but there is one that currently stands out from the rest.
Survey Hamilton is a multimedia exhibition at the Waikato Museum, which incorporates different elements of film, photography, gaming, sonic art and audio taken around Hamilton.
The exhibition depicts Hamilton’s environmental attributes, its economy and people’s sense of home.
Survey Hamilton was initiated by David Cook, a photographer and lecturer at Massey University.
Cook spent two years working alongside Wintec’s moving image tutor Joe Citizen to create the Survey Hamilton Exhibition.
Some of the most intriguing parts of the exhibition include an interactive 360-degree music video.
The video features local hip-hop group NDD, and allows viewers to explore the surroundings of where the video was filmed instead of the typical set image.
Joe Citizen and Jason Long, a music tutor at Wintec, created the video before the exhibition began at the Waikato Museum, as part of New Zealand Music Month.
The video was shot using a special 360-degree view camera and the overall idea was to have the music video appear more as a game than watching a film.
NDD, a hiphop group consisting of Hamilton locals, Aaron Nuku (Nukz), Darnell Wilson (Darnell) and Mulenga Munshya (Dominick), wrote the featuring song ‘H-Town Vibe’ within two weeks.
Munshya said “Nuku and I always wanted to make a song together but didn’t really put our foot down to actually do it. Nuku called me one day, asking me to write a verse on the track about what Hamilton meant to me, then he told me that there was going to be a music video to go with it.”
“I always cherish every opportunity I get. It was a mission explaining what the music video was, because it isn’t something that many people can get their imagination around.”
“It was a pleasure and honour to be a part of something like that because not many people can say that they have been involved in a 360 music video,” said Munshya.
The video was shot at the Fairfield Park, near where Aaron Nuku lived for a period.
Other features of the Survey Hamilton exhibition include ‘Roadside Trash’ by Wintec photography tutor Mark Purdom, ‘Reflections’ by Paul M Nelson and ‘Night Riders’ by David Cook.
Museum visitor and Wintec public relations student Alissa Phillips said, “Survey Hamilton is an intriguing exhibition, I liked the Night Riders section as it shows the culture of Hamilton through the eyes of young people, and what better way to display that than through some town photos”.
David Cook and Rodrigo Hill created Night Riders in 2012.
Night Riders features 55 people who agreed to be photographed in a ‘pop-up street studio’, and are represented in the order they arrived.
The Photography started at 10pm on Thursday 11th October 2012 and finished on Friday at 2am.
“I think the idea of taking photographs over the course of a night is a fun way to incorporate Hamilton’s younger generation in an exhibition like this,” said Phillips.
Survey Hamilton continues at the Waikato Museum until 23 November 2014. Entry is free.
