KEY POINTS:
Who'd have thought the humble mix-tape could mean so much? For artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard it's a founding element of their relationship.
"We got together through music," says Pollard. "And through Iain somewhat obsessively making me mix-tapes."
That obsession also turned into a career. Iain and
Jane, as they're known in Britain, have spent the past 14 years as video artists, a project that has allowed them to explore their favourite subject. Even Jarvis Cocker is a fan of their work, inviting them to create a film for his Meltdown festival.
Notable works include their 2 1/2-hour re-enactment of a David Bowie gig, a performance piece where hip-hop artist Plan B updates an Aconcci poem and their Precious Little film series, which has now reached New Zealand.
For the fourth in the series, the couple have spent the past few days interviewing Kiwis aged 20-30 about their lives, loves, and the mix-tapes they've made for girlfriends and boyfriends. The result is Make Me Yours Again, named after a lyric in a Chris Starling song.
"They're rambling conversations about the songs and the stories behind them," Pollard says. "What does music mean to you? How do you use it in your relationship? What does this particular song remind you of? Why does this music have the power to do that? We want to know what is it about music that can conjure up a specific person, or even a smell."
The London-based pair met at art school where they both rejected "art that didn't seem concerned with its viewer, it didn't connect". Instead they found appreciation of art in its most visceral form, at gigs. While the concept of their work might seem esoteric and the Precious Little films will never find a mainstream audience, they are accessible as their subjects open up about the way music makes them feel, and the resonance certain songs play in their lives. "Music is almost obsessed with that connection - what does the audience think of it? I think that's played out in all our work."
The pair are also proudly "grounded" by their real-world jobs in the music industry, working for record labels in Britain.
Finding the talent for the films can be a tenuous process but one that tends to snowball once they've settled on the first key interviewee. TV and radio host Matthew Crawley, who features in the film, knew Pollard's workmate's girlfriend's best friend. From there, the pair connected with other Kiwi music fans, until they'd found a group of people who didn't necessarily know each other but shared an obsession with music.
"You get to know a place really well and the people really well," says Pollard. "It's nice to make something that is really going to make a connection to the place in which you're showing it."
Comparing the films throws up a few minor cultural differences and band names but it's the difference in attitudes that is most interesting. Says Forsyth: "In Montreal, people were a lot more willing to talk very openly about quite deep personal and emotional things. Whereas in Britain, people are a lot more coy and use humour a lot to cover up their embarrassment."
Pollard: "In New Zealand it's been really interesting. These interviews have been more in depth, less triviality and a really refreshing openness about music. In the UK there's very much a sense of - as one girl described it - musical autism where people are so retentive about what kind of music they like. Here there's less of that concern for looking cool or there being fine lines between what it's all right to like and what it's not alright to like.
"It's really nice to come somewhere where people are willing to admit that this mushy, romantic, contemporary R&B song is their song. But they might have good music taste in general. There's less of that fascist approach to musical fandom."
Lowdown
Who: Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard: artists, lovers, self-confessed "music snobs".
What: Their half-hour video Make Me Yours Again premieres at the Moving Image Centre Gallery on K Road on Saturday, followed by the F*** art, Let's Dance launch party at Galatos, (free) with music from DJs Mr Crawley, Little Jo and Andrew Tidball. The exhibition runs until August 11.
