Fine Arts and Design
Total Depravity (Feature length drama)
Project
Set against the backdrop of one of the most formative periods of modern NZ history, Total Depravity is a dark, period, psychological drama, loosely based on the story of Thomas Kendall, one of the first missionaries to arrive in Aotearoa in 1814 as a part of Samuel Marsden’s expedition to New Zealand.
This story follows the breakdown of the mission and Kendall’s descent into madness as he is affected both spiritually and socially by the very people he was sent to save. This is a story of spiritual colonialism and one man’s journey beyond the limitations of thought created by his own strict Calvinist beliefs into a world that he struggled to make sense of and wasn’t able to turn away from.
During the summer of 2022/23 this project will be moving into the detailed research phase.
Requirements: The project requires a researcher able to expand the reference material available for story development through the identification of relevant contemporary and historical writing and research via online resources. The material generated by this research will be used to augment the story outline. Once the narrative structure and story beats are laid out, we will be looking for more development funding to further develop the script. The role is transdisciplinary in the sense it combines work toward a creative film outcome with research processes aligned with historical research.
The research role described by this summer scholarship supports, the early stages of what will be an externally funded creative project, of significant scale which produces a valuable FRDF outcome within the current census period. The project aims to present a story that’s significant to our country’s history. mIt is important that from its early research stages the project be based a sound understanding of existent historical source material.
It provides the student with an opportunity to be involved in a film project which will provide vocational value and practical experience useful in their creative career. An effective applicant would be literate, interested in Aotearoa and its colonial history and processes of story development for film. Interaction with the primary researchers (Speers and Neill) through the scholarship period will support an effective transition for a student into postgraduate study.
Towards an environmentally focussed 'zero-player' game-like framework
Project
The project will contribute to the development of a series of 2D zero-player games in p5.js that employ 'nearest neighbour' cellular automata-like rules to model environmental systems on low spec devices. This is a component of a larger transdisciplinary project, to which people with markedly different skill sets and from different disciplines will contribute. For this reason, documentation and well commented code are a core requirement. Depending on its success, this component of the project will continue in 2023 and overlap with environmental monitoring tools currently in development. The zero player games will be contextualised as a contemporary art collaboration as part of the broader philosophical set of concerns vis-à-vis humankind, the new climatic regime and the technologies prevalent in the informationally rich contemporary life-world.
Requirements: Applicants will need advanced skills in P5.js and a willingness to experiment.