The Loni & Roni Show - The Physics Room

The Loni and Roni ShowPacifc Arts Trust . The Physics Room . June 2003

Image titles in order of appearancelole lole(jelly jetplanes)Lonnie Hutchinson...blue(video & marble work)Veronica Vaevaebikini babe(coke can lei)Lonnie Hutchinsonlush(spa pool, astroturf)Lonnie Hutchinsona lovely line of coconuts(copra drawing)Lonnie hutchinsonNFS(video projection stills)Veronica VaevaeThe Loni and Roni ShowPacifc Arts Trust . The Physics Room . June 2003Published by The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2003.All images © the artists and The Physics Room, 2003.Text © Stephanie Oberg and The Physics Room, 2003.'Credentials' courtesy of Anton Carter, Beats and Pieces.'all she wants is a Mermaid Barbie' by Danielle O'Halloran.Photography by Rory Kinahan.Layout and design by Aaron Beehre.The Physics Room receives major funding from

Enter the Pacific from Down UnderKiaora, Kia orana, Talofa lava, Greetings.Acknowledging the Pacific as a changed andfragile environment ‘The Loni and Roni Show’represents the domestication of the Pacific,which is as much about the aftermath of ourtravels as consumers as it is about our colonialand capitalist legacy. It extends warm Pacificgreetings to visitors, family and friends andattempts to address the disparity in ourconception of the Pacific as tropical when itslocal context and reality is framed by snowcapped mountains and morning frosts.In Otautahi/Christchurch, temperature is acultural metaphor. Experiences of Polynesianart, heart, identity and culture rarely spill outinto the day-to-day experience of our dominantcultural mainstream or institutionalised publicarenas; they usually manifest as ‘guestappearances’ or performances adding ‘colour’to formal and official occasions, heighteningthe experience of being a ‘hot house flower’one minute and literally ‘out in the cold’the next. As such, this exhibition of digitisedimagery, poems and ready-mades began inresponse to the Pacific Arts AssociationSymposium and the opportunity it broughtto add to the construction of a ‘Pacific Artexperience’ in this strangely shaped SouthPacific that is Christchurch.The Loni and Roni Show contemplatesthe Pacific.

CredentialsNew in the Pacific but still underground, bound by sound aroundMovement from the speakers who never weakenVoice of the people in the shadow of the steepleSay a prayer before I tear flesh from the metal meshMorphing concepts in 3D, expanding minds as an emceeWant my credentials check my CVI used to be fresh off the boat, now I’m starving and brokePerforming arts in play that we wroteSetting up Dawn Raids on Sons Romeo and Tusi was the best funLeaving crowds on the stun, we had only just begunDon’t call me aimless cos I have the prospects,Controlling cans on bombsites, tight outlines on micsKrylon or cramped, acoustic or amped,Tuned to frequencies, shows hip-hop weeklySo bully for you, represent with my crewPermanent like a tattoo etched in skinMy rhymes come deep withinCheck out our credentials coming 3D from the depths of the PacificDon’t you know we’re found, bound in the underground sound,Step into your now….There’s only one way I’m coming from the underground,Running with the phatness of my brown skin not the blacknessOn the microphone we take you home to the motherland,ON the other hand the beats and pieces setting trends for the millenniumTriple 6 hell no we ain’t defending them, more like sending them,Down to the depths of hell, y’all my crew up in the house and it ain’t hard to tellWhen you come from the city where the baldheads dwellMany many styles to show how versatile we rock itMy ability hold the key so now I lock itI lock that down it’s the underground, you can’t stop it….Check out our credentials coming 3D from the deep seas of the pacificDon’t kid around with the sound from the undergroundThe underground sound pounds to throw our weight around– Anton Carter, Beats and Pieces, 1998

To Western eyes the Pacific has long beenenvisaged as a world colonised, where ailingeconomies and unhurried lifestyles make ideallanding points for world-weary travellers asthey escape the urban throng to paradise.We know the Pacific, that vast ocean and itsmany islands as populated but comparativelyempty. As much a fictional construct as it isa real place comprised of many, the Pacificoccupies our imagination, memories anddreams. The people of the Pacific, their stories,arts, traditions and icons stand alongsidecommercial tourist images and symbols thatevoke its presence.For Tangata Pacifica fiction exists alongsidereality and so in diaspora the word Pacificresonates as home rooted to a sense of identitythat we carry with us. The return home is alwaysan experience of change.Once thriving lagoons of shellfish and sea lifebordered by colourful coral reefs and eveningcalm beaches now stand quiet, their rock poolsbarren but for the dull pink and grey wake ofblack sea urchins lonely for company. As thesun sets, the nightly visits of the coconut crabhave become a treasured spectacle as their fleshbecomes a delicacy. Downtown you find morevarieties of fish on supermarket shelves thanin the market and yes the man down the roadis still sick from the pesticide spray, which alsogot into the water supply last week.Global warming, fact or fiction?Everyday life is “hotting” up as we live to adodgy environmental logic of high risk andreturn. Subsequently, our love for this cash andtrash culture is always enjoyed at a price andwhile it is the natural environment into whichwe retreat to breathe deeply and relax - as thesong goes “you always hurt the one you love”.The clean blue Pacific that is our paradise fillswith the souvenirs of our pleasure and leisure:Coke cans, aluminium beer tabs, plastic cupsand confetti, fond symbols, misplaced beaconsof commercial worship and icons ofcontemporary life find new meaning in thatplace we ‘home’.Our obsession with having a lifestyle takesus nowhere when we lie on our deck chairsmarking our presence with remnant presents.Litter; the flotsam and jetsam of our life asconsumers always travels with us. Our pursuitof pleasure becomes the banal shore of aconscious disregard for the environment.We consume and eat rich to be merry. Rejoicingin our indolence and intoxicated by the sunwe lust for brown skin and the gaze returned…on goes the oil. Everything is on Visa and theview is superb… The rhythms of nature continueto run their cycle.Never before has that vast empty Pacific seemedmore discovered, more ‘luxurious’, more easilyaccessible and less like paradise than now.

all she wants is a Mermaid BarbieTangaloa mummifiedAnd is that itThe ancestors just smile at meDid you remember howin anglophile glass houseshave we lost?pretending to be a touristto travel these starslets out a dusty wheeze, quick,Mermaid Barbie islooking around like I can’t seeunder the graves of theget a symbolic plasticwithout sunglasses, concrete slidesancestors long buriedinstant plasma inoculationmade from the sameon the bottom of my shoes, light shinesI once opened a door,against the contaminationclay mould of theopaque in the grey water, a broken mirrormy feet are doorsof the old godsMother, I amfor your Snow White beauty myththat fall through spacesqueezed into shapegrabbing at nothingTake this palagi goddesspressed throughdivided into parts that belongasking what can I hold on toto have and to holdstandardised issuesand parts foreign, like Jiff andwhat can I have tohalf fish, half womanby the expanded forcestoothpaste on your chinhold on to, only thisall synthetic, plastic flowersof new colonialsunlight soap in your eyesor let go myinfertile vaginas for her hairmultinationalsYou can’t wash out ‘till you lookshelter of blood masslike the ones you wearbright, whitening out the palebone and skin go feet firststem celling our soulsmulberry bark moonfalling through spaceis Shefor controlcombing your barbie wirethe stars are no differenta new breed of afakasi?of demandhair with forgetfulnessfrom the points of lightof demandin my face, that dripSee the Pacific swellof controliridescentthat’s Her, getting in the waterAll as beautifultears to the seaspilling over the tidesas a perfectly castratedwhich I amswallowing whole villagesG.E. bananaholdingwith a queenly wave of one handand letting flowtreasure island- paradise lost?– Danielle O’Halloran, 2003

What is the Pacific but the site of our ownbecoming and the place where our over investedbelief in and desire for a paradise of our ownbrings us back to where we are? Here, ourcoconut-cartooned consciousness, fragrantfragments of memory and longing within urbanlandscapes, forces us to take our pleasure inthe artifice of poolside fantasies (Baudriallard’sright if everyday were a holiday the citiesWOULD seem more mysterious). Mysteriesmake magic for the sul but leisure time is theprerogative of the elite… damn! Most of us arestill under – underpaid, undermined andundervalued.Take us to the Pacific sea where glitteringbeaches rock through your senses as electricions and the smell of frangipani invadesevery cell in your body. Surrounded by water,all islands are the ‘same’ really; places ofisolation, lonely places; negotiating themeagerly doesn’t make them any more hospitable- the natives are too ‘wild’. Let’s containthe Ocean. What does our environment sayto us, what stories does it tell, how doesit resource us - creatively?Here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the South Pacific,we are nuclear free. We have a certain faith inscience and at the same time a deep mistrustin the powers that govern its use. We haven’thad to weather the environmental assault ofnuclear testing and the anguish of bearingjellyfish babies but we understand the effectswell enough to feel the threat as heavy metalsand toxic wastes migrate, as black ships aroundour beautiful Ocean.“Meantime, back at the hotel, while touristsbath poolside in their deck chairs, Pina Coladain hand, the seawater is heating up and thecoral and fish are dying”

Lonnie HutchinsonNgai Tahu / Samoan / Multimedia and performance artist.Spatial consideration and the formal qualitiesof materials are primary to Lonnie’s practiseas a performance and conceptual artist. In thisshe consciously guides the propeoceptiveexperience of the viewer as a means ofaddressing issues in her work. Since movingto Christchurch Lonnie has been inspired bythe local landscape and the way it relates to herdual heritage and sense of spiritual belonging.This interest has been carried over with herinvestigation of star mounds in Samoa whichshe visited last year.Veronica VaevaeCook Island / Multimedia and digital manipulation.Most of the work in this show has been adevelopment of work made during her timein Rarotonga as artist in residence (2001).Her work is primarily a response to theenvironment, taking images of everyday objectsand altering them in a way that kinaestheticallyinforms the viewer. Subsequently, Roni’s earlyworks reflect her interest in street culture andvisually translating the pace of city rhythmsand hip-hop. As a boogie boarder Roni is muchinspired by the sensation of surf and sea andattempts to relate this physical experience.Her interest in representing the physicalsensation through a digitised visual mediumhas seen her explore the marriage of words andpoetry to video stills.Danielle O’HalloranSamoan/Scots/Poet and performance artist.Danielle lives in Christchurch and is a formermember of Militant Angels and current memberof Daughters of the Pacific. Danielle is also partof the WEAVE women’s collective who promotepeace issues and public awareness of the Treatyof Waitangi through performance.Anton CarterSamoan/MC/Writer.Anton works as the Pacific Arts Advisor forCreative New Zealand. He is a founder memberof Pacific Underground and still performs andis extensively involved in the music scene asan MC for the likes of Nomad, Rhombus etc.Stephanie ObergCook Islands/ New Zealand.Stephanie is a first time curator with amasters degree in Art History. She has aparticular interest in Pacific arts (traditionaland contemporary) and in fostering a moreactive Pacific art scene in Christchurch.Stephanie is a founder member of Daughtersof the Pacific and Tivaevae Revival.The work for this show was assembled in arecipe like fashion, a sprinkle of this, a bit ofthat. The term jellyfish babies was used by thewomen of Rongelap to describe babies bornwithout heads and limbs following Americannuclear testing in the Bikini Islands (1954)

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