D ASCENDANT Digital Catalogue
“This digital catalogue is from Myths and Legends in my veins curated by Reina Sutton at Papakura Art Gallery. The film is made by Robert George.”
An example of what fagogo probably is not (but all is up for debate).
If we take the thesis that fagogo is both an art form and a process --
As a traditional art form, we expect it to possess an orality, a quality of performance with personas, song, spoken word or chant that would imbue the many qualities as described in Kolone-Collins (2010)’s thesis on its use for early childhood education.
As a traditional process, it would typically perform as a conversant mode of moral instruction, imparting history, beliefs, values and principles.
Abstract art such as D ASCENDANT relies either i) on the audience’s foreknowledge of the indigenous Polynesian ontology that regards Gods and all things in creation as related kin (Tui Atua, 2009), or ii) yields itself as an object of subjectivity where the audience reads themselves into the piece with their frameworks of knowledge.
As D ASCENDANT explicitly diverges from the traditional art form in nearly all criteria, it must then be assessed as an iteration of indigenous experimentation with our traditional forms (Sharrard, 2003).
While it is arguably unavoidable to read oneself into every media we encounter (refer Stuart Hall; thanks, Anna), what D ASCENDANT lacks for qualification as a traditional process is the ‘negotiated space’ that follows the traditional fagogo process -- the time following the story’s conclusion where the faifagogo and audience could reflect, discuss and negotiate their understanding and lessons drawn from the piece.
Audiences can view and leave without being required to check or negotiate their understanding with the creator at the door.
In a social media framework, the mechanism for such an exchange is present, but the audience is not required to engage with the piece in this manner. In networks such as YouTube, the creator or storyteller is even less visible or known to their audience unlike Facebook where the network is designed around the profile of an individual, their social networks, and individual yet inter-related aspects of their life. Conversely, YouTube is centered around content that can be divorced from an individual or a community, as is the case in D ASCENDANT‘ under Tautai Pacific Art’s profile.
If such a negotiation is intended by future creators, they will need to either utilise a different platform, or enlist YouTube in a different way to elicit the intended engagement.
It is at this time that I really wish I had put a reference under all those helpful notes about principles of engagement from Transmedia last year.... @colabtransmedia would this have been spreadable media? Which book did we read with the very long introduction? Or was it Phillips’ Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling?
Kolone-Collins, S. (2010). Fagogo: “Ua molimea manusina”: a qualitative study of the pedagogical significance of Fagogo-Samoan stories at night- for the education of Samoan children (Thesis). Auckland University of Technology. Retrieved from http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/1034
Sharrard, P. (2003). Albert Wendt and Pacific Literature: Circling the Void. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
Tui Atua, T. T. T. E. (2009). Whispers and vanities in Samoan indigenous religious culture. Whispers and Vanities: Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion, p. 11-41.
