User:Chuzosho/sandbox: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

rADz were haiku films conceived in the late 80s by Barry Thomas – consummated with two rADz he made with Red Mole then a further four series were made from 1997 as a public offering for both emerging and experienced NZ film makers. Four collections were purchased by TV4 with the proviso that all rADz were nominally paid to be in the ad breaks (selling nothing) and that all rADz would be played with credits across the TV schedule, including prime time. Another c.100 were made in the UK – directly with and for smaller communities then with the BBC in London screening on late night BB2.^[2]

As the name suggests rADz were initially modelled on television adverts in New Zealand – for art versus hawking anything – so were exactly 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 second long.^[3][4] With less televisual constraints in the UK, rADz were more community focused and ranged up to 10 mins duration.

Conceptually, rADz fit within the genre of intervention art – intervening into advertising breaks with fresh, stimulating and challenging ideas, narratives. Genres are often humourous, sometimes political, alluring, whimsical and many are green. They tend to express youth culture, concerns, aspirations, vision, beliefs and lifestyles. As such rADz align with the notion of culture jamming, artists expressing skepticism about monolithic markets and media, bureaucracy and even democracy… ‘freedom of speech’ where such freedoms have been curtailed or siloed into silence.^{[4][5][6][3][7][8][9][10]}

Commentators have described them as: “turning the whole idea of advertising on its head”… “did I just see that?”( Chris Trotter)^[7] “Art dancing in the devil’s playground.” (Alan Brunton Barry Thomas)^[5] An early version of tik tok “you could just have 30 seconds of someone jumping” (Dame Gaylene Preston),^[3] ” Anti Ads”,^[3] “Searing and brilliant – geniale”,^[11] “You started TikTok” (Richard Moore), “A tiny slice of personal propaganda” (NZ Film Commission)^[9] “getting art in the middle of commercials?” (Barry Thomas),^[10] “… subversive” (Simon Vita),^[10] “Imagine a bubblegum card sized piece of televisual media empire that’s struck just for you. Chewing on the flavourless pap you had to buy just to win the card you see it’s all worth it now. After years of short-lived tasteless sensations on the tube you’ve got an image you can call your own that won’t walk out on you in the morning. TV’s a costly business (and the programmes don’t come cheap either), but now it’s payback timenecause their’s a new breed riding on the coattails of this behemoth who won’t be told anymore that the price of talking TV is beyond them. Enough generations have learned the jingles, glimpsed the personalities, goggled at the visual short-hand and generally been sold short on reality to realise they’ve already paid their price. The Pay-back is rADz – that bubblegum card is yours. Throw away the shrink-wrapped, toll free, send-no-money-now world’s stick of flavourless, sugar-coated jaw ache away and lay your cards on the table. [make rADz]” (Matt Poff call for entries collection # 2).

They arrived at a time at the very beginning of the internet and digital production era when films had to be brief. The very first digital morphing had just arrived and Yeti Productions wrote its own morphing software,^[12] the world’s first fully capable capture board was powerful enough to import a full 25 frames per second video.

Barry Thomas had a track record of environmental film making^[13] and making award winning films^[6] and commercials^[7] so he offered New Zealand’s national TV broadcaster – TVNZ, the idea of making short environmental clips to help New Zealanders improve their environmental footprints via mainstream Television by utilizing what were then called “Community Service slots” that all broadcasters were bound by law to make available to community groups.^[5] Thomas had made many with the Hillary Commission – “Women in Sport”, Kiwisport”, “Cancer Society’s “Fit Food”, “Salvation Army”, The Dept. of Conservation (DOC) including Jacques Cousteau.^[4][6]

Thomas hosted national meetings of all the country’s environmental groups – Maruia Society, Doc, Ministry for the Environment, Forest and Bird, Greenpeace, ECO, and following investigation with Len Potts of Colenso the group settled on TVNZ’s Ad Agency – Saatchi and Saatchi to run what became “Earthcare”. TVNZ and Saatchi formed the Earthcare Trust inc. and trustees included Sir Edmund Hillary.

1 minute of TVNZ airtime per day in the “Holmes show” was dedicated to Earthcare and dozens of short clips were made advancing conservation and environmental issues. The brand also sold around a million dollars of sponsorship to the NZ Lotteries Commission (Lotto), Fisher and Paykel etc. at a reported $350,000 each. Sponsors received dedicated advertising spots in TVNZ’s off-peak environmental programmes. Revenue was earned from previously unsellable TV dead-time using the good names of the country’s green groups. Thomas made Kevin Smith (CEO of Forest and Bird) aware of these facts in 1992 – all sponsors withdrew and Earthcare was dead in two weeks.^[5]

Undaunted, Thomas returned to his art roots and offered his idea to Red Mole Enterprises to make the first haiku art films (with no commercial imperative). The first two rADz were made under the name “Cheap Spots” in 1992 – a collaboration between Yeti Production Ltd. and Red Mole Enterprizes.^[5]

The first two “Book of Life” Cheap Spots aired in November 1991 and even Jenny Holzer was quoted saying “I want the work to look like it belongs on TV, but not to look like a local car ad. The jolt comes from the context”. The name came from the notion that the Cheap spots played in affordable off-peak TV airtime which only cost $68 per screening. The crew were: Barry Thomas – Director/ camera/ edit, Russell Collins Art Director, Allan Brunton, Sally Rodwell scripts and acting, Carlos Wedde acting.^[5]

Z Spots

Thomas loaned his idea to three film makers including Jonathan Brough and Glenn Standring (Lenny Minute).^[14] Thomas re-named Cheap Spots as “Z Spots” – as all TVNZ advertising was rated A-Z depending on audience size, expensive to cheap. This became a trademark court case with the two sides agreeing to settle out of court.^[3][10]

rADz New Zealand 1997-2001

Thomas then re-named the works ‘rADz’ and sought to widen the access to his idea by successfully applying to the NZ Film Commission and Creative New Zealand’s Screen Innovation Fund for what became the first of four successive collections of about 30 rADz each. Each Collection received c. $NZ30,000.^[6]

The first grant was in 1996 and the first collection of 31 rADz was made in 1997. Bettina Hollings (commissioning editor of TV3) bought the first collection (and subsequent following three) for the brand new youth oriented TV4.^[4]

Thomas negotiated a contract between the film makers, YETI Productions and TV3. He secured nominal payments of $500 per collection from the broadcaster so as to secure the history of having been paid to be in the middle of terrestrial TV ad breaks with art films, “selling nothing but Ideas, originality and art”.^[9] Secondly Yeti Productions was paid to manage, run competitive tendering throughout the country for film makers and pay them 50% of any sales. rADz received 500 minutes of airtime per collection on TV4 – displayed throughout the schedule including prime time. Each rAD was made in either 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds duration and every rAD screened with proper film credits (unlike TV ads). Film makers were each given $500 to make their rADz.^[4]

He appointed two fellow adjudicators film historian Lawrence McDonald and film maker Jane Perkins. Each Collection had its own flyer and a large screening was held to celebrate each collection at the Paramount Theatre in Wellington NZ on completion.^[4][10]

In total around 100 film crews, amounting to hundreds of artists were chosen from always well patronized calls for each collection. Some film makers were seasoned like Paul Maunder and Barry Thomas (who donated his own rAD “The End…” to the first collection) but the majority were up and coming directors, actors, etc.^[6]

In Collection # 2, Thomas announced “I don’t care if you shoot it on sellotape, come and make history, make rADz.

Collections are held at Nga Taonga.  See individual titles for catalogue information.

rADz Collection # 1.  Filmed in 1997 in Aotearoa New Zealand. Nga Taonga reference F33813.

“Thirsty” by Tom Doig, F33814; “The End…” by Barry Thomas, F33815; “Faux Pas #1” by Robyn Venables, F33816; “Hen Party” by Mary-Jane O’Reilly,  F33817;  “Reincarnation” by Guy Capper, F33818;  “Old Flame” by Struan Ashby, F33819; “Clipper” by Gary MacKay, F3 3820; “Branch on Branch” by Ian Clothier, F33821; “Pavlov’s Dog #1 – Call Waiting” by Byron Smith, F33822; “Pavlov’s Dog #2 – Fax and Faxability” by Byron Smith, F33823; “Pavlov’s Dog #3 – Caller Display” by Byron Smith, F33824;  “The Move” by David Stubbs,  F33825; “Obscure Death #1” by Paul Swadel, F33826; “The Creakers” by Peter Salmon, F33827; “Tidy Your Room” by Simon Raby, F33828; “The Birth – Day Cake” by Rosaleen Conway, F33829; “Cancer” by Stefan Wahrlich, F33830;  “Post No Bills” by Simon McKinney, F33831; “Teddy bundy” by Mary Connolly, F33832; “Window” by Anthony Johnston, F33833; “Stop Go” by Sam Broad, F33834; “Prickle” by Ann Nicolson, F33835;  “Tall Stories – The Heart” by Lala Rolls, F33836; “Tall Stories – The Eye” by Lala Rolls, F33837;  “Tall Stories – The Mind’s Eye” by Lala Rolls, F33838; “Tall Stories – Skin” by Lala Rolls, F33839; “Tall Stories – Feet” by Lala Rolls, F33840;  “Tall Stories – Finger” by Lala Rolls, F33841; “Night Out” by Greg Page, F33842; “Signal Test” by Paul Redican, F33843. ^[4][1] rADz Collection 1

rADz Collection # 2.  Filmed in 1999 in Aotearoa New Zealand. Nga Taonga reference; F44470.

“Mother Tongue” directed by Zoe Roland, F43009;  “Annoying Spot Part 3” directed by Peter Tonks, F44472; “Par Avion” directed by Nova Paul, F44474; “Help Me” directed by Brendan Roberts, F44475;  “Woodpecker” directed by Struan Ashby,  F44476;  “Cereal Killer” directed by Steven Whelan-Turnball, F44478;  “Cyber Kicks” directed by Kezia Barnett, F44479; “Untitled” directed by Morag Brownlie, F44481;  “He Who Laughs Last” directed by Jarrod Holt, F44484;  “Annoying Spot Part 4” directed by Peter Tonks, F44485;  “Note” directed by Michael Pointon, F44486;  “Security” directed by Christobal Araus Lobos, F44487;  “Guignol” directed by Carlos Wedde, F44489;  “BLT” directed by Adam Dransfield, F44490;  “The End” directed by John Martin, F44491;  “Corpus Amorphous” directed by Jane Evans, F44492; “Errol the Moron Goes Shopping” directed by Jim Flewitt, F44493;  “Anticrime” directed by Michael Salmon, F44494;  “Annoying Spot Part 7” directed by Peter Tonks, F44495; “Mother Bus” directed by Guy Capper, F44496;  “ANZAC” directed by Lissa Mitchell, F44497;  “Lifestyles” directed by Tom Barrett and Kerry Lennon, F44498;  “Annoying Spot Part 9” directed by Peter Tonks, F44499;  Bus-Pass Not By-Pass” directed by Anon,  F44500;  “Wellington Motorway” directed by Johanna Sanders, F44501;  “Watercolour” directed by Vanessa Alexander, F44502; “The Walk” directed by Ian Powell, 44503; “Just Like Your Father” directed by Jeffery Hurrell, F44504;  “Wax” directed by Bill Dyall and Sue Allan, F44505;  “Aotearoa 2019” directed by Rongotai Lomas, F44506.[2] rADz Collection 2

rADz Collection # 3.  Filmed in 2001 in Aotearoa New Zealand. Nga Taonga reference; F52517.

“Paperdoll Girl Writer” producer, director Kezia Barnett;  “Go Wild” by Carlos Wedde; “Lap it up” by Ian Powell;  “Jeffrey the Pirate” by Phil Symonds;  “Is that you driving your dream… Or is that your loan driving you” – by Darcy Gladwin; “Detective/Hitman” by Struan Ashby; “The Apostrophe” by Jonathan King;  “Art in Process” by Helen Schmidt; “We had been driving . . .” by Nathan Pohio;  “The End of Radicalism” by Paul Maunder;  “Plugins, Drifting…” by Michael Hornblow;  “Loiterer” by Jochen Fitzherbert; “Titan” by Chris Matthews; “[Break Dance]” by Jason Naran;  “Bottled Miracle” by Scott Chambers;  “[Living in a small town in New Zealand can be like living in a vacuum]” by Pyramid Productions;  “Season” by Jan Soinna;  “Carnations” by Kelly Davis; “[Old Folks Home]” by Susan Trasher;  “If” by Jennifer Goodfellow;  “Cafe Coition” by Gretchen Mornin; “[Two Mothers Who Gave me Life One Present One Absent]” by Tessa Levett; “Space Virus” by Guy Capper; “Lilly in the House of Lipsticks” by Kathy Dudding; “Night Groovers” by Tarub Mohanbhai, Rhys Darby and Grant Lobban.[3] rADz Collection 3

rADz Collection # 4.  Filmed in 2001 in Aotearoa New Zealand. Nga Taonga reference; F113828. Compiled 11 Dec 2021.

“Spang cola” by Conrad Blight, F113876; “Bovines” by Rick Harvie and Marcus Hill, F113933; “Lotus water” by Nia Robyn, F113935;  “Dusk to dawn” by Flux, F113937; “Game” by Candida Keithly, F110136; “Travel logue” by Anastasia Turnbull and Malcolm Campbell, F113938; “Miss Western Springs” by David Clark and Mike Haynes, F113939; “Skin” by Mark Prebble and Nev Garven, F113940; “Trash” by Catherine Hallinan, F113941; “Stolen car” by John Sellwood, Cameron Graham and Caleb Stains, F113942; “Sand” by Allen Cameron, F113943; “Photosynthesis” by Benedict Reid, F113944; “Heaven to cry” by Leonie Reynolds, F113946; “Sleep dreams” by Angela Williams, F113949; “Fury” by Matt Lambourn, F113952; “Hangman” by Rebecca Moldenhauer, F113953; “Black and White” by John White, F113955; “Milk and honey” by Sandor Lau, F101380; “Genesis” by Nicola Spencer, F113956, “Mind Field” – b’art homme[4] rADz Collection 4

Significant contributors to NZ rADz

Lala Rolls, Greg Page, Nova Paul, Taika Waititi (Cohen), Jemaine Clement, Paul Maunder, Barry Thomas, Rhys Darby, Simon Raby, Peter Salmon, Struan Ashby, Phill Simmonds, Guy Capper, Mary Jane O’Reilly.

Collection # 1 screened an astounding 1,530 minutes amounting to more than 15 feature films.^[10] Speaking of the difference between TV adversts and rADz Simon Vita said Johanna Sanders’ rAD ” Healthy Living” being about the proposed destruction of inner city Wellington communities from the new urban motorway – Simon Vita said “That makes worrying about whether your shampoo is going to do the biz kinda irrelevant”.^[10]

Clermont Ferrand Jan. 2001 and Jan 2002.

Following the screening of Collection # 2 at the Paramount theatre, The NZ Film Commission‘s Kathleen Drumm approached Thomas to represent rADz at the next Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France. After receiving no support and taking the advice from fellow film maker John Reid “It might be time to sell the motorbike” Thomas joined the party and managed to sell some rADs to In-Movies ltd in London and Sundance TV.^[10]

UK

Thomas was invited to make 30 rADz in London with In-Movies Ltd. in YEAR. Thomas co-produced the first 20 UK rADz with In-Movies Ltd and the youthful What-ever films.

John Wojowski of Manchester’s Kino Film Festival engaged Thomas and Yeti Productions to make a total of seven collections in mainly poorer suburbs working mainly with less well off communities and their youth. The series was largely funded by the European (Community) Social Fund through the Manchester Youth College.^[15]

Salford – Chapel Street

Northmoor 1 & 2

Youth Education Project 2001

Manchester Foyer

Lisson Green June 2002 North London with Groundwork London Waterways, The Pirate Castle, Featuring Tokyo Video Festival winner “Masters of the Canal made with Barry Thomas and Susan Crockford.

Longsight’s School Otherwise Ardwick

Northern Film Network Manchester Youth film makers employed Thomas to run a two weekend long rADz making workshop. November 2003 – Notable work “Desert Kiss”

“Sho 1 Wot eese arght?” was commissioned. 12 mins.^[16]

Birmingham – ??? Incubator

BBC: Thomas supplied 31 of the ‘One Minute Wonder’ rADz to the BBC’s education wing – Blast TV in 2002. The following year Thomas became an advisor to the Blast TV system that saw many UK youth TV and film makers make rADz. These films were screened on BBC 2 in 2002 and 2003 and one “Meadows Comin Thru’ was transmitted on 18 October 2003. Each participant was awarded a Broadcast Certificate that testified their film was included and was broadcast – usually in the middle of the night. Exec Producer, Jane Quinn; Project Manager, Laia Gasch; Producer, Cathy Sheehan. (BBC CBBC Blast TV).

Pirate Castle

Market Estate^[8][17] February 2002 “Life” – Da Essence (Video clip shot at Pirate Caste, Market Estate, Islington and Brixton. – Ace, Roach and Flamma. – video clip directed, filmed BT – Music Da Essenece, Edit – Jamie Reid. Ali Gee’s Market Estate tour.

Canal Films – Ladbroke Grove/ Lancaster Youth Centre – Yeti with Barefoot films – Thomas exec produced, directed, filmed and edited the sequences called 20/20 – a youth dance troupe he worked with at the Lancaster Youth centre. Hayden Anayasi did credit graphics, In the first sequence Thomas devised the idea of what was coined a year later in NYC as “Flashmob” A street beggar with a getto blaster who is approached by Monica offers the beggar a CD. Once the music starts dancers appear out of nowhere in front of Ladbroke Grove train station. A real audience appears to watch the dancing and the filming. Samir Mamod captured 2nd unit cam. Flashmobs are another form of culture jamming.

Lyrical Rebels (Hiphop)

MANZ

Mysterious Birthday

Jake of the Water

Law of the water

Susan Crockford

Thomas Returned to New Zealand in late 2004 and made a few more rADz in Coromandel???

In 2007 Thomas came to live Wellington (where he still resides) and made more rADz with locals in the Aro Valley.

Festivals

Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2000 and 2001. At the 2000 Festival Thomas met John Wojowski and Lawrence Penn from the UK who then employed him through the four years he lived in the UK. In 2001 Thomas met Sita Banerjee of the Capalbio Interrnational Film Festival Rome.

The Festival of Brevity (Rome) Sita Banerjee was employed to run Rome’s Festival of Brevity Rome to which she invited Thomas to show and talk about rADz – This was very well covered in Il Messagero by Venice Film Festival’s critics week judge Fabio Ferrzetti^[11]

BTV (Bastard TV) Sheffield – National Centre for Popular Music 30 November – 1 December 2001.

Exhibitions

Old and new Hauraki House 2006 Coromandel

Divested Interest 2007 – Hauraki House and The Depot, Devonport.^[8]

Old New borrow Blues 2009 – Thistle Hall Wellington^[9][10]

Archives

MOE OIA info archives – Earthcare Trust.

rADz collections are held at Nga Taonga Sound and Vision, TV3, and can be viewed at … ???

48 hour film project (2001 Washington, 2003 NZ), much YouTube content (2005), TikTok (2017).

Further reading/viewing

rADz NZ Collection # 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRi2f37LZew&t=22s

rADz NZ Collection # 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVqLlKPMW9k&t=52s

rADz NZ Collection # 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuOLq8vfQ8o&t=4s

rADz NZ Collection # 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH7vR03o5ZE&t=20s

HeartlaNZ documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW6n6DCNJk8

Barry Thomas “The End…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRN6tTbsLqo

rADz UK Collection LYC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZRnm9bdC5c&t=1313s

rADz UK Collection Market Estate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbhlrnj5sTw

rADz UK Collection OMW radz 112 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K8atawI2zU&t=13s

rADz UK Collection Life by Da Essence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Jr4aw4UOU

Monster eats boy Simon Raby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfty2XOMfMY

Ian Warn https://vimeo.com/171727969?turnstile=0.sPCQFwH2OSKjLTGbWYGnr0R3kFEywMzwA25Ai-ZLnQlPmmpoufF-tY_GrNZvCtC19DLtC2YMdE_w9s1UrOkI4fuPZsyOHsBlrTLLrbdYCor86P8hU-INiTxTzwzKbDoTc4zv3QnGoFAJh8DhCSzf8T0Hlu_21jqNY1h5tSaGlpR9aD3kpjDrfbSBYaIccmDJU0n0C_KLezIz5c8Z6ChjVR0qT6SofLTczIiY3_ImVmzZfRsC9dyly8GhJHVmbFlfgghMunSMny3hz7G-B4Mu03G7yY5_uJuDGFv_PHIuSFWRqtS_KBGvuKkwPLXGtFtMp8jpo7fROo2pJVuM3XrNAdgX2Rd1hZ9g39146sNOU8NNuP-ffgLLUYftsW9GpKltBUVmPhdLEv4K7YaI0KnaJMj74oA1eX640xukUIdWOEuqRg3MbSiypQ1Te60VeKXcScFylK9-EqvBUc1wA_-gjnjZjr3WR2r58Px_CB6hwTM4Vd_fT8mbFPC86t3o8Uzkn90FQT0ge-Yj8fruzB0Qt9VKk2qOIpfW23d_AZ7OT4uY7yN5yoqhlT7B0AMcYTM1MYdEyBtmU_qKkVG1IvrNAIsPW4Tze71A5iasLFaj_KDTtP2hjZeb8OgujSec9YbErFZ2Vp69pA57qpKj91LYUmm_i0s-MyB_euBWKclSyi_xyTeM6NU7JpUpIqhNJ5a3VouLYWKXdEHzr8CRp5OaBMxTYg6Dtrc_EEk_n8GROe5ZYovp-Hf6oynBgACnjsZS9sdSpD1d5oVKKYkdLPZOqv8xM8tS197sOXu_ZcEt0y9PloyTSUTmnprBOjDzGGotqrqmVLHvdvMxDpeLsRsoU1iNDprd7gu0L3Mu3RwZkfbc3QfghtUSkL08dZi301csRs8v23A5LqA7IexMPq_J_g._b36PgDBSNCum4AGmTaC2w.7b4a3f4574b0d196bde453d0d91044176ac228539747b3e2d71bb37d14057b84

Two Openings

STRIDING down Auckland’s Wellesley Street in the golden glow of an autumn evening the flags atop UNITE House were hard to miss. Bright red, and emblazoned with the UNITE union’s logo, they declared to all the world that capitalism’s monopoly over Queen Street was about to be contested by a merry band of entrepreneurial socialists. In celebration, the new tenants of 300 Queen Street’s twelfth floor were having a party.

As Matt McCarten, the Organising Director of UNITE, and his new partners from Te Wananga O Aotearoa and the United Credit Union, were welcoming a broad cross-section of the Auckland Left to their proletarian penthouse atop the old ASB building, another entrepreneur – this time in the arts – was preparing for an opening of his own.

Just a few miles away, on the other side of the Waitemata, Barry Thomas, and his fellow painter from the Coromandel, Evelyne Siegrist-Huang, were putting the finishing touches to “Di-Vested Interest” the joint exhibition they were due to open the following day at the Depot Artspace in Devonport.

What’s the connection? Well, apart from the fact that I’ve known both men for more than twenty years, it’s their extraordinary talent for breathing new life into very old ideas.

In McCarten’s case, it’s the idea that, to make a real difference to workers’ lives, working class organisation must go beyond the “bread-and-butter” fixations of traditional trade unionism. McCarten’s key insight, at the very beginning of his career, was that the only way to avoid being seduced by, and eventually joining, his capitalist opponents (as one of their industrial “minders”) was to beat them at their own game.

With Thomas, it’s an even older idea: that art can change society – and that one of the artist’s primary roles is to represent people’s desire for change through creative media. With personal links going all the way back to the merry pranksters and film-makers of BLERTA (Bruno Lawrence’s Electric Revelation & Travelling Apparition) in the 1970s, Thomas’s modus operandi has always been to laugh and/or embarrass ‘Korporate Kapitalist Kulture’ off the artistic stage.

And Thomas knows whereof he speaks. It takes a special appreciation of the adman’s art to win a Golden Axis Award for the best automotive commercial – when the automobile being advertised is a Lada. Winning his award with the slogan ‘Nothing But Car’ – “because there wasn’t anything else!” – was something of an epiphany for Thomas. “I suddenly realised, I don’t have to do this anymore.

With characteristic chutzpah, Thomas decided to stand the whole idea of advertising on its head. In collaboration with other like-minded “artist provocateurs”, he somehow persuaded Television New Zealand to pay for the privilege of inserting miniature artistic manifestos called “rADz®” (Radical Art Advertisements) into the network’s programme schedules. Popping up at random in the middle of genuine ad’ breaks, these frequently bizarre examples of guerrilla art caused many viewers to doubt the evidence of their own eyes: “Did I just see that?”

There is, however, nothing remotely electronic about Thomas’s contributions to “Di-Vested Interest”. Trained at of the Ilam School of Fine Arts, where he studied under the notorious Rudi Gopaz (who also taught Tony Fomison and Philip Clairmont), Thomas has always revelled in the experience of covering canvasses with paint. Three large examples of these: “Market Forces in the Shadow of the Long Black & White Cloud”, “Conscience Serving Life” and “Between Moa, Man, Sheep, Cabbage Tree & Rail” dominate his half of the exhibition.

 

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